Badge in Azure

Chapter 1418: Pride (Part 1)

The pride of the dragons was etched in the body of that skeletal dragon. The memories of when it was alive were kept intact; they were its pain and its honor.

Saleen’s soul trembled. He couldn’t do anything about this reaction—it always happened when facing off against powerful beings.

Saleen’s feet glowed with yellow light again. That time, he sucked the energy of an Elemental Stone Statue Soldier dry, causing the elemental creature to fall into a slumber.

Saleen moved to the head of that skeletal dragon and pressed eight Armoring Lightning Beads into its skull.

A loud explosion went off. The skeletal dragon tried to use power of the spirits to remove the beads.

While the beads’ power was far from raging, the energy they contained exceeded the dragon’s calculation. It was he who had miscalculated this time. Saleen quickly retreated as Rafel unleashed green divine power from her spear that coalesced into crystals in the air, trapping the dragon inside.

It was the Wall of Gods, which was something like the gods’ version of a territory.

The skeletal dragon flailed. Using brute force, it tried using its body’s power to break through the wall using. Cracks on its skull were quickly patched up.

Rafel still had to become adept at using the goddess’s power. If it had been divine power from the Metal God, she could have ensured that the cracks never healed. It wouldn’t have been until the fight was over that the skeletal dragon would have had the chance to patch itself up.

The Violet Angel’s twin spears were jabbed into the skeletal dragon’s eyes. Bone pieces flew out as the spears stuck.

The Violet Angel gave up the spears without hesitation despite having used them as its arms.

The front half of the spears instantly corroded, a result of spirit power. The Violet Angel would not have been able to resist the attack, regardless of the quality of materials its body was constructed of. The move of overpowering by rules almost cost the Violet Angel its life.

Rafel looked glum as her body expanded to a height of over 20 meters. The Violet Angel shook its body around as well, growing a pair of arms to a height of around 30 meters.

Those heights were the best size for fighting. Crystal clear light shot from Rafel’s golden eyes.

She switched to her own weapon—the Inferno Spear.

Hundreds of weapons were conjured on the surface of the Violet Angel’s body. All were experimental weapons developed by Saleen, which he put in its body to allow the puppet to use them at will. Experimental weapons might not have been stable, but there was no doubt about their exceptional power and attributes.

The Violet Angel paid no attention to any of that. Instead. It was quite pleased that Saleen used it for experimentation. If it were to simply advance along conventional lines, it would have died before ever reaching level-14. Only by allowing Saleen to keep doing experiments with it did this weapon have a chance to change its fate.

Hundreds of attacks hit the skeletal dragon; the huge beast shrugged it all off. It turned around and spat out a large ax hoping to cleave Saleen with it. It quickly discovered, however, that targeting Saleen was impossible unless it could undo its seal.

If it were to do that, it would not have lasted very long.

“O’ Dragon God of old, the insignificance of my being caused me to fall, yet I pray to you on this day, in hopes of returning to your embrace. Give me a place in the world of dragons, allow my soul to resurrect and find peace, in the graves of the dragons.” The skeletal dragon actually began to pray.

The Dragon God was not an actual god, for it possessed no divine persona and no divine kingdom. What it did possess was a graveyard of dragons. The souls of all dead dragons would have only found peace when they entered this final resting place.

“Dream all you want, skeletal dragon. I shall curse you right here that you would never find the passage back to the kingdom of dragons,” Saleen shouted and unleashed four-ball lightning, directing them into the bone dragon’s body to create chaos.

He knew there was no way he would have been able to send them into the dragon’s eye sockets even though they were of the size of a well.

The ball lightning pierced the skeletal dragon’s body and it howled in rage. It had no idea if Saleen’s curse would have materialized, but it seemed as if its soul had been chained to Myers Mainland.

“Puny mage! If I were to never return, then I shall take you with me in death!” White bone spikes shot out of the skeletal dragon’s body. The Violet Angel that threw itself straight at the dragon was pierced. All sorts of parts fell from its body, turning it gray. Then it began to rot.

The Violet Angel’s body split up and it ran in shambles, leaving half of its body behind. That was a very serious injury.

Over 100 magic cannons bombarded from above. Saleen climbed on and baited the skeletal dragon to follow him. The beast gave chase even though it was reluctant to let that enemy go. It vibrated its bone wings and took off. Even if Saleen headed straight to the abyss, it would have pursued him even if it meant falling again.

Hundreds of beams of light struck the skeletal dragon and sent pieces of bones flying every which way. Those injuries quickly healed.

The thundering sound continued crackling from inside the skeletal dragon’s body. Both lightning beads and ball light raged, destroying the internal structure of the skeletal dragon. The speed at which the destruction was wrought finally exceeded the rate at which the dragon patched its body.

“My death shall be forgiven and I shall take your soul to the Dragon God for judgment!” The skeletal dragon bellowed in an ancient dragon tongue while chasing after Saleen. The huge ax shot from its mouth again. Saleen disappeared without a trace as it was cleaved by the ax, confirming that it was just an illusion.

