Badge in Azure

Chapter 1422: Fighting One’s Own Battles (Part 1)

The Violet Angel gobbled up the skeletal dragon’s giant ax and began the arduous process of disintegrating the weapon.

Meanwhile, the Winged Skull’s underlings roamed through the dragon graveyard. Both the jade skeletons and the golden skeletons were of superb quality. They would have only needed to absorb the thick, deathly aura around the dragon’s remains to advance.

Saleen did some calculations and concluded that there wasn’t much trouble back on the mainland, so he stayed several days there and processed the experiences gained from fighting the skeletal dragon.

Everyone who served Saleen knew how hardworking he was. He was one of the few top-notch powerful professionals to be found on Myers Mainland. He was also fortunate to have a respected and influential teacher to back him up. If things ever got really bad, he could always escape to the interdimensional space to hide. His equipment was as good as the godly items and despite the bitter strife, he ended up slaying an insanely powerful skeletal dragon. He was at the top of his game.

His achievements notwithstanding, Saleen still behaved as if someone was pursuing him from behind. He was always alert, refusing to slack off even for brief moments. He never let his guard down.

The Winged Skull had already begun setting up everything during the several days that Saleen spent on the mainland. They had not yet thoroughly explored the plane and understandably so: it would have taken years to grasp every fathomable detail about the place.

Saleen left the Violet Angel behind to help out the jade skeletons. The combat capacity of the Violet Angel was far stronger than the jade skeleton’s. He let Rafel take care of the War Drum of Fear.

Daniel took six sets of dragon bones before he left—all of which were things that the Winged Skull allowed to be taken away.

Immediately after returning to Myers Mainland, Saleen found out that something bad had happened in Alchemy City.

The three mages he had selected were ambushed.

The three level-11 mages disappeared from their rooms after meeting the fallen holy master.

Even after personally searching and scouring the rooms for clues, Saleen found no useful leads. The only thing he knew was that the three mages had been sent to other realms where it was probably impossible for them to leave.

All the other matters were still manageable. The Holy See army had been repelled by Kroraina after suffering heavy losses. The knights of the Nature Faith, led personally by Don, had pulverized four enemy legions. The Holy See army attacked in a forceful manner and ended up retreating.

Saleen knew this had nothing to do with his army being valiant and powerful. The victory was solely due to the Holy See’s lack of leadership.

The Pivotal Council had originally been put under the control of two powerful oracles, and yet, at the moment, there was only a pope who hadn’t matured and taken the helm. With the pope’s chief of affairs missing and the Ring of Many Gods nowhere to be found, the Oracle Corps was literally in shambles. The red-robed bishops began fighting among themselves and none of them was willing to send their forces to reinforce the army.

Under such circumstances, even logistics had become a problem for the Holy See army. It was, therefore, no surprise that they were so quickly crushed.

Alchemy City, at present, was starting to feel like the Holy See. Saleen was thinking that he had returned at the right time; otherwise, the city might soon fall into chaos. While it was entirely possible for him to take control things if started going south, the mages would have ended up becoming collateral damage.

Saleen unleashed the Floating City and let it hover above Alchemy City. He then got in touch with Lex and expressed his intention to attack the Holy City.

That was the headquarters of the Holy See. In Saleen’s opinion, the Black Dungeon was a far more terrifying place.

He didn’t dare go to Black Dungeon Island. Instead, he decided to take a chance and wipe out the headquarters while the bishops were busy fighting among themselves. He did not care one whit if his efforts crushed the Holy See.

The adherents’ faith would falter if he succeeded in destroying the Holy City.

The time for the Goddess of Nature to be resurrected was drawing nigh.

Large numbers of Alchemy City mages were brought to the Floating City that time. Over 100,000 from Alchemy City participated in the expedition, but one mage had something to say about Saleen’s decision. Destroying the lair of the holy masters from the air was a dream-come-true for the mages.

Even those mages were fed up with the Holy See. The frequent attacks on the Qin Empire had fueled their resentment toward the holy masters. Now things had reached a critical mass. Most mages were from Qin, and quite a few hailed from the north. If they had been of higher levels and capable of affecting the outcome of battles, they might have killed the holy masters on the frontlines.

Saleen did not put the Floating City back in his magic amplifier. Every time he took out or put away the Floating City he had to clear out some common warriors while requiring the God of Magic Net to expend a considerable amount of power to make this happen.

With the Baldur’s Gate in his possession, Saleen no longer concerned himself with things like that anymore.

The Floating City brought the mages around while the Baldur’s Gate was made to carry warriors. Saleen manned the huge city personally and took off for the Tanggulasi Empire.

The alchemy factories on the Floating City remained in operation throughout the journey.

All the mages were asked about their strengths and abilities as well as the equipment they were proficient in and in need of. Saleen went so far as to personalize equipment for every single one of 100,000 mages.

Personalization notwithstanding, many pieces of equipment were still interchangeable. The process was first to finish crafting the common, interchangeable pieces before designing new schematics to accommodate different needs

The thing being crafted the most were scrolls.

It took a month’s flying for the Floating City to reach the Holy City. On the way, it needed to take a detour around the Qin border to recall the Bug Angel Warriors that Saleen had laid in ambush.

Van Gogh showed up at Alchemy City again the moment Saleen left. He looked at the empty Alchemy City and let out a bitter smirk.

