Badge in Azure

The ball was small and crisscrossed with red and green rust. Nicholas’ eyes lit up as he held it in his hand. Nailisi was unable to do anything, but mumbled, “Are you getting aroused here, old man?”

Jola sighed and said, “You would be too if you were a holy master.”

“What’s so impressive about it?” It occurred to Nailisi that her master had plundered it all from the divine kingdom and that it was hardly peculiar for Nicholas to like it, as getting in and out of divine kingdoms was very, very difficult. Common folk would be converted to believers as soon as they entered.

They would have had a hard time keeping their minds in one piece, let alone actually leaving afterward.

“My liege, this… This is divine fire!”

When a creature became a god, it naturally sparked divine fire in them. When a god perished, their divine fire was naturally snuffed out as well. However, there was actually divine fire within that ball that had yet to be extinguished.

A person was unable to achieve godhood simply by getting their hands on divine fire; nonetheless, the power and rules contained within it were unusually powerful, and only beings at level 13 were able to possess it. Acquisition of a completely divine persona only happened at level 15, at the lowest.

That thing was actually more precious than a divine persona. A god’s divine persona was left intact after they perished, but not their divine fire. Countless gods had died on many planes.

In addition to the divine personas that have been lost, there were plenty of others scattered here and there in obscure locations, as well.

It was difficult to preserve divine fire, and, she thought, Saleen had only been able to acquire it because the divine baby was still alive.

Furthermore, when Saleen had acquired this divine fire, it was almost all used up.

From Nailisi’s perspective, Nicholas was rather easily-impressed, and had clearly never seen much good stuff. But, in actual fact, while the divine fire in that ball was incomplete, its level was far above the divine baby’s.

It had been left behind by a level 15 god—the god that the Lord of Glory killed.

“Good stuff, indeed. You need to know how to put it to good use. This is the best material that I can give you at the moment, Nicholas,” Saleen told him warmly. Only then did Nicholas calm down.

“My liege, I’m afraid that I won’t be able to keep this thing intact for long!”

“What’s there to be afraid of? From here on out, you’ll either follow me around or stay with my teacher. No enemies are worth fearing with us around. If Theisio shows up, we’ll see to it that he never gets home.”

“Well, then… Allow me to refine this thing.” Nicholas dared not linger around for long and headed straight for Saleen’s tower to refine the divine fire and put it inside his Scepter of the Fallen. It would be a long, arduous process, and he would probably not be able to help Saleen out in the meantime.

Saleen was thinking about hunting down the great head inquisitor, an idea with which Nicholas had initially disagreed. However, seeing how prepared Saleen was and how all of his followers had just acquired powerful weapons, Nicholas knew that Saleen was ready and that he had grown considerably as well.

Nicholas finally felt relieved and at ease in following such a master; his future was guaranteed.

The crowd laughed as they watched Nicholas waddle all the way to the tower without saying anything. So, the old man has forgotten that he can fly?

Saleen then turned serious and said, “Some of the mages aren’t here. I’ve prepared equipment for Pasatilo, Kanuka, and the others. All of my followers will switch out their gear. Our enemies are getting increasingly powerful, and things will be tougher from here on out than they have been.”

“The winds on the highest peak are always the strongest, and the water in the deepest depths is always the coldest,” said Jola, blurting out two lines from a proverb of the Cloudflow people.

“Indeed. What we’re about to do is akin to standing on the highest peak.”

Saleen finished and laid out the magic map again, saying, “It’s very peculiar that Nature City is still unscathed. It seems that our enemy is determined to fight on the front lines at Daliang City. Good, then. Nature City is currently within our control, and it’s not permissible to give anything up when fighting a war. This time, I’ll be sending more demons there, but I’m taking you people along as well.”

Saleen said this he pointed west of the Separation Sea. There was a path leading into the Titan Duchy. All of the Tribunal’s forces came from there, while the forces of the Pivotal Council entered from Kroraina. The armies from both sides were scheduled to meet below Daliang City.

There was a problem with this arrangement. Both sides should have actually been commanded by Theisio himself, but the forces of the Tribunal refused to enter through Kroraina, insisting on taking the narrow path through the Titan Duchy instead. It was worth noting that it was easy to get trapped when taking such narrow paths.

“My liege, the great head inquisitor probably won’t be taking the lead anymore,” Jola said, pointing out where the problem was. Given that the great head inquisitor had used up his Divine Tablet spell, if he were to run into any more danger, he would have no way to escape.

As such, the great head inquisitor would be a lot more cautious.

“I have a way to bait him,” Saleen answered, smiling. That was the first time that he did not explain the details of his plan to his subordinates.

“We’ll head for here.” Saleen pointed at the center of the Separation Sea and then took out another scroll, saying, “You’ll find the gear and materials that you need here. Go get them from the alchemy factories. We’ll need to be careful this time.”

Saleen was usually the one to personally distribute the things that his followers would need. This time, however, Saleen had ordered the alchemy factories to forge equipment and consumables for his followers instead. One could say that he had completely changed.

