Badge in Azure

Daniel’s current methods with things were courtesy of Nailisi. She knew many ways of torturing people, and her methods were devised by exploiting the weaknesses of the human mind.

Even the emperor of the First Dynasty had weaknesses in his mind—his thirst for power.

Nailisi went about lying mostly for fun, yet Daniel studied her ways diligently nonetheless, and his efforts paid off. Other than that, one stubborn assassin who refused to yield still, the minds of all the other four were shaken, their thoughts wavering in a very apparent manner.

There was a myriad of methods with which death mages used to deal with prisoners, and they eclipsed even those thought up by the most bloodthirsty elemental mages. Daniel left the back room 14 hours later feeling very satisfied. He rarely had such opportunities, as he was short on materials all the time. Simply going about the city taking someone in for experiments was not an option after all. Some of those experiments required enemies specifically, especially those whom he deemed unforgivable.

Daniel could have gotten all the intelligence he needed from the weakest of the assassins, however there was simply no telling how long it would have taken before Sika was able to send such precious research materials to his doorsteps again. The stubborn assassin possessed a tough soul, remaining intact even from all the experiments performed on it, yielding great amounts of data.

The five assassins provided quite a bit of useful information. They were not of the same group. After cross-referencing their testimonies and the memories extracted from their soul with those of each other, as well as comparing, selecting, and compiling the information acquired, Daniel compiled a comprehensive, detailed written report for Sika.

Those assassins were planted in Phoenix by the Holy See quite a while ago. The target of their missions had initially not been Saleen, however after the events where Saleen ended up annexing one-third of Phoenix’s lands, and had recently bagged the remaining portions himself, the Holy See assassins planted in Phoenix gained entrance to Metatrin easily.

Metatrin City was only strict when recruiting troops and practiced quite a loose policy with the inspection of the citizens. All those assassins possessed official identities in Phoenix, with some even being the lesser of lesser nobles, the kind without their own estates.

After the assassins infiltrated Metatrin City, the Holy See did not assign them any missions, even those such as poisoning water supplies. It was because the defense of the city was too tight. There were no wells to be found. The water was all in the unidirectional pipes, which were buried under the white stone, accessible only to mages.

The Holy See did not want those people to be exposed easily. When the civil war between the Caucasus people inside and outside of the city broke out, those people took no part in it. The Sregl Island mages came shortly after, and quashed the unrest swiftly, allowing the Holy See to see that their decision to have the assassins lay low had been a correct one.

With the enmity and conflict between both sides intensifying by the day, the Kingdom of Metatrin became an archenemy of the Holy See. It was only then the tribunal thought of getting those assassins into action by taking Saleen’s children to be used as hostages.

With both children being so young, it would be easy to fool them if they were taken to the Holy See and converted to their faith. Saleen would not be able to do anything about it by then. The children shared the same blood with Saleen, and the Holy See had countless brutal ways of using them to destroy everything Saleen had built.

The opportunity was right there to be exploited in the eyes of the Holy See. Despite the city having so many sorcerers about, they leaned towards being defensive. The ones capable of serving as Saleen’s main attack force were all assigned to the Sikeqinya Empire. As such, the assassins made their move as soon as the order from the tribunal reached them. With the exception of the ones at sea, which were sent by the tribunal in a hurry, those who had infiltrated the city had been planted a long time ago.

Saleen’s series of defensive measures allowed the assassination attempt to only have a flashy start. The one with the longsword killed more than a dozen demons and severely injured the supreme demon. They had almost succeeded. The ones who attempted to infiltrate the temple and obtain the secrets within however, were all intercepted and killed.

There were only three types of people at the temple which served as the city’s core—Caucasus people, temple guards, and Sregl Island mages. All three types had undergone magical tests, and no spy would be able to infiltrate their ranks without being detected. Saleen’s defensive measures were built on such purity alone.

Without anyone from the temple itself leaking any information, no one outside would be able to learn of Saleen’s weaknesses.

Sika frowned while reading the words on the report.

“Three more head inquisitors promoted in the tribunal? There are six head inquisitors now then.” The position of head inquisitor came with a strict level requirement. No one below grade-9 would ever become a head inquisitor.

Sika was deep in thought. With her vistas opened up, she became capable of looking deeper into problems. Such abilities were nurtured only when she became a steward to the throne. A common Caucasus warrior, even after becoming the most powerful priestess there was, would not have opportunities to learn such skills.

The Holy See was one whole entity in itself, and all plans were interconnected. The Kingdom of Metatrin had yet to be able to truly centralize its powers or be used on one specific goal yet.

The Kingdom of Metatrin had too short a history to speak of and had yet to be able to learn such things. Lex was capable of handling such matters, but she was not allowed direct command over Saleen’s nation, and she did not want to do so. She wanted Saleen to learn as he went and teaching him hands on might not yield ideal results.

Sika was not able to help but ask for pen and paper after thinking on it and wrote a personal letter to Saleen.

