Badge in Azure

Theisio’s face twitched. The God of the Underworld was a heretical god in the Codex of Light. It was a being that must be killed. However, the Lord of Glory did not possess the strength to do so.

“The God of Purgatory was a heretical god that was banished to purgatory by God. It was not a being from the purgatory plane. Hell was something created by God, originally meant to punish…”

“To punish people like me, eh?” Saleen interrupted Theisio with a smirk.

Theisio realized all of a sudden that Saleen was teasing him, talking with him only to buy time. He was enabling Baudelaire to get further into the cemetery.

“Saleen, you’re a disappointment.” Theisio stopped talking altogether, having deemed it a waste of breath. Saleen’s smirk remained unchanged, just like the mage’s mind.

“No, Lord Pope, I really want to know. What is the God of Purgatory?” Saleen looked at Theisio sincerely. Even the likes of Theisio could be played by Saleen. To him, the Holy See was no longer something that inspired awe in any sense. Theisio was little more than a very powerful enemy to him.

Theisio suppressed his irritation and continued to explain. “It is a demigod, which means that it is not a god.”

Saleen thought deep down that, as a level-14 being, there was no way of dealing with that demigod unless the Lord of Glory went to purgatory himself. The oracles that he’d sent were at level-12 at the very most.

“Lord Pope, demigods are incapable of going against the Lord of Glory. This Baudelaire seems to be a lesser threat than I am,” Saleen said to Theisio in a normal tone.

“Are you telling me that you want to fight me to the death right now?” Theisio looked at Saleen. The mage had dealt one heavy blow to him after another. The army had suffered massive losses which had caused a considerable setback to their plan of unifying the entire mainland.

According to reason, he should be killing Saleen first, but Baudelaire now proved to be more dangerous than anyone else.

A person returning from hell would become the successor to the God of Purgatory. If such a successor were to spark a divine fire within the plane, it would mean the end of the entire Holy See.

Theisio knew well enough that it was impossible for the Lord of Glory to advent on Myers Mainland in the coming millennium.

“You have the three godly items, so I can’t kill you. I have the Magical Element Tower, so you can’t kill me. A tough issue for both of us indeed,” Saleen replied with a troubled tone.

Theisio knew that Saleen was telling the truth. His instant divine spells, even level-11 spells, would not be able to kill Saleen. The difference between levels 11 and 10 was not as pronounced as the difference between levels 10 and 9.

Furthermore, Saleen was armed with powerful equipment, some of which rivaled even the three godly items in terms of power.

Divine spells of greater strength were not instantly castable ones. They needed a lot of preparation time. If they were, it would have enabled Saleen to deploy his tower and hide inside.

He had seen what it was like for Saleen to be inside the tower. 13 consecutive slashes from the Sword of Divine Punishment had failed to even scratch the tower.

“Saleen, Baudelaire might become the next God of Purgatory by sparking a divine fire on Myers Mainland,” Theisio said, revealing a bit of the related secrets while observing changes in Saleen’s eyes.

Saleen’s blue eyes looked like a frozen lake without a single ripple on it.

“So that’s how it is then, Lord Pope. I take it that you know about me building the Nature City with the intention of resurrecting the Goddess of Myers then?”

“Why you!” The pope stopped altogether and raised the God Grace Staff in his hand. Saleen brandished his magic staff.

Boom!

Gray light flashed through the pope’s staff over a hundred times. Saleen only cast a level-11 spell before him—Crystal Mist.

Countless fine, minute crystals spun before Saleen, forming a misty structure.

Theisio’s attacks were deflected by the mist and weakened, dissipating before they even reached Saleen.

“Saleen!” Tens of thousands of water droplets appeared right before Theisio, all of them imbued with potent poisons that vaporized without warning. It was a compound magic spell.

High-pressure water vapor shrouded Theisio in an instant. The poisons within the vapor were so potent that one breath was all it would take to kill even dragons immediately.

An airtight protective barrier was conjured from Theisio’s God Grace Staff, keeping him safe. The light shone onto the mist and caused massive explosions. However, no burns resulted from the explosions as the explosions were simply the elements being disintegrated in the high-pressure environment.

A three meter-tall angel appeared eerily behind Saleen. Nailisi, who was behind it, slashed at the angel with the Sword of Rules.

The wings of the angel were torn to shreds by the Sword of Rules in an instant. Nailisi opened the purgatory of purification and sucked the angel inside. The angel had pure energy which would serve as a decent power source for the collection of purgatories once it was purified.

Genesis was something difficult. If the upkeep was difficult on a daily basis, the 12 Notes of First Purgatory would eventually slow to what they had once had been.

Both sides cast two attacks each. Neither was able to one-up one the other. Saleen had the advantage in numbers while the pope had powerful equipment.

Unless he was able to appear out of nowhere at very close distances like Agares, Saleen could not sneak up on Theisio while he was armed with the God Grace Staff.

Nailisi’s human form was capable of both magic and martial arts. The power of the Sword of Rules had only begun to be displayed, yet she had already been able to easily cut down a level-10 angel.

“You want to have another go, Theisio?” Saleen felt the power of the Thunder Dragon Blaster being restocked, enabling it to attack again. While it was less than enough for what was needed to end Theisio, it nonetheless would be able to force Theisio into using a lot of his powers.

