Badge in Azure

Saleen’s Quickcloud was flying at very high speeds, and in order to avoid creating powerful and loud noises the likes of sonic booms, the spell interacted in a peculiar manner with the air around it, resulting in a very low noise flight despite how Saleen’s clouds zipped about.

The flight covered up to 1,000 miles in distance, and Saleen took the winged skeleton downward with him before arriving in Daliang City.

Saleen took out his Magical Element Tower in the mountains and the two of them went inside.

Saleen felt the need to check out the thing that Flare had brought home with him. He took out the dimension stone, and carefully summoned Flare and Vinny. The two grade-10 creatures were the ones he was more familiar with. Some of the other leaders were still hibernating, while some had yet to be named.

Flare brought quite a lot back with him, but Saleen took only one out, out of concern of any lurking dangers. If it turned out to be something he and the winged skeleton proved inadequate to deal with, that would turn out to be a mean joke.

The power unleashed by Saleen’s blast with his family badge was simply unimaginable. Anything that stayed intact after being blasted by a lightning bolt of such thickness would be something incredibly precious.

The first item was a horn that was about a yard long. The horn was a curved one, and it looked to be two horns entangled with each other. The end of the horn was unusually sharp. Saleen checked on it with his Elemental Eye, verifying that it was safe to have around, before handing it to the winged skeleton, telling him, “Nice stuff. Very sturdy.”

The winged skeleton threw the horn into the spirit space without checking it out further. The spirit space was one that proved to be more convenient to use that spatial equipment.

The second item was a pure white ball of bone. The ball of bone had a crystal clear surface, like it was being painted with some shiny paint. The white ball of bone had a diameter of about half a foot. Saleen threw the thing out as soon as he got his hand on it.

Intense resentment was felt emanating from within the ball of bone. If Saleen had not been training his mental powers for a long time using his family badge, making him almost immune to debuff statuses, he might be attracted by that ball right away and the debuff be cast at full power. Saleen dared not imagine what could follow.

Souls resided in the white ball of bone still.

The soul seemed to belong to that giant black monster. Saleen remembered its aura well, and it seemed that the creature’s soul had not suffered much damage.

Saleen was irked that he had almost been tricked by a dead creature. The soul of the monster seemed to be an immensely terrifying and evil. The second Saleen touched the ball, the first thing that came to mind was the idea of killing the winged skeleton, then destroying all the elemental badges, before finally devouring the ball of bone to absorb its power.

It was all a deceptive game set up by that monster’s soul. Golden lightning runes shot out from Saleen’s eyes, making marks on the ball until all 360 lightning runes seeped into it, before he picked it up again.

“Heh…” Blue electricity surged into the ball in Saleen’s hand. The Dark Sky Devil’s soul suffered pain so excruciating as it was being electrocuted that it wanted to escape the ball. Being encased by the golden lightning runes meant there was no way it could escape.

A being like the Dark Sky Devil would end up possessing one who was even a bit careless, becoming a parasite that fed on one’s life. Once things went that far, there was nothing Saleen could have done regardless of how powerful he was. The thing within would have seeped into one’s soul. So long as negative emotions were something your soul was capable of sensing, the Dark Sky Devil would be able to make it comfortable inside.

The Dark Sky Devil would have gradually assimilated the creature it leeched on. If the host creature proved to be strong enough, the Dark Sky Devil would then make them its emissary to gather more followers. If the host creature proved to be a weak one, the Dark Sky Devil would simply suck the host dry of their flesh, making them into nutrients for its revival.

The Dark Sky Devil however, met its match. Sound of Thunder burst as soon as Saleen kept his guard up, shaking the ball violently. It was as if countless lightning bolts coursed within the ball itself, torturing the soul of the Dark Sky Devil.

The Dark Sky Devil had never suffered such attacks in its. It panicked, and attempted to communicate with Saleen, before finding its senses no longer capable of reaching out of the ball it made.

Seeing the thing within the ball was unable to escape, he began re-crafting the ball. What he was crafting was an Eternal Control shard.

The Dark Sky Devil had been very unlucky. It was no big deal that he had lost his body. His powers however, jumped to grade-13 trying to defend against that lightning attack on it.

Pseudogods of grade-13 would still not be able to resist the lightning attacks, and it knew that well. It compressed the essence of its body in an instant, to create a soul parasite bead. The bead should be more than two yards in diameter. In order to defend against the lightning attack, a large amount of energy burst and clashed with the lightning bolt, burning up most of it, becoming the ball that was only half a foot long. In actual fact, the ball was actually being tempered by the lightning, expelling all the impurities within, leaving only the true essence behind.