It was unknown when Saleen placed a bunch of illusions behind him that stacked with his real body. One illusion after another trailed after Saleen as the yellow light on his feet glowed. It was difficult to tell the real thing from the illusions.

When the ax burst and broke 12 Thundering Phantasms, Saleen finally understood that the deathly power on it had been depleted.

His robe turned golden and the runes on it unleashed an indescribable ring of fire.

The temperature at the center of the ring was frighteningly low while the exterior made the dragon hesitant to get near.

The sudden light made Saleen look as if he was a burning sun.

Saleen protected himself using Water Flame Alchemy, so he unleashed water elemental transmuted magic, which caused fire element to be thoroughly consumed. The defensive move was also an offensive one: It blocked the ax’s attack while retaliating.

Saleen turned around at that moment and pointed his finger. The Crystal Finger was aimed squarely at one of the dragon’s eyes. The white beam from the move obliterated the soul flame in that dragon’s left eye.

The skeletal dragon was severely injured by that move, which was the equivalent to having half its soul crushed by Saleen, making recovery impossible.

The dragon’s form made it so that it had to rely on the power of the soul flame to fight. Because of its plans of resurrection, half its body returned to its original living dragon state, filled with flesh and blood. It was a reversal skill of the half-dead that the dragon used to restore some parts of its body as well as abilities as a living dragon.

Pfftt...

Near the abdominal area near the tail, hundreds of scales shot out, intending to drown Saleen in a rain of dragon scales.

Every single dragon scale contained rules that the skeletal dragon had developed when it was still alive. If it were still a true living dragon, that attack would have only caused it some light injuries. Given that it was a skeletal dragon shooting out scales it had painstakingly conjured, it meant that those power of rules would have left it for good.

That was how determined the skeletal dragon was. Now Saleen was in a crisis.

“Master!” The Violet Angel panicked and its body disintegrated further, leaving only its head behind. Its upper body was transmuted into thousands of parts that were flying out to block the attack off for Saleen.

Rafel’s face was tense. As she flailed her Inferno Spear around, a dark red space encircled Saleen in an instant. The matter inside the space felt like rusted metal. That skill was called the Metal Territory.

There was little need to talk about the part materials on the Violet Angel, as they consisted of the best materials Saleen was able to gather. After the metal space was formed, all of those parts were sucked into the Metal Territory, turning into miniaturized metal angels flying at the dragon scales.

Saleen felt as if he had been locked onto by strong power of the soul. As a result, he couldn’t move. His elemental creatures gave their all to cast skills and to try to make him escape, but they were unable to break through the deathly moon of the skeletal dragon.

Under the light of the moon, the Metal Territory continued to crumble.

Hundreds of pieces of dragon scales cut the Metal Territory up into pieces in an instant. It was only then that Saleen regained his freedom and cast Water Shield. After the scales tore up the Metal Territory, they lost their sharpness and were unable to break through Saleen’s defense when they banged onto the Water Shield.

With half his magic chords consumed and power of the soul almost depleted, the divine crystal in his hand was quickly disintegrated to replenish his power of the soul. The dragon sustained harrowing injuries: The lower half of its body was bloodied while thundering noises continued to be heard in the upper half. The Armoring Lightning Beads and ball lightning tore up the skeletal dragon’s internal structures and worsened its injuries.

The dragon brought its claws down. It no longer minded dying, so long as it was able to take Saleen with it right there and then.

Saleen’s magic amplifier blocked the dragon’s claws. It appeared with a crack and stopped the claw’s advance. The weapon spirit within the magic amplifier roared in protest.

It had originally intended to avoid fighting since Saleen had used the magic amplifier to block the dragon’s attack it had no way of evading.

The clash ended requiring the weapon spirit of the magic amplifier to use all of its powers to protect the space within the magic amplifier. It felt as if it was about to come undone. The dragon’s claws were not in as good shape either. Whatever flesh was left on them had pretty much splattered everywhere.

Saleen was thrown off by the power of the claw attack. Because the magic amplifier had blocked the attack, Saleen didn’t suffer much damage. No so the skeletal dragon: it suffered half the damage it dealt from the recoil.

The Skeletal dragon was unwilling to let Saleen escape. The injuries on his body became much more severe. It looked up and saw the Violet Angel, who had only its head left behind. The dragon vibrated its wings and shot up.

Rafel knew things were going south and threw its Inferno Spear from behind, targeting the back of the dragon’s head. The dragon swished its tail and caused the Inferno Spear to lose its target, piercing the tail bone of the dragon instead.

The skeletal dragon held the intense pain in and swallowed the head of the Violet Angel.

It was able to tell that the Violet Angel’s level was not low and the energy within enabled it to patch up its wounds. As such, it let Saleen off for the moment and was compelled to eat up that peculiar puppet. As soon as it patched up some of its injuries, it was time to kill that mage.