Badge in Azure

“Please…speak!” Hu An had only then realized his words were rather inappropriate. He had lost all his dignity in front of the demon and sounded even humiliated. As such, he ended up raising his voice.

He then saw that the demon lashed out with a spear in her hand, thrusting in his direction.

A large ice shield was erected right in front of Hu An there and then. Despite him being a sorcerer who had just made it to grade-8, he was still a sorcerer nonetheless. He would not let himself be ambushed inside his own tower. As those thoughts ran inside his head, he had prepared his next attack.

The half yard thick shield was easily pierced by Gray Memory. Thick blocks of ice sprayed all over the place. Nailisi smirked menacingly as she thrust the spear at Hu An’s abdomen. The sorcerer lost all senses in his body, and then was hauled and thrown out of the tower in one go.

The Gray Memory in Nailisi’s hand was something made out of the spike on the silverline golden spearfish of more than 100,000 years old. Even a grade-10 sorcerer would have done well just evading the attack instead of throwing up magic shields to take it head on, let alone a shield erected by a grade-8 sorcerer.

Nailisi did not even need to use the six eyes on Gray Memory for targeting when killing a grade-8 sorcerer, saving her a lot of mental powers. Hu An had been too careless, thinking that he would be able to instant-cast any spell on his turf, allowing Nailisi to get near. Saleen’s letter had also led him to believe that Nailisi would not have moved against him.

Nailisi was a demon after all.

She put Gray Memory away after throwing Hu An’s body outside the tower and went on to catch the dying man.

“I didn’t mean to kill you, mage,” Nailisi teased. She admired the fear in Hu An’s eyes with glee and continued, “My master wanted to keep you alive, but you’re speaking to me in such a loud voice, and I don’t like it.”

There was also confusion with that fear in Hu An’s eyes. “How can a bonded creature move against the order of the mage controlling it? Saleen’s letter was true, so why is this demon killing me? Is it really all because I yelled at it?”

“I don’t like anyone else having pride but my master. Mage, I’m giving you a chance now. Be my slave, and I’ll let you live.” Nailisi threw out a tempting invitation.

There was chaos within the tower. The demons from afar rushed at the place. With Hu An no longer being in charge, the grade-4 grand mage left inside did not even dare resist. The situation where Hu An ended up being in the hands of a demon was watched by most of the mages and apprentices present. Seeing a grade-8 Ice Shield broken in an instant, the low-level mages and apprentices lost all courage to fight.

“Move, and I’ll have all of you dead,” Nailisi said as she let her demons surround the tower. Without a sorcerer being in charge, the offensive capacity of the tower was reduced to close to nil. Nailisi had no fear of them killing demons either. She had grown to know human psychology well.

So long as there was hope, no one would dare do anything stupid.

Nailisi landed on the ground and formulated a plan in her mind. Seeing the sorcerer who went limp, she continued, “I will give you one chance. I’m sure you know I am serious by now. If you’d like to stick to your pride as a mage, I’ll grant you a quick death. If you want to live, you have but to nod.”

Hu An felt his neck still capable of moving and nodded furiously.

Nailisi smiled and said, “I knew it, but you were too slow, and I don’t like you.” Nailisi grabbed hold of Hu An’s head and extracted his soul as soon as she was finished talking, throwing it inside an old broken puppet.

It was a low-level puppet Nailisi had gotten from Saleen. She had intended to use death magic to control it initially but housing a soul of a sorcerer within seemed to be a good option as well.

Nailisi looked at the completely dead body in her arms and put it inside the dimension stone. She returned to her imp form and kicked the door to the tower open, before letting some of her demonic spirits in.

Demonic spirits did not exist with the purgatory of devils to fill up the numbers. There was a need for orderlies within the demon army. The demonic spirits possessed an intellect and were quick on their feet, as well as being fluent in demon tongue, making them excellent errand boys and messengers. The energies with the purgatory of devils were aplenty, much better than how it had been on the demon plane. The rules within the purgatory of devils were more complete, and some within the 100,000 housed within were nearing advancement.

The powers of the demonic spirits had also been enhanced. Nailisi was more comfortable using the demonic spirits than she was with humans. Nailisi kept no imps around however.

Seeing the trembling magic apprentices as soon as she entered the tower, she felt bored.

She made it to the seventh floor and ordered everyone up there. A grade-4 grand mage, three grade-2 mages, one grade-1 mage, and twelve apprentices.

Quite a group Hu An had there. There were no swordsmen though.

“Will you all be willing to serve me?” Nailisi asked lazily. The mages and apprentices looked at each other speechless.

“Say yes, and I’ll let you guys live. I need you to go do something else after all.”

“What do you need us to do?” The grade-4 grand mage asked.

Nailisi shot a dragon crystal needle with her mouth. The mage’s head was blown off before they knew what was happening. Nailisi chuckled and continued, “You want to ask questions before you say yes? What do you take me for?”

The three grade-2 mages stood still, while the grade-1 mage and the apprentices fell to their knees as a gesture of submission.

