Badge in Azure

Chapter 989: Hardness of Elementite (Part 1)

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

The small-sized warship barged into the storm, yet performed in a more stable manner than the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel. The howling gale and raging waves wrought by the Eye of the Storm had no effect on the ship whatsoever.

The divine runes on the ship’s side shimmered, and the waves calmed as they were over ten meters away before they actually hit the ship itself. The young man wearing a black cape, who was a candidate for the seat of head warden, sat on the command deck and gazed forward. He could see the Eye of the Storm clearly through the crystal window. It appeared to be about five miles away.

Although he was yapping about being immensely unwilling to bring that thing back, there was no way that he would have left a mission unfinished, especially one that had been handed over to him by the head warden. He could have cursed about all manner of things at that moment, and no one would have dared report him to the head warden. However, if he were to simply give up pursuing the target, his position would have been threatened.

The Black Dungeon was an institution that regarded action as being of the utmost importance, more so than any other institution in the Holy See. As such, it requested little of its members, as long as they got everything that they had been tasked with doing done.

This way of going about matters made them far more lenient than the Tribunal itself. While the Black Dungeon served under the Tribunal in name, it was actually an entirely independent institution. As such, if someone from the Black Dungeon made any mistakes, only the head warden would have been allowed to punish them.

At the moment, there were two divine crossbows that had been installed at the front deck. These were rare pieced of divine equipment that could only be found in the Holy See.

Their ranges might have been inferior to the alchemy crossbows that were employed by mages, yet they possessed the potential to inflict a lot of damage nonetheless. As such, every single one of their large bolts was infused with divine spells, which were specially crafted to detonate when the bolt hit its target.

Thus, these bows’ penetration and lateral damage potential far exceeded alchemy crossbows of the same class. It was for this reason that they were both difficult and costly to produce, and only the core armies of the Holy See were supplied with them, and even then, the bows were only gifted in small numbers.

At that moment, 12 holy masters appeared on the rear deck. They immediately surrounded a divine rune charm array and began chanting prayers.

These 12 black-robed holy masters had all come from the Tribunal, not the Black Dungeon. The Eye of the Storm had been crafted by the Black Dungeon for the Tribunal army, and it was about to be sent into battle before it had escaped. Hence, it was only natural for the Tribunal to grow anxious over the incident and send 12 powerful holy masters to pursue it.

The navy that the Tribunal was trying to build had been in development for almost a hundred years, but it was still inferior to Cloudflow armies. In fact, they were not even capable of moving into Sikeqinya! The Eye of the Storm was also something that was produced by the Tribunal as an act of sheer desperation.

Currently, the scene of the 12 holy masters chanting prayers around a divine rune charm array frightened the Eye of the Storm in the air immensely. It kept running around frantically, the small-sized warship at its tail.

It was clearly afraid of that young man. This was because, among all of those who created it, the young man held the key position, which meant that he knew a lot about its weaknesses.

However, as the 12 holy masters were surrounding the divine rune charm array at the rear deck and chanting, it made its confused souls shudder violently. It was already incapable of flight once the divine spell began.

Then, the Eye of the Storm, which was a mile in diameter, fell into the sea. The wind element outer shell of the monster had an incredibly high weight. Nailisi cursed like there was no tomorrow from inside the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel, which was currently underwater.

If that one-mile-long monster was dropped down from above, their ship would suffer an intense impact. After all, the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel was not the Pan Turtle Alchemy Shi. As such, it was difficult enough for the ship to even descend 100 meters underwater. Hence, they would surely sink if they were hit like that.

As the divine rune charm array was activated by the chanting of the 12 high-level holy masters, the powerful-looking ghost ship seemed to have been frozen in place as well. The entire surface of the sea surrounding it froze over, while beams of seawater shot out all around it, wrapping around the falling Eye of the Storm tightly.

The surrounding seawater was then sucked upwards, and the location where the Eye of the Storm and the ghost ship were seemed like an island that had just appeared out of nowhere upon the sea. This island-like apparition that was formed from seawater had countless white divine runes flying around it, which were compressing even more seawater and trapping the Eye of the Storm within them.

The Eye of the Storm was powerful, which wasn’t surprising, as it was, after all, a piece of equipment that had been meticulously created by the Holy See. Although it possessed an almost human-like intellect, it had no way of going against divine spells, which was the very reason why it ran away in the first place.

If its enemies had not been so many powerful holy masters, it would have simply turned around and killed them. But, there was a safeguard built into the depths of its soul, and as such, it had no way of winning against holy masters, all of whom knew its innermost secrets.

At the moment, numerous divine runes flowed within the seawater that had trapped them and suppressed all of their abilities. The Eye of the Storm grew rather desperate as it continued trying to call for help, “Help me! Help me!

Saleen was immensely frustrated that the Eye of the Storm was yelling with a voice instead of simply sending a message to his soul. Everyone in the Holy See would have heard the cry for help by now!

The large-scale divine spell that was cast by the holy masters had also affected the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel. The ghost ship was crushed outright when the Eye of the Storm crashed.

While the seawater was fixed in place by divine spells, the resulting powerful shockwave did not get negatively affected. Instead, it simply spread out to the surrounding waters.

As for the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel, it was right below where the monster had been and was thrown down to a depth of 250 meters, all with its defenses still operating at full power. The windows of the ship were broken, and seawater began gushing into the hold.

This would have been okay if it was any other normal day, where the ship was manned by a crew that consisted of nothing but spirits. Yet, at that time, the vessel had grand mages and a crew that consisted of soldiers, as well as over 200 people that they had rescued upon it.