He had begun to seek stability and comprehensiveness in everything he did.

Every single follower of his had their own space equipment, after all. Even Sul had a purple and gold pouch that could store dozens of cubic meters worth of stuff. It was better for them to bring more gear along.

Saleen’s trip that time did not include any Sreeger Island mages. He considered it a waste to have them fight in battles, as Sreeger Island mages usually were more knowledgeable and had better foundations.

Most mages paled in comparison to them when they were put to work at the alchemy factories. Furthermore, Saleen had interdimensional teleportation portals in Metatrin City, and a certain number of mages was needed to guard them. Those mages, in turn, had to be people that Saleen could trust in the extreme.

A person who went through an interdimensional teleportation portal had no idea where they would end up, but the ones in control of said portals were capable of determining the space coordinates.

Although the calculations involved in doing so were incredibly difficult, Saleen did not want to leave such variables, no matter how small, to chance.

Raphael’s interdimensional space was one that was growing, and, furthermore, it was growing exponentially. That was to say that Saleen would be able to see it grow into a star or a continent as large as a main plane in his lifetime.

The Magical Element Tower needed re-crafting for the trip, and Saleen had become more prudent, no longer thoughtlessly performing feats that damaged the magic patterns on the tower’s exterior.

Flying magic patterns, even when incorporated inside the elementite, would still see some wear and tear, but that would first require the outer layers to be damaged. Until Jason reached a level above 13, they would have no way of refining the elementite itself.

Saleen knew all about Gaine’s methods. A magic tower of such a level would have been little more than a toy in his hands.

If both Saleen and his teacher were to become truly powerful, they would only need to use the magic amplifiers while inside the tower, and it would give them an area of attack over a hundred miles in radius.

By then, anywhere his tower was erected would have become the safest place around. It would make it far easier to protect a city.

The people whom Saleen brought with him this time were Nailisi, Eleanor, Jola, Nicholas, Sul, Truman, Daniel, and Isabella.

The Winged Skull was stationed at sea on guard against Glen, and so could not be summoned home. It was fortunate that Nailisi’s human form had acquired considerable power, and she had upgraded her combat capacity. Her human form now was equal in prowess to three-and-a-half level-ten professionals.

Nicholas stayed cooped up on the 18th floor of the magic tower to slowly refine the divine fire. The quality of his scepter as superb. Saleen was unable to melt down and craft the equipment left behind by Shanglan. However, he could still incorporate the divine fire, working to boost the scepter’s power.

There were also 3,600 demonic spirit enchanters within the Magical Element Tower, and Saleen needed little help as well, as he still had Puppet Constellation in his possession. Anyone who tried to overwhelm him with sheer numbers would be at a huge disadvantage.

The level-nine archer was left behind at Metatrin City. Jason had promised to use materials exchanged from the Dragon Island to craft some true archer equipment.

The Seven Nights longbow that Saleen had crafted for Eleanor actually worked better than elvish magic equipment. If Eleanor had not possessed special skills, she would not have been able to use its powers properly.

Saleen had gone to the trouble of recalling his most trusted people back to Metatrin City, and then fell completely silent. It was something that ought to have attracted attention. However, not only had Agares ratted out the spies that he had placed around Saleen, but he had also provided the mage with information on other force’s operatives.

Saleen was nice to Agares because he gained something from it. Agares was able to make the other spies disappear while doing essentially nothing, and that had allowed him to make further plans.

No one knew what Saleen was up to, only that he had mobilized a 500,000-strong army, and was going through Qin and heading all the way to Daliang City to reinforce his wife, Viscount Lex.

His entourage was massive, but no one could see where the 500,000 demons were.

Saleen had, in fact, mobilized them, but they were inside the purgatory of the devils. The best thing about that purgatory was not that just it was capable of carrying demons, but that it was able to produce magic bugs.

The area within that purgatory had expanded to a diameter of 1,200 miles. The magic bugs that it produced were frighteningly massive.

Thanks to the ample depth of the soil, there were underground fires and lava, enabling the production of special magic bugs capable of sustaining over a million demons.

The Magical Element Tower headed straight for Daliang City, and, that time around, Saleen hardly ran into any obstacles. Theisio was already waiting outside Daliang City. While he had yet to do anything, everyone saw the pope outside the city and blessed their own armies.

The reason that the pope had yet to make a move was that he did not want to expose his trump card. The true fighting would only begin when the fossilized gods at the outer areas of the Cemetery of the Giant were all killed.

Saleen was already amply prepared and wanted to clash with Theisio on the way to the city, but the pope himself was busy. Morale within Daliang City was at an all-time high, and the armies of the Holy See had been considerably drained of their human and material resources.

They even gave up most of northern Qin as a result.

Theisio even suspected that this front was all an elaborate trick played by Saleen. One huge pile of ruins had attracted about half of the powers of the few massive forces on the mainland.

If it had not been for the cemetery at Daliang City, Theisio would have commanded his armies personally to take out the Kingdom of Metatrin, wiping the bane that was Saleen from the face of the plane.