“Understood.” Nailisi took out her Sword of Rules and stabbed all three level two mages to death in a flash. The demonic spirits were licking their lips. Nothing that tasted good was ever left for them within the purgatory after all. It was lucky for them that the demons did not bully them, and there was no chance they would ever have their share of magic bugs.

The bodies of the three dead mages smelled tempting. Once magic chords were formed, the bodies of mages began to differ from that of common humans, as those upgraded bodies housed pure energy.

Nailisi waved and let the demonic spirits have their fill with the three dead bodies. She then had the demonic spirits search the tower to find out about the structure of the place. Nailisi had no intentions of leaving. The magic tower was two miles away from the city. Yaoyang City still had no idea what happened there.

While the walls of Yaoyang City were also equipped with alchemy binoculars, they were set only to watch the roads. Nailisi reached where she was by scaling the mountains, and there was no way the people of the city would have found out.

The common people lacked the gall to watch the magic tower with the alchemy binoculars. There were alarms set on the tower, and the mages would have known that they were being watched. It was due precisely to that, that Nailisi had planned to kill Sufonso on her own.

“What’s your name?” Nailisi asked a white-robed mage.

“My name is Aston, sir.”

“Weird name, umm…” Nailisi stayed silent for a moment, which terrified Aston, being scared that he had said something wrong. He saw what happened to the three grade-2 mages right there and then. The demon would not hesitate to kill anyone they did not find to their liking, and no warnings were given.

“Do you have any certainty of being able to trick Earl Sufonso?” Nailisi asked directly.

Aston wanted to say no very bad, but what he saw before allowed him to understand how the demon operated. A ‘no’ would have simply ended with him being killed right there and then.

“Sir, I am not certain. Earl Sufonso is said to be struggling to advance into golden grand swordmaster. Despite being a silver grand swordmaster, he has a danger sense of some sort. Sir, my level is very low. If I go there, I’ll end up being exposed.”

“You have your way with words. It’s a pity to just kill you off.” Nailisi spared a glance at the white-robed mage and found the young mage to be rather good-looking. She became calm after talking to him for a moment.

There was a theory among mages that said if the looks of a person could be considered good-looking, such person was said to be at least middle-upper class in terms of talent. Saleen was good-looking. If he had learned swordsmanship instead of magic, he would have become a professional still.

Not only did the mage have good looks, his bone structure looked good and the ratios about his body looked good as well. While he was but a grade-1 mage, he looked very young, at an age of 17 or 18 at most.

“Aston, once you are done with this, I’ll get a sorcerer to be your teacher. You seem to have good innate talent. Where are you from?” Nailisi asked out of the blue. She did not necessarily have an eye for Aston’s talents. Sregl Island was filled with people like him after all.

Aston calmed himself and answered, “Sir, I’m half Tanggulasian and I have loved magic since childhood. The pope went about hunting death mages and elemental ones were having a hard time. I was but a low-level apprentice back then. My teacher left without taking me, so I stowed onboard a ship and came to Sikeqinya. I haven’t been here for long, just about a month.”

“A month?” Nailisi narrowed her eyes and looked at Aston. If he had indeed only been around for month, she would definitely consider him worth keeping. If Aston was indeed Hu An’s student, Nailisi would end up killing him later for betraying his teacher though.

“Yes. I didn’t intend to stay when I got to Yaoyang City. I wanted to go to Ironwall City. More Sikeqinyan mages were found there.”

“Why not go to Qin instead?”

“Sir, I don’t speak Qin. When speaking the common tongue, my Tanggulasian accent would really show. Going to Qin would be difficult,” Aston answered truthfully.

He had escaped from the Tanggulasi Empire to avoid being embroiled in the holy war. He was a high-level apprentice back then and had advanced to become a grade-1 mage during his days as a refugee. Memory magic was a luxury to him. The mages who taught him magic did not teach him language. Mages like Saleen were not numerous in Sikeqinya, and there were even fewer in the Tanggulasi Empire.

“Aston, it might be dangerous for you to trick Sufonso, but if you succeed, you’ll get a teacher to teach you from here on out. You’ll become a grand mage, and then a sorcerer. Maybe even more than that. So, are you up for it?”

Nailisi had planned that if Aston was to say no, she would simply use Ultimate Shapeshifting to look like Hu An and go trick Sufonso herself. Though Aston said that Sufonso was going to advance into the ranks of golden grand swordmaster.

Warriors at such levels were very acute to things. While she would have not given herself away in terms of looks, the relationship between Hu An and Sufonso was simply too close, so it would have been difficult to fool Sufonso for long.

Her master meant more than to just take out Sufonso; he wanted to take Yaoyang City in a secured manner. If she ended up assassinating him, it would be difficult to take over the city in such a manner. If Sufonso made it into the rank of golden grand swordmaster, he would be able to easily escape, and there was no certainly she would be able to catch up.

Tricking Sufonso into the magic tower would be something else altogether. Once he was tricked into the tower, Sufonso would be ripe for the taking.