Badge in Azure

Countless crawling creatures disappeared following the death of the oracle of the Dark God of Destruction inside the split passages within the cave.

Theisio felt rather dumbfounded. He had been aware of the incoming danger before the oracle of the Dark God of Destruction cast their ultimate skill. Instead of telling them of the looming danger, he escaped the place.

He had never thought himself to be one to abandon an oracle of the gods. He felt as if he was acting under some kind of spell. Or rather, that was probably a choice taken based on what he thought deep down inside.

“How long can a spell last? Fireball can stay around for about 20 seconds if it did not manage to ignite its target. Some grade-9 spells are known to last for hours, and then there are some magic spells capable of lasting up to three days.”

Darkness Disintegration was a powerful divine spell and one that could hold for about 10 minutes, relatively short compared to some grade-9 magic spells. The spell was simply too potent. Nothing capable of withstanding engulfment for more than a minute was found on the Myers Mainland.

It was a divine spell at grade-13 strength. The grade-12 Lord of Glory was only capable of using powers at grade-11 and would have ended up dead inside the cave within 10 seconds.

Theisio stood right outside the cave and felt very conflicted inside. The life signs of the oracle were completely wiped out. Darkness Disintegration was an offensive divine spell instead of one meant to control. Theisio was able to sense what happened within the cave using the power of his Bramble Crown.

The spell seems like it would still hold for quite a while. “Should I leave, or…”

Theisio felt an urge of some kind within his mind and he struggled to suppress it. Everything within the cave would have disappeared by then; everything but divine persona shards. If he were to get his hands on said shards, he might advance to become a pseudogod in the future.

Theisio felt his entire body burn as soon as the thought came to mind. He was burning with a fire called desire.

He was completely caught off-guard by that thought. “If I were to become a pseudogod, wouldn’t I be betraying the Lord of Glory? The Lord of Glory himself said it—there is to be no other god but I.”

Pseudogods were still gods, beings possessing divine fire and divine persona. They were still capable of creating a kingdom of their own. “If I were to become a pseudogod myself, wouldn’t I be betraying the faith I’ve held for almost a century?”

Another voice was heard deep within Theisio.

“What is the worth of a century-old faith before the infinite lifespan of a pseudogod? You know well which one would prove more important! How should one choose between a century and infinity?”

The joints of Theisio’s hand holding the God Grace Staff were seen protruding and his veins were popping. An hour passed just like that. Theisio stood where he was. He stared into the empty cave. The oracle did not survive; the only thing standing was the huge, black rock.

Theisio walked into the cave and took to the air, finding shiny pieces of divine persona shards on top of the huge, black rock.

There was nothing to stop him then. Theisio headed for the rock, picking up the shards on top of it and storing them inside his spatial equipment as if nothing happened.

“I can’t leave the shards here. If someone else were to pick these up, that someone would turn completely into a believer of the Lord of Glory. How should I go about explaining what happened to the other two oracles?” Theisio stayed and went into deep thought. “I lost the fake Seal of Divine Power and the oracles are gone. There is no way I could have lied about any of that. Should I just hand over the shards to them just like that? Would the other two think about betraying their god, just like the one who ended up dead? No. There is no way I can hand the shards over.”

Theisio began mumbling to himself and had even forgotten that the ones fighting at Guderian City’s frontlines were waiting desperately for his arrival. “The Seed of Divine Fire. There should be a Seed of Divine Fire here.”

Theisio had read many books on theology, far surpassing anyone within the Holy See. A fallen god might have their divine fire snuffed out, but never the seed. Even a seed at the size of an elemental particle would eventually burn again, shining light onto the entire holy kingdom.

Theisio was reluctant to leave the site, wracking his brains to think of a way to solve his current predicament. The army preparing to launch an assault right outside Guderian City was in shambles. Theisio’s orders were for them to await his signal before launching an attack. Enemy reinforcements seemed to be arriving at any minute.

At the Kingdom of Metatrin, there were more than five armies heading for the border. Within Qin territory, a rather huge army was also marching for Guderian City. Said army amounted to little more than 1,000 men. They went about wiping out just about all Holy See forces encountered.

That army was the personal guard of Arbola. They were led by Saleen.

The force amounted to 1,200 and fought more than 100 skirmishes along the way. It came to a point where the Holy See armies came attacking it on their own. Even so, casualties suffered by the force when they reached Guderian City amounted to less than 100.

The army itself was not some impossibly strong band of monstrous beings. Their victories were due mostly to Jalin and the mages tagging along. They packed an enormous number of scrolls and went about spamming spells like they cost nothing.

Most Holy See forces encountered were in small bands, numbering to a 1,000 or 2,000, with several mages among their ranks. What Saleen brought with him however, were all elite troops armed with magic equipment, with more than 20 mages among their ranks. Moreover, half of the mages were sorcerers.

The most terrifying thing about his force however, was the War Drum of Fear. He was in a hurry to reach Guderian City, and as such, he beat on the drum at any chance he got when attacking. When he found his enemies to be a little too strong, he simply went about unleashing the pests within the drum.

