Badge in Azure

The magic cannons fired in sequence. Hundreds of cavalry units were burned to ash by the shots. The cavalry’s formations were not as tight as the infantry’s. A weapon like the magic cannon, which were only able to attack in straight lines, wracked up fairly limited kills with the cavalry.

A magic cannon was only able to fire once at a time, and one shot only killed about 40 cavalry soldiers. Seeing there was little to gain by staying, Saleen ordered the demons to retreat.

The three cannons at the front shot accurately. That particular punisher’s shoulder finally gave, a crippling wound where the hits landed. Saleen saw white light spilling from the wound instead of blood. The wound began to close in a twisted manner.

If the being hit by the cannons was a living being, the wound would never heal.

Saleen threw out three scrolls that he had readied. An area about a hundred meters from the Crystal City turned to quicksand. The first punisher that stepped into it staggered and fell, sinking into the quicksand.

However, the punisher sank for merely two meters before it sprung up again, struggling to stand still. It spewed a ball of light like the magic cannon. It was directed at the sand instead of the Crystal City. The quicksand crystallized, turning very hard and boiling hot.

A metal spike shot out with a whoosh. A hole was punched in the walls of the Crystal City, with half the spike lodged within.

Boom! Bang!

The quicksand did not stop the punishers. The Crystal City, which was about 20 meters wide, was simply too narrow for the punishers.

There were only two that rammed the Crystal City, yet the impact far exceeded Saleen’s expectations: a huge crack formed from just one hit.

Another few hits would send the walls tumbling down, but the two punishers simply jumped and reached the top of the Crystal City. They were simply testing the strength of the walls.

The other 30 punishers circled around the blockade of the Crystal City, before charging at the scattered demons.

Seeing how the monsters were capable of charging fast and turn nimbly, Saleen was finally able to determine that they were not some brutes without brains; they were weapons of war employed by the Tribunal, just like the figures of the astrologers.

Sika hurried her pony and came to the edge of the Crystal City, lifted her staff and whacked one of the punishers’ legs. A loud, crisp crack was heard for miles. The punisher lost its balance tumbling forward. Sika brought her staff down from above, going right for its jaw.

The speed of her attack looked anything but fast, but Jola and the rest were able to see clearly. Sika calculated where the enemy would fall, and leapt into the air during the attack, before landing on horseback again. She was so fast that afterimages were unable to form.

The 18 meter-long punisher was sent flying with a loud boom. Sika’s staff crushed its jaw completely, almost sending it inside its mouth. The punisher was sent flying backwards, drawing an arc in the air, before dropping in the quicksand.

Another punisher leapt into the air at her and Sika frowned. The monster that Sika had just sent flying did not die; it turned around in the quicksand and struggled, trying to wiggle its jaw back out.

“Saleen, I can’t kill it!” Sika was frustrated. She leapt for her pony to evade the attack, before landing her staff on the punisher’s nose. The nose caved in, and its body tumbled down hard on the ground, losing its balance.

“There is nothing that can’t be killed!” The Winged Skull leapt into the air. Their flight capabilities were unaffected; they just had to use their bone wings.

The Winged Skull swiped the Reaper Scythe across the punisher’s neck. A whooshing sound was heard as the neck of the punisher was chopped in half.

“It’s not dead!” Sika saw the punisher try to attack the Winged Skull with its tail. Her pony rushed forward and she held her staff high, sending the huge severed head flying.

“The heart is the weakness!” Lightning runes shone in Saleen’s eyes as he saw past the punisher’s disguise. It was shown in his Eye of Lightning that there was a mangled heart in the monster’s body, a soul struggling within.

The punisher’s heart was small, about a foot in diameter, which when compared to its massive size, made it a very difficult target to hit.

There were two other punishers coming from the flanks. Gusion did not retreat alongside the demons; he chose to stay behind.

He saw metal spikes flying at Saleen, and with a wave of the Dragon Slaughtering War Flag in his end, wrapped all the spikes within. Gusion shook the flag once and the metal spikes all fell onto the ground, but his arms felt numb.

Seeing how easily Sika had sent the punishers flying, he thought the huge beasts were nothing. He found that the force of just the spikes they shot rivaled the javelins thrown by golden grand swordmasters.

If his Dragon Slaughtering War Flag had not been a powerful piece of equipment, the flag would have been easily torn apart, and he would not have stood a chance against spikes shot with such force.

The punishers from both sides got increasingly close. The one that was sent flying by Sika climbed out of the quicksand, leaping onto the Crystal City. The punisher that lost its head had all its spikes and its tail chopped by the Winged Skull, resulting in it losing any combat capacity.