He had practically kidnapped the leaders of the Elemental Hand just to see how Saleen would react. But Saleen didn’t bother with him. He had taken a large number of the mages to attack the Holy See’s headquarters instead: This was his primary goal.

Van Gogh never expected such a reaction from him.

Precious few mages were left in the city; hardly any of them were really powerful. Van Gogh’s powers were such that it would have been easy to turn the place upside down as it currently was.

That would have been pointless: He had designed a series of traps that Saleen had been able to evade effortlessly.

It seemed that the only thing left to do was to keep searching for temples that the goddess left behind, hampering Saleen’s luck before he had a chance to make mistakes in his command.

He didn’t intend on becoming enemies with Saleen, but he somehow ended up finding out the secret of the goddess and in so doing acquired a godly item left behind by the goddess. The most vexing thing was being left in that temple, something specifically made to be used against fallen holy masters.

Unable to resist temptation, Van Gogh agreed to sign a contract with the goddess.

He needed to help bring about her resurrection, or his soul would have been made a sacrifice.

The contract needed to be fulfilled within 600 years.

Van Gogh spent several days loitering about Alchemy City, exasperated. The Alchemy City had little to exploit and he’d already wasted a lot of time there. It would have been better if he were to just go out and look for the next temple.

The Floating City flew west. Saleen stopped when they passed by Holy Rock City. He brought his people to the palace to pay a visit to Lex.

They had not seen each other in a long time. Exasperation is the first thing he felt when laid eyes on her again.

Lex had become an empress. While she continued to be as she was without any regard for those extra rules and formalities, behaving as gently as always, she was surrounded by more people who felt increasingly unfamiliar.

Take Jalin, for example. Jalin, a high-status palace minister, was actually a leader of the palace mages.

Ah-ha! The Golden Plains finally got one of their own in the circle of palace mages. Saleen knew it was a trade. It had been difficult getting Safilos to return to Holy Rock City. He had once failed to defend the city and it soon plunged into crisis.

The ones from Golden Plains had been dedicated to preventing Safilos’s return, yet Lex had insisted on getting her own way in the midst of opposition. She paid a price for this in secret.

Safilos had long been a thorn in her side. Now she had to help him return to the center of power.

The palace was lined with statues of past Qin emperors, and Lex was surrounded by mages. Saleen lowered his head to look at her face and said, “Think you can still hold on?”

Jalin couldn’t believe her ears. She attempted to say something back, but Saleen put his hand across her mouth to stop her.

“I’m giving you people face just by allowing you to stand around. So do me a favor please and shut up.” Rarely did Saleen speak so harshly.

Jalin’s face was concealed by her mask, making it impossible to tell what she was feeling at the moment. She then stepped aside without uttering a word.

Saleen took a casual look at the surrounding mages, some of whom had been in the palace before all this happened. Their relief was palpable from their expressions. The rest stood there glumly, making it obvious they were from Golden Plains.

Saleen unleashed his lightning territory without care, isolating the voices.

He was testing the patience of the Golden Plain mages: None of them would have expected Saleen to do something like that. No telling what would happen next.

Lex was willing to make compromises with them, but that didn’t mean Saleen would be willing to do the same. That low-born mage wouldn’t hesitate a second to kill someone if that served his purpose. Ironwall City had once been grand and massive, and he made good on his word to destroy the place, a testament to this mage’s short fuse.

A fall-out at this stage wasn’t something the Golden Plains would want to see happen.

Everyone instinctively turned to look at Jalin, Arbola’s student. Since her face was concealed by her mask, all they could see was the red peach flowers on the drooping mask that looked as if it was about to slip off.

She did not give any specific instructions, so everyone was mum.

Lex smiled after seeing Saleen unleashing his territory and shut the sounds from outside. His territory now shrank to a radius of little more than a dozen meters, making it seem solid.

“Saleen, don’t try to scare them. They’re all puppets,” Lex said lethargically. She wanted to rest her head on Saleen’s shoulders but couldn’t move a muscle; she seemed to be frozen. The fate of the Qin Empire rested on her. If she got tired of the whole business, there was no one fit to rule the empire.

“Could you still hold on, Lex?”

Saleen was still asking the same question after unleashing his territory. That time, however, was done purely out of concern for her.

“Yeah. Golden Plains is more powerful than Alchemy City and not someplace you could just wreck. I’ll take my time dealing with them. I’m sure they’ll submit sooner or later.”

“How about just quit being the empress then?”

“Ha! Saleen, you think I like being empress? It was my father who left the place behind and I couldn’t just sit back and do nothing. The secret arts I’ve learned could only be put to use if I became empress. Remember how it was with me back then? I couldn’t keep up with your advancement and needed the Six Elements’ Space to rise to a level-9 sorcerer. My path was really hard after that, and I had to use that precious gift my father left me. But after becoming empress, my secret arts...”

Saleen was surprised to find something like that taking place. What does becoming empress have to do with training? He was quickly reminded of how gods were capable of absorbing power of faith. The position of empress probably allowed her to absorb some power from her subjects to strengthen herself.

In truth, Saleen already considered Safilos a cutting-edge genius. Compared to Emperor Chanake, Safilos felt inadequate.

That probably was not due to their talents but to their positions.