Pests were beings of around grade-6. The Holy See soldiers they fought however, consisted mostly of peasants. While the elites among their ranks were indeed fearsome, they amounted to less than 200 in a band of soldiers numbering to about 1,000.

Saleen practically went on a killing spree as he made his way towards Guderian City. As most of the Holy See forces were gathered at Guderian City and the central parts of the north, Saleen was already several hundred miles away by the time they were done gathering their forces.

Jalin came to understand why Saleen behaved as he did when he sparred with her. The concept of mercy or holding back was nonexistent in Saleen’s mind when he was in battle. Saleen would not hesitate to bring his enemies down, regardless of who he was fighting. Jalin was perceptive enough to tell that Saleen would still do the same if she were to fight Saleen again. Whether her mask would work again or not, was completely outside Saleen’s consideration. Saleen would have simply cast two consecutive Death Impacts just to prevent her from running away.

It became understandable as to why the pope wanted to get rid of that particular king so badly. Said king was one who knew no restraint when dealing with enemies and was also one capable of growing at frightening speeds. If the pope was unable to kill Saleen off soon enough, Saleen would probably go about building an empire, an empire which was out to oppose the Holy See—a replica of Qin.

Saleen did not think himself to be the brutal kind. The slaughter that he went about performing in battle was far less stressful to deal with psychologically than what he pulled with Ironwall City. He went so far as to think that there was little to lament about if he actually ended up dead. Such was the battlefield.

The entire northern region of Qin was engulfed in the fires of war. Many villages were destroyed along the way. While the Lord of Glory loved his adherents, his adherents however, apparently had no love for their own brethren.

Most Qin villages had forts, and said forts managed to stay rather intact throughout the war. The Holy See used cruel, venomous means. They slaughtered any village they encountered before surrounding the forts and launching poisonous items into the forts.

Most who died by the hands of the Holy See were peasants, personal guards of nobles, and regular army units. None of which would have garrisoned such pea-sized forts. From Saleen’s perspective, such battles were all watered-down versions of the Battle of Ironwall City. They were replicated countless times by the Holy See.

The Qin people did not have a habit of letting their flock graze out in the open. Most livestock kept within villages were poultry and pigs. Saleen did not encounter any surviving humans along the way and did not find surviving livestock anywhere. What he saw being strewn all over the place were bones, enough to have the winged skeleton build an army of spirits.

There was no such thing as a just war. In wars, one was only allowed to pick a side, there was no right or wrong.

From the Holy See’s perspective, all who refused to convert to the faith of the Lord of Glory were mindless barbarians and were seen to be little more than animals. Adherents to the Holy See’s faith were brought up spoon-fed with such idealisms from youth. The pope would have easily been able to gather millions to form armies for launching holy wars.

The Tanggulasi Empire had the largest population. With the God Grace Duchy considered, the total population amounted to about 200 million. Most of said 200 million were adherents. Each and every one of them was more than willing to go to battle to fight for their god. When they died such deaths, they would then be allowed passage into heaven, an easier route to take than dedicating themselves to prayers throughout their lives.

Saleen was in a hurry, and he deemed the speed at which they moved too slow. If he did not have the personal guard army in tow, he would have made it to Guderian City a long time ago. The 1,000 strong army nonetheless proved useful to Saleen. He came to witness instances where mages worked in tandem with regular soldiers.

Even without him around, the army would still have been able to carve their way through any army numbering less than 10,000.

It was fortunate that the army consisted of true cavalry units, where every soldier rode a formidable warhorse. In other places, such horses would have been reserved for use by military officers. The warhorses, which were equivalent to grade-3 demonic beasts, possessed running endurance and load capacity well above that of regular horses. Saleen saw that none of the soldiers had spare horses to switch to.

Saleen lacked horses, and as such, his armies consisted mostly of infantries. Such amounts of warhorses made Saleen very envious.

The Golden Plains grew special feed meant for such warhorses instead of human food. Food supplies of the Grukos were naturally the responsibility of Holy Rock City.

Saleen arrived on that day at a place about 200 miles away from Guderian City. The Holy See’s 500 thousand strong army set up camp spreading out tens of miles south of the city itself.

The camp was built sparsely, to limit casualties dealt by massive scale magic attacks by mages. Since Alchemy City’s intervention, the Holy See had suffered multiple heavy setbacks. Three to five sorcerers, after all, were more than enough to wipe out regular troops in tens of thousands.

“Jalin, Theisio has yet to show up. What do you think we should do?” Saleen held his horse back as he gazed at the far away camp. Jalin did not possess skills like Elemental Eye, and as such, had no idea what Saleen was looking at. Saleen was observing, trying to figure out if it was a plausible move to bring his drum into the fight in the Holy See army’s camp.

Jalin halted her steps on the hill and thought for a moment before asking, “Saleen, what do you think then?”

Arbola rescinded Jalin’s authority and left Saleen in charge of everything, so long as he remained bait instead of flying straight for Guderian City alone. Saleen went killing many of the Holy See’s men, and yet Theisio did not turn up. Any further from where they were, they would have run straight into the Holy See’s main camp. It was impossible for their 1,000 strong army to tear the camp apart and head straight for the city.

“What should we do?” Jalin had no idea.