The wound created by the Reaper Scythe was incapable of healing. Seeing that she was incapable of fighting the monsters, Sika called her pony back and summoned her huge beast.

Saleen leapt onto the back of the beast with Sika. The huge beast did not take flight. It simply stepped on the punishers.

The punisher on top of the Crystal City was still looking for a chance to attack, before being stepped on by the huge beast that appeared out of nowhere. All the spikes on its back were broken.

Sika’s soul beasts were not true living beings. Their bodies were simply constructs conjured using witchcraft. What lay beneath that huge paw of the beast were crystalline structures far harder than metal.

The Crystal City was broken from the stomping attack and a crack formed. The punisher was caught in that crack, trying to wriggle itself free.

Sika stood on the back of her soul beast and looked downward. She took out a javelin and threw it hard at the messed up back of the punisher. The two meter-long javelin went all the way into the back of the punisher, but it failed to pierce the heart.

The heart of the punisher wiggled for a bit, evading the javelin.

Saleen was left with no choice but to unleash his water flame and send it inside the punisher’s body. The silver-white water flame froze the internal structures of the beast and shattered it. With nowhere left to run, the heart was finally pierced by the second javelin Sika threw at it.

Saleen did not have any more time to help Sika out. Having stopped three waves of metal spike attacks, Gusion started to show signs of weariness. Saleen spun the star chart on his Starline Bangle, summoning the Thunder Dragon Blaster to his left arm, shooting four icicles at the same time at four different punishers.

The four icicles were a meter long and covered with blue lightning. The speed they were shot at far exceeded that of the metal spikes. At such a close distance, there was no way the punishers could evade the attack.

All four icicles hit their targets at the same time, and all four punishers had their hearts pierced. Lightning balls exploded at the core of the hearts, spreading out to form a net.

The hundreds of souls housed within the mangled heart of the punishers were reduced to pure energy by the electrical shock, rendering them incapable of controlling their respective punishers’ bodies anymore.

The Thunder Dragon Blaster was capable of firing two more lightning icicles, but Saleen put the blaster away. The head inquisitors were not here yet, and he saw it unwise to show all his cards right there and then.

“Gusion, let’s go.” Saleen summoned his men and had them all leap onto the back of the huge beast, which took to the air shortly after. Four of six punishers were killed by the Thunder Dragon Blaster, but their bodies hardly suffered any damage.

They could be deployed again after they had their hearts replaced. Among the other two, one had its heart intact but its body severely damaged, while the other was completely destroyed, both body and heart.

The remaining 34 punishers rushed at the demons and slaughtered them.

Saleen looked at battlefield from above and for the first time in his life, found demons to be frail creatures as well. There were hardly any demons capable of withstanding the punishers’ rampaging charges.

Their huge shields were completely shattered by the impacts. Some demons, when toppled, had punishers run over them. Flesh and blood splattered all over the place from the crevices of their armor.

Out of the 500 demons, only a little over 50 of them were fast and strong enough to escape the punishers’ rampage, running for Daliang City. The power of the demons were very, very near supreme demons. They would probably advance soon.

One of the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers that Saleen left behind swung around with its magic warhammer, knocking a punisher over and over. The hundred-meter tall Elemental Stone Statue Soldier quickly shrunk. Depleted elemental energies were almost impossible to replenish in such an environment.

The punisher that had gotten beaten to a pulp did not die. With its heart still intact, it continued to struggle on the ground, freeing itself from the range of the Elemental Stone Statue Soldier’s attack. The shrunken Elemental Stone Statue Soldier, now 50 meters tall, was crushed between two punishers, its legs broken.

The soul beast climbed higher. The punishers on the ground continued to shoot metal spikes, but they were all shot down by Saleen using low level icicles. The Stone Statue Soldier was left for dead.

Almost all of Saleen’s 500 demons perished. The assault was a failure.

If it had not been for the punishers, with three golden grand swordmasters, the Winged Skull, and Sika by Saleen’s side, they could have caused huge casualties to the cavalry units. The punishers’ appearance was unexpected and Saleen never took them into account.

The huge soul beast flew at an altitude of over 3000 meters. Saleen turned around and saw an army clad in red armor appear on the battlefield below.

Three holy masters in the army cast divine spells in synchronization. The remaining 100 demons who were still struggling were caught in three divine light cages. The battlefield suddenly turned silent.

Saleen put on his mask and attempted to lock onto the holy masters, but he found it impossible to aim at any of them. There were only two shots left with his Thunder Dragon Blaster, which could still be effective at killing two punishers.

However, Saleen did not do it. He saw the holy master come before the monster he killed after taking care of the demons.

Someone pulled the mouth of the monster open and the three holy masters stuffed some unknown item into its mouth. The dead beast wiggled and seemed to come to life again.