Badge in Azure

It was a magic spell that had not appeared for several thousands of years, yet all of the mages had heard of it before. They had also attempted to complete it, but had failed.

There was a saying, “A mage who can only shoot fireballs is not a good mage,” yet the “fireball” mentioned in the saying was not the kind that was before them. If a mage was capable of firing such a fireball, he would have to be an incredibly powerful one, so much so that none of his peers would have dared touch him.

This was a spell that completely locked on to their targets, making it one that was inescapable and could only be resisted when attacked head-on. The problem however, was that the power of that fireball was not something that magic shields could face. Instead, it required magic spells that were capable of dismantling it in order to break free, just like how Saleen and Lex used to train in the past.

However, the total sum of the mental powers of those two mages was not even near half that of Lex’s mental powers, and they were far inferior in terms of calculative abilities. Thus, the two mages would not have been able to calculate key points that were necessary to break it before the fireball reached them.

They would have already advanced to level ten if they had been capable of doing so, instead of being stuck at level nine, while powers across Myers Mainland rose. Lex had only been capable of casting the fireball, and if she had been at level ten, she could have easily cast several of them.

However, since she was also stuck at level nine and had no way to go forward yet, she was only able to cast one per battle. However, the fireball had immense power and was capable of killing three sorcerers consecutively, so it was still very effective and useful.

Sika and Eleanor saw the mountains being shrouded by the cloud from the sky. Sika took out a javelin and got ready, while Eleanor kept her arrow on the Seven Nights.

The two mages in the cloud were frightened and took to the air. Saleen was dealing with the holy master at the moment, so he didn’t have time to deal with these mages.

The two mages shot through the clouds and saw two black dots flying out from the back of the huge beast in the air. The two were not all that adept with flight, as they were only level seven mages and had not even been at that level for long.

The javelin that Sika threw was made of refined steel, which had some crystallized metal crafted onto its tip. The shield that the mage put up was incapable of stopping the javelin.

The javelin’s tip turned to dust, while the shaft pierced through the shield, penetrating the mage’s body. The javelin was Sika’s unique weapon. The metal shaft on the javelin was filled with reversed scales, which automatically opened after penetrating the mage’s body, causing the wound become several times larger.

Soon, a hole the size of a bowl was seen on the torso of that mage. At this moment, Sika was probably the first person to ever break a sorcerer’s magic using sheer power!

The other sorcerer died an immediate death. Eleanor’s arrow shot right through his eye and came out through his brain on the other end. The high pressure resulting from the arrow’s flight made the grey matter in his brain squirt out, and the target was neutralized in less than a second.

Saleen’s assault had killed the enemy’s lead figures right away, without mercy. This battle boosted Saleen’s confidence, showing him that even if he did not use his family badge or the Thunder Dragon Blaster, he was still peerless among the mages of his same level.

The two children on the huge beast in the air laughed, and it seemed like they had no idea what their mother had just done. While the two mages died gruesome deaths, the scene was hardly gory, as most of it took place in the clouds.

A magic alert was heard from the cloud and was shot down by an arrow from Eleanor. A bursting light resulted from the explosion. While the holy master’s spell caught Eleanor by surprise, it had not been one that she was incapable of stopping.

Saleen had never seen holy masters sending alerts using divine arts. He and Lex worked seamlessly in the cloud and killed over 30 people continuously. The alert was sent while they were battling with several of them who were left, causing Saleen to feel rather exasperated.

His initial plan was to take out everyone within the mountains, then lay traps there in order to lure their enemies to attack. After all, if they were to simply rush at the main camp, they would have been surrounded by many powerful warriors.

The alert that appeared within the mountains could have brought powerful ones from the main camp outside Daliang City, which was about a hundred miles away from where they were, within an hour. That would have been far less time than what was needed to lay any traps properly. Furthermore, there were three points in the mountains where enemies needed to be taken out.

Saleen frowned as he dispersed his cloud, sending his ancient figures charging. Saleen paid no heed to the remaining sorcerers wanting to surrender, instead letting his ancient figures kill off the three sorcerers and a holy master.

The figures’ halberds were all broken, so Saleen gave them replacements. The battles at the outskirts were still intense, yet only the figures were pursuing the enemy troops. While the figures had lower combat capacities than the ancient warriors, they were able to move on their own without Saleen’s orders, which was what Saleen liked most about them.

At the moment, Saleen and Lex were both unscathed, even after taking out 38 of their enemies, three of whom were level nine powerful ones. Such a result meant that both of their combat capacities were leagues above those of their enemies of the same level.

As the beast in the air descended slowly, Saleen found out that the power that the huge beast controlled was something that was very unfamiliar to him. The huge beast’s wings were simply there for maneuvering and speed control, not the key factor for allowing it to stay in midair.

In fact, it seemed as if it was the power of the earth itself that was holding the huge beast up and enabling it to stay in the air. Things created by nature priests were indeed peculiar, as they had nothing to do with magic or divine arts!

However, Saleen did not put much thought into it at the moment. Instead, he turned and said to Sika and Eleanor, “The Winged Skull and Jola are in the outskirts of the city, preventing enemy reinforcements from coming for now. Nicholas has no way of stopping the level nine powerful ones from flying over either. So, we have, at most, one hour to lay our traps.”