A lightning icicle was more than capable of breaking a piece of equipment.

The pope probably had many other means of protection besides the three godly items. He would not have dared to get so close to Saleen otherwise.

“Saleen, the heir to the God of Purgatory is actually a clone of the god itself! If Baudelaire becomes a new God of Purgatory and sparks a divine fire on Myers Mainland, it would mean opening the gates of hell right here. Countless abominations would be unleashed onto Myers Mainland. Make no mistake, abominations are not demons. Abominations love slaughtering everything within sight. Nothing will be able to save Myers Mainland from destruction then.”

“Wouldn’t that be a good thing? You have your Holy City and I have the Nature City. We can just hole ourselves inside those cities and be safe.” Saleen laughed.

“If the God of Purgatory creates 12 clones and advances to level-15, not even Myers would be able to get resurrected, as he would simply kill all of her believers!”

“Be more concerned for your Lord of Glory if you have time to butt into Myers’ affairs!” Saleen’s words were extremely pointed and Theisio had finally had enough. He raised the Seal of Divine Power in his hand and faced Saleen, yet he felt incapable of doing anything more.

Saleen was just a level-10 mage, while Theisio had advanced to level-11 and was armed with three godly items.

Saleen lifted his left arm and aimed the Thunder Dragon Blaster at Theisio.

“Theisio, divine might means nothing to me. You’d better think of something else instead!” Saleen was not teasing the pope. He had Thundering Sound skills. Each of them was capable of taking on the might of the gods.

It was especially so in the case of the Ring of Cosmos. Saleen felt that the power of his Thundering Sound skills had grown considerably, although he didn’t know why. The power of the rules in them was also amplified.

It seemed as if the Ring of Cosmos was imbued with lightning rules as well. They were greater than the ones he knew.

“We’ll talk about a ceasefire if you can take this one hit of mine and survive!” Theisio was in a very bad mood due to being repeatedly pushed by Saleen. No prayers could ease him. At that moment, he was occupied only with the thought of killing Saleen.

The mage did not enter the tower, but he nonetheless felt that he would be able to do nothing if large scale skills were used.

Theisio was burning with rage and was unable to be calmed.

“Anything that attacks my liege is evil. Anything that believes in the gods is foolish. Anything that refuses to stop shall be aged…” Nicholas chanted some prayers all of a sudden. His chant was of a lesser prophecy spell of the fallen holy masters.

The spell was aimed at Pope Theisio, who possessed the three godly items.

The pope’s plans were in shambles all of a sudden. He shouted in rage, “You will die, Nicholas!”

“Bullsh**!” Saleen shouted back. He used Thundering Sound skills and 12 rumbles of thunder were heard. Theisio was unable to continue as he felt the rumble of thunder reverberating in his mind, cutting him off from any divine skills he would have been able to use.

While it was not a territorial power, the Thundering Explosion nonetheless possessed properties of the territory.

Saleen came to realize something about those properties. While he lacked the talent of Jason to digest and use what he’d learned in battle right away, it sufficed to be able to possess realizations.

Saleen was confident that it would take only about half a month for him to develop a Thundering Territory.

The Thundering Territory completely ignored level differences and was able to nullify any skills related to stunning, mental shock, and curses below level-13. Not even skills of such nature beyond level-13 could be smoothly cast within the Thundering Territory.

Talent was something that no one was able to improve upon. Saleen had mystical encounters of all sorts, yet he was unable to truly keep up with his teacher. Furthermore, Jason himself probably had his own encounters in addition to his powerful lineage.

The lesser prophecy spell was completely without problems. Contained within Nicholas’ Scepter of the Fallen was a wisp of divine fire.

He had forcefully absorbed the power of the gods and the lesser prophecy spells until they were over 100 times stronger than they would have been.

He was no longer afraid of the recoil. The wisp of divine fire would naturally be absorbed in his stead.

As such, Nicholas had no qualms about casting the skill that he was most versed in, not even against someone like Theisio.

The original skill within Theisio’s Seal of Divine Power was cut off and the Flower of Evil bloomed again. Over 300 evil angels emerged this time. They took the brunt of the lesser prophecy spell in Theisio’s stead, aging and crumbling one after another.

That was the very reason why Theisio dared not to fall despite having acquired two level-12 oracles. He would no longer be able to use the three godly items if he fell.

Without the three godly items, he felt that he would longer be able to overpower Fycro.

The Seal of Divine Power that Fycro had given him did not come without cost. Theisio had exchanged for it with treasures that had been kept in the Pivotal Council for ages.

 Fycro would probably become someone like the head warden if he were to be able to find ways to use that newly acquired equipment. That would make it difficult for the pope to keep him in check.

Seven lightning icicles shot from Saleen’s Thunder Dragon Blaster, heading straight for Theisio. The pope breathed for a little bit and cast Divine Protection.

His Divine Protection was completely different. Countless images of angels flew within the white barrier of light. It was something resulting from the power of Eternal Blessing. The lightning icicles shot from Saleen’s Thunder Dragon Blaster disappeared within the Divine Protection Spell.

Defense Territory!