Therefore, Saleen had to save these people, and as such, he had no choice but to leave the vessel with Nailisi. As the warship kept sinking deeper and deeper, Saleen took out his Magical Element Tower from a dimension stone.

He tried not to think too much about the danger that he was about to face. Despite his great mental power reserves, he knew that it would still cost him one-fourth of his mental powers to take out something so huge.

Saleen went into the tower as soon as he took it out. Then, he immediately unleashed Tempest Dragonmights to take the people from the ship.

Saleen had originally wanted to take advantage of the situation, but he had not expected that the seemingly powerful Eye of the Storm would be totally suppressed by divine spells. In fact, it was so badly suppressed that it was not even able to retaliate!

Worse still, his Dragon Remains Combat Vessel had become a lost cause. While the main body of the ship itself was entirely unharmed, it needed a complete overhaul to be functional again, which would cost him a great amount of funds.

I would have ambushed that boat if I knew this would happen! Saleen grew increasingly regretful the more he thought about it.

The Tempest Dragonmights were unable to move very fast underwater, and they were also inferior to the Blue Ice Maidens in terms of combat capacity. The greatest advantage they had was their abilities to create air bubbles underwater, which could be used to help the conventional troops as they were entering the Magical Element Tower.

While the 12 ancient warriors and those grand mages who were manning the magic power furnaces all entered the tower on their own, Saleen focused his attention on saving the sailors and the soldiers who followed Naberyne. By that time, the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel had sank down to a thousand meters, so Saleen had no choice but to have the tower sink along with it. After all, he had to take the vessel away.

As they were now amid the Deep Sea, the depth of which exceeded 5,000 meters, it was fortunate that he had the Tempest Dragonmights with him. Otherwise, most of the soldiers would have died!

The Dragon Remains Combat Vessel sank very slowly, and Saleen dared not simply place it in a dimension stone, as doing so would have cost him an even greater amount of his mental powers. Thus, he had to wait for the vessel to slowly reach the bottom before he emerged outside the tower and placed the vessel into a dimension stone.

Having to extract and put away two humongous objects had ended up costing Saleen almost half of his mental powers. He then returned to the Magical Element Tower and had the grand mages watch over the magic power furnace while he meditated with a divine crystal in his hand.

Saleen had decided to fight the Holy See, deeming that the previous loss that he had just incurred was unacceptable without doing something to compensate for it. Furthermore, the Eye of the Storm would have allowed Nailisi to open up a third space in the 12 Notes of First Purgatory.

In future battles, he would still need that powerful equipment. Hence, Saleen deemed that this current quest was more important than growing his own combat capacity.

The divine spell of that small-sized warship of the Tribunal had now been completed, and the number of divine runes that kept the seawater wrapped around the Eye of the Storm had reached upwards of tens of millions! White divine runes compressed the seawater, and the wind element outer shell was pushed inward, one layer after another.

In time, all that was left was the core itself, which measured about 12 meters in diameter. The tens of millions of divine runes were reduced and frozen, then had merged with one another, taking the final form of a white cage, trapping the core of the Eye of the Storm within it.

The white cage shimmered with flowing divine runes as it flew to the rear deck of the small-sized warship. After landing on the divine rune charm array, a loud crashing sound was heard. The divine rune cage then merged with the charm array, which made it seem as if a huge building had just been erected at the rear deck.

This was an extremely slow process, but it also took Saleen’s ship a very long time to hit the bottom of the ocean, so it was not a problem. When Saleen had finished putting the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel away and was about to float upwards, the divine rune cage had just been placed into its designated spot.

The 12 black-robed high priests dared not leave. They simply remained at the rear deck.

As the young head warden candidate gazed at the sea before him from inside the control room, he mumbled aloud to himself, “Who is down there? The Eye of the Storm has an intellect. And... Is it... Crying for help?”

He was thinking that if there was some powerful magic beast beneath the surface of the ocean that he had fished up and taken away, it would be unfathomable! When he thought more about it, a huge sense of crisis welled up in the depths of his soul.

He had never experienced such an intense feeling since being made a candidate for head warden. This resulted in his reaction time being slowed by at least a second. To anyone less powerful, reacting a second slower would have been very terrifying.

The young man reflected immediately... I haven’t been fighting for some time, and this is how it’s going down?

Golden flashes were seen in his brown eyes as he shouted, “Prepare for battle!”

All of the divine rune defenses onboard the small-sized vessel were activated as soon as the order was given. Hundreds of wardens also rushed to their stations.

However, the sense of crisis that the young head warden candidate felt within his heart did not dissipate. In fact, it was at that moment that he found that he had made a grave mistake... The enemy is a human, not some magic beast!

Saleen’s mages then focused on bringing the Magical Element Tower to the ocean’s surface with all their might. The tower rose at a frightening speed.

Six Blue Ice Maidens cast vortexes beneath the tower, using the power of water magic to propel the tower at faster and faster speeds. The common folk in the tower felt nothing, but the mages by Saleen’s side saw everything very clearly.

The external part of the tower was rubbing against the seawater violently, and huge ring-like ripples were formed by the resulting sound waves as they were spreading to throughout the surroundings.

At that moment, Saleen had no idea exactly how fast the tower was moving. The Magical Element Tower’s body was similar to conventional magic towers’. What was different was the number of floors that it had, as well as the fact that its topmost floor had a pointed top instead of a platform.

It was a tip that had been crafted using elementite, which was used to ram into the small-sized vessel ferociously. At that moment, hundreds of golden divine runes sprayed into the seawater, and the metallic bottom of the ship was torn into shreds by the tower.