If the Dark Sky Devil had not been so anxious to trick Saleen, things might have been different. Saleen would have handed the ball, or soul parasite bead, to the winged skeleton for further research. The winged skeleton was of far lower level than the Dark Sky Devil and did not have a very peculiar soul like Saleen. The monster would have had absolute certainly of being able to make him into its puppet. The monster’s chances of either escaping or assaulting Saleen would be way bigger by then.

Saleen reacted quickly as the Dark Sky Devil assaulted his soul, sending lightning powers into the bead without any hesitation.

Souls were weak against lightning. The Dark Sky Devil’s soul was practically charred despite him not putting much power into it, and the soul looked as if it was about to shatter.

Saleen stopped only when he felt satisfied and began crafting the soul parasite bead.

The bone of the bead was the essence left behind by the grade-13 Dark Sky Devil. Having tempered been by lightning before, Saleen went straight to making an Eternal Control shard with the bead itself.

With its soul being directly housed within the Eternal Control shard, it was as if it was being controlled by Saleen using the easiest method he had at his disposal. The material used to make the shard was after all, something that was used to house souls in the first place.

That Eternal Control shard was the most perfect one that Saleen had ever crafted himself. The material of that particular shard did not get downgraded from the crafting process. It still had a very tough shell that protected the Dark Sky Devil’s soul.

Saleen was not being nice there. He took out the War Drum of Fear and threw the Eternal Control shard into it. A low-level Eternal Control shard floated in the middle of the drum. Saleen took control of the shard and release a thread of soul within.

The angel of fear’s linked soul leapt at the Eternal Control shard made from the soul parasite bead that Saleen had crafted, without knowing what was happening. It ended up being sucked right into it. The monster’s soul was severely injured at the moment, with the linked soul thrown into the bead shard, it gobbled the linked soul despite having little idea of what was going on.

“Arrghh!” The Dark Sky Devil’s soul writhed in pain. “How can this happen? That is just an incomplete soul! How is it attacking me?” The Dark Sky Devil’s rage was an understandable one. It had been a true god, yet it was reduced to defending itself against a broken soul that was not even a grade-13 pseudogod, causing it excruciating pain yet he was unable to simply die.

“Absorb it.” Saleen’s cold voice was sent into the Eternal Control shard.

Even without Saleen’s command, it intended to absorb the piece of broken soul nonetheless, and the process was a very painful one. The angel of fear’s linked soul was not one to usually yield. Saleen had yet to be able to subjugate the true soul of the angel of fear. As such, he wanted to have the Dark Sky Devil devour it, making it easy for him to research.

Saleen observed the entire process of consumption. The monster was terribly out of its luck. The entire process it was being subjected to was torture using all manners of pain imaginable.

The Dark Sky Devil had loved broken souls like that. Since its soul suffered shocks from Saleen’s lightning its powers dropped sharply though. The fear within that broken soul burst. Even if the broken soul was not as powerful as the Dark Sky Devil, the rules of fear within were still very complete.

Fear was also a type of negative emotion, and one that the Dark Sky Devil had no problem absorbing. It would have even grown in power because of it. If it had absorbed the entire angel of fear’s soul, it might gain enough power to create a new body for itself, escaping from the soul parasite bead.

Saleen had only given it a thread of soul. After absorbing the thread of broken soul, Saleen sent his will inside the War Drum of Fear, saying to the monster’s soul, “You will now atone for your crimes by working for me.”

The Dark Sky Devil was just about to curse at Saleen in rage, before its soul suffered another shock.

“Tell you what. In that Eternal Control shard, you will be punished if you so much as wish me ill will. If you like being punished like that, have it your way then. A being of your level won’t die so easily after all.”

The Dark Sky Devil’s soul went silent. It came to realize how pathetic its choice had been. It would have been easier to just die being blasted by that bolt of lightning, then remain alive using the soul parasite bead. If there were any other creatures that happened to be near it, they would have been able to provide power for its revival. What happened was that it was being trapped inside the bead it made instead and would have to suffer lightning attacks at any given moment.

When the thread of the linked soul of the angel of fear was completely absorbed, its memories were absorbed too. The memory began at its entry into the Eternal Control shard until it was being absorbed by the Dark Sky Devil. Memories where Saleen had been using the linked soul to fight battles for him were also absorbed.

The Dark Sky Devil found out sadly that it had simply been made the linked soul’s replacement, and it would perform better.

Saleen put away the drum and thought, “I will have you cool down for a while. If that soul is still alive, then perhaps the souls of the other two will have survived too?”

That man was the one that should be damned the most for trying to trick him to get down there to fight something so fearsome. If the monster had not been reduced to a soul form that feared lightning, he would have been killed.

“Since you wanted to do me harm so much, then you shall suffer retribution!”