There was one thing she needed to do right then, and that was going to Qin and crushing the army attacking Lonestar City. She was not acting out of impulse. It was just that the Holy See had been too bold for daring to assault her children, and she needed to teach them a lesson for doing so. She needed to discuss the matter with Saleen nonetheless. Saleen did not expect her to be away for long, yet she would lose contact with him for the time being nonetheless. As such, she needed to inform him beforehand.

She also needed help from Lex to get it done. It would simply be too difficult for her to crush the army on her own. Sika hoped to obliterate the entire army sent by the tribunal.

The completed letter reached the Magical Element Tower located in Ceylon City through the teleportation portal inside the tower. Saleen looked very troubled reading the letter.

“The Holy See dared attack my kids!” His anger was unquenchable, so much so that he had wanted to take his tower right there right then, to the Tanggulasi Empire and go on a killing spree. He suppressed his urges however. Emperor Chanake had been very powerful back in the day, and he a had great number of troops as well as high-level equipment at his disposal; he ended up being ambushed by the Holy See and died in the battlefield all the same.

What the Holy See had done was probably a means to incite him, leading him to make careless mistakes.

Once he made it into the Tanggulasi Empire, the huge number of adherents there would provide the holy masters with unlimited power.

Sika’s plans were feasible in comparison. Things in Qin looked very messy. Armies on both sides went at each other’s throats throughout the entire northern region. The Qin nobles retained control of large cities and had help from Alchemy City mages. What they had lost for that moment was simply their land at the countryside. Any Qin city would have large warehouses for stockpiling food though.

Every city would be capable of holding out for a dozen years without starving.

Such circumstances put the Holy See under tremendous pressure. Sika’s assault had a 90 percent chance of success. The Holy See had been bold with their actions in Metatrin City, simply because they did not anticipate the city’s retaliation.

Saleen wanted to participate in the plan very badly, but it would have been a bad time to leave Ceylon City. The joined forces of both the Holy See and the Sikeqinya Empire would be around soon. There were also the Holy See fleets to deal with, and that meant Saleen simply was not able to spare the manpower.

He replied to Sika, telling her that he intended to ask for Lex’s help personally. The reason Sika had written to him was precisely because she did not want to go ask for Lex’s help herself. The incident happened to his own children, and Saleen simply could not allow Sika to ask for such favors herself.

Sika needed Lex’s metal titan, as it was imperative to take out the enemy’s large scale equipment when one struck at enemy forces. One would suffer heavy losses when done otherwise. The metal titan was assigned to mining work at the northern wilderness north of Kingdom of Metatrin, and it was something only Lex’s mages would be able to use.

The metallic life form devoured large quantities of ore every day, releasing extremely refined metals. Such a smelting process was an incredibly quick one, and the quantity of produced material easily surpassed any other mine. While mages were very capable of crafting metals, the rate of production paled in comparison to what the metal titan was capable of.

Almost all of the high-level metal materials found in the Kingdom of Metatrin and Bitterwater Prefecture were produced by that very titan.

Lex took Saleen’s letter and read it carefully twice, and then wrote three letters in reply. One was for Saleen himself, elaborating on her worries. The Holy See seemed to have gained even greater powers, and that was why they grew increasingly bold with their actions. The lesson at Ironwall City seemed inadequate to stave off the Holy See.

One of the remaining two was meant for Sika. It was containing only orders to her own sorcerers, having them hand the metal titan over to Sika. She had to help in the situation. According to Qin’s laws and traditions, if she were to not bear children in the future, Saleen’s children would be eligible to succeed the throne of the Bitterwater Prefecture.

What the Holy See did was equivalent to moving against the heirs of Bitterwater Prefecture.

The third letter was meant for the general of Guderian City. She, as a member of the Grukos royal family, requested to have a portion of the city’s army be allocated to Sika, to serve as the force to obliterate the tribunal army.

That was not an order, but it did not make it any easier to refuse. While the Kingdom of Metatrin indeed to take over all of Phoenix, the king nonetheless shared a marital bond with a member of the royal family, which meant it was family business. The Kingdom of Metatrin swore to never send its armies into Qin territory. Regardless of how reluctant the general would feel about the whole deal, they had to do a member of the Grukos a favor.

Worse still, with the entire northern region being a mess, Guderian City was reduced to an isolated city. As the location was simply too difficult to attack, the Holy See army had no choice but to cross the place off their list for the moment.

If things were to be laid out plainly, if Guderian City refused to help out, and if the day came where the Holy See finally had some spare force for attacking the city, and then the Kingdom of Metatrin was to refuse allowing the city’s army to retreat when the city was breached, it would be the end of the city’s army by then.

As such, it was a good thing for Guderian City to make friends with the Kingdom of Metatrin.

Seeing everything being taken care of, Sika sent someone to the northern mines immediately and asked for the metal titan. She had also deployed two temple guard forces, one main force consisted of 30,000 elite troops backed by 30,000 auxiliary troops, to make for the border of Phoenix—the city built by Duchess Guya.

There was a narrow valley between that city and Guderian City, which was an important route linking Phoenix and Qin.