“Understood. I’ll go clean up outside,” Sika said as she tapped on the beast beneath her. The huge beast immediately took to the air with Sika and Eleanor in pursuit of enemy troops.

Saleen chose a piece of flatland near a cliff and pointed at it as he said to Lex, “Lay one of your illusion magic arrays here.”

Lex acknowledged him with a nod and began to clear the ground, laying the magic array. Saleen then put away his elemental creatures, instructing the figures to hide within the nearby cliffs.

The weapons of the figures were still not powerful enough, so they kept breaking after being used repeatedly against the sorcerers. However, there were simply too many figures at the moment, so Saleen was incapable of crafting enough equipment to arm all of them for the time being.

After all, the alchemy factories were meant for mass producing regular weapons. These were simply not sufficient for his current needs, as they were low-grade and not capable of killing sorcerers.

Lex drew her magic array quickly. Saleen then took out his Magical Element Tower and put in on top of the magic array before unleashing all of his elemental creatures and sending them all inside the tower. He then entered the tower shortly thereafter.

Meanwhile, Lex continued to lay her illusion magic array. The illusion magic array was capable of doing much more, but Lex simply had it twist the perception of the entire cliff for the time being.

As the cliff was moved forward in the illusion, the battlefield from before was concealed. It remained to be seen if the divine spell alert was clearly seen over a hundred miles away, but the way that the trap had been laid was meant solely to conceal the Magical Element Tower.

Once Lex activated her magic array, the entire tower disappeared, taking Lex’s form in huge proportions. This illusion was capable of attacking as well, but still probably only had less than one-tenth of Lex’s total power.

Lex sat inside the tower and meditated. The fireball that killed the two sorcerers of the same level had exhausted over half of her mental powers and magic chords.

Sika and Eleanor returned about half an hour later. Upon their arrival, Saleen hesitated for a bit before sending both Sika and Eleanor inside the tower. If there were someone of level ten coming from the Holy See’s reinforcements, Saleen would not have been able to rest easy.

Sika looked at the mountain path that was faraway together with Saleen as they stood on the 17th floor after entering the tower. At that moment, a beam of white divine spell light shot up in Daliang City’s direction.

Saleen’s Elemental Eye was incapable of discerning the complex meanings of the light, but it was known that magic alerts were capable of relaying quite a lot of content. Thus, he figured that the divine spell alert was most probably working in similar ways.

The army surrounding Daliang City was simply too huge. The Holy See gobbled up the lands within Kroraina that belonged to the Principality of Bitterwater. This was something that had been thought up a long time ago, making them immune to Lex’s metal flyers.

Due to the massive increase in the Holy See’s powers after the oracles had descended, which enabled the holy masters to advance at frightening speeds, the personnel problem had been resolved. As such, the Holy See saw no reason to hold back any longer.

Daliang City had been an eyesore to them and had gotten in the way of them getting into Kroraina through the Separation Sea. Moreover, the Holy See intended to take the entire mainland, including Daliang City, which was a key point in invading Cloudflow.

Black Dungeon Island was still anxious about creating warships, but when the latest ships were successfully crafted, the Separation Sea would be bagged by the Holy Sea. They would then be able to attack Cloudflow from three directions: at sea, through the Separation Sea, and via the Red River’s line of defense.

The Holy See still needed to cooperate with Cloudflow for quite a while, but there was no harm in making preparations early. Their plan was to first take Daliang City and make it a territory of the Holy See, which then make it easy for them to attack Cloudflow later.

At the moment, Stephanie was not the one in the worst mood within Daliang City, as that title belonged to Jalin. This was because Lex had held her back in Royal Harbor for two months, then dispatched her to Daliang City right away.

She had painstakingly carved her way out through the enemies, only to find that there was not a single magic tower reserved for her within the city! She would have tolerated staying at Saleen’s side, as that was a mission that was give to her by her teacher, but this was different.

She was frustrated as she wondered… What’s the point of staying in Daliang City? I’m told to help fight, yet I’m not even given a tower!

This was not the only thing that irked Jalin. She had been late, so all of the sorcerers from the Grukos had already taken all of the towers, which did not matter all that much. What she was really angry about was that she was not even allowed to stay inside Lex’s palace!

She grumbled about this to herself in her head… She’s Lex… So what? She may be a member of the royal family, but I’m the first student of Arbola!

Jalin was so angered by all of this that she did not even bother to help fight at the walls, but simply stayed in the house that she was assigned to in order to train. Hence, Eleanor did not guess wrongly, as Jalin was indeed angry because Lex did not seem to value her.

Jalin was a proud person, who had been the pride of Golden Plains since she was young. As such, she had never been able to stomach Lex’s prestige. If she had been the viscount instead, she deemed that she would have been to be able to do a better job than Lex!

At first, she had felt bad for Lex’s, as Saleen had actually married two women. But after she saw Lex and spent two months around her, she sensed that Lex and Saleen were hiding something from her.

Gradually, Jalin came to resent and hate Lex. As for Saleen, she found him to be increasingly amusing instead, and she couldn’t help but wonder…

How was that man ever capable of attracting Lex? That Sika also doesn’t seem to be that impressive. A Caucasian… Even a Caucasian King… Isn’t that big of a deal. That race’s days are numbered, after all!