Badge in Azure

The wooden faces of the eight figures slowly changed. Under the influence of the constellation power, all eight of them took the image of Saleen and the rest of his people. That was not all. The internal structures of those figures began to change as well, becoming bodies of flesh and blood full of life.

Level-10 astrologers were capable of maintaining such statuses for hours. In actual fact, having the star figures around at the moment of entry into the cemetery would have sufficed, as the curses would have definitely fallen onto the figures.

The curse’s power had definitely been weakened after being around for tens of thousands of years. Saleen still made one for himself just in case.

Stand-in figures were very common tricks employed by astrologers. Defense measures employed by astrologers were not as varied as those of mages. However, the defensive ability of the stand-in figures was incredible.

The stand-in figures were capable of taking the brunt of all skills, including the ones meant for attacking souls. Powerful astrologers even had hundreds to thousands of similar stand-in figures on standby at all times.

Doing something like that was very lavish, but it made the one doing so very hard to kill.

Common astrologers often spent some time and effort on preparing over a dozen of the stand-in figures for themselves.

However, starline cloth was very expensive, and the extravagant spending of astrologers went no further than that. Having huge numbers of stand-in figures was the dream of every astrologer, yet the ones capable of achieving such feats were as rare as mages like Saleen.

Saleen’s level-10 astrology was not capable of maintaining many figures at once. Ten would have been about his limit. In this situation, he was only using the stand-in figures to deal with the curses and did not need them for battle. As such, the stand-in figures he created lacked any combat capacity.

The eight figures were infused with the bodies of their respective owners. Saleen then rushed everyone out of the Magical Element Tower, saying, “Get in there quick. The figures will only last for six hours. After that, they will only be able to take hits from attacks in your stead.”

“Within those six hours, you are free to attack however you like. The figures are capable of withstanding attacks from any kind of power. They will be able to take even fatal hits for you at least once.”

Saleen had elaborated on the attributes of the figures before. Nonetheless, he reminded them one more time.

Saleen left the tower behind. There were 3,600 demonic spirits and Rossen there to keep watch over things. If Theisio wanted to leave, he would have to spend a huge amount of time and effort on doing so. Meanwhile, Saleen was able to come and go from there at any time by using the tower.

That line of thought was why Saleen had let Baudelaire into the cemetery of the giant in the first place.

Once they entered, those who went inside before Saleen would have to deal with him and the 3,600 demonic spirits in the tower all at the same time.

Saleen was no longer fond of schemes and tricks. Even Theisio knew that such calculations were done only because their hands were forced. The pope had to get inside the cemetery.

That was because there were mages from Daliang City and Holy Rock City inside the cemetery. If he couldn’t get inside, there wouldn’t be anything left for him. As for Saleen blocking the entrance, that was something left to be dealt with later.

If push came to shove, then he would simply invoke the power of the three godly items and leave forcefully. He could stay holed up within Holy City for a year and no one would be able to do anything against him.

What the pope had calculated, Saleen was able to come to the same conclusion. Both parties knew that if negotiations failed, they would have to duke it out, regardless of whether or not they were actually capable of taking each other on. The cemetery of the giant was simply too hard to resist.

None of them would rest well until they got inside.

Covert schemes were no match for overt schemes. Overt schemes were no match for the well-beaten path.

Do whatever you have deemed necessary and back your enemy into a corner.

If Saleen attacked the Holy City with an army, Theisio couldn’t just run away and leave the city behind. Even if he were to be unable to resist the army, he would have to hold the line one way or another. Such was the tried and tested beaten path.

There was no need for tricks when wars were fought in such ways.

All eight of them entered the cemetery and Saleen shared his senses with Nailisi, enabling more of them to be on the lookout. He observed the place using the Elemental Eye. I was just as it had been described by Jalin—barren and devoid of light.

If he did not have the Elemental Eye skill, everyone’s sight would have been restricted to hundreds of meters.

However, there were several people at level-10 among those at Saleen’s side, including Jola, Nailisi, and Nicholas.

Among the others, Daniel was a death mage and was immune to the dark. Eleanor was an elf. Her vision was over ten times stronger than that of humans. Isabella was somewhat weaker, yet her close combat abilities were formidable enough to deal with enemies who got up-close and personal.

The most frustrated one was Sul. He had no way of advancing to level-10. In such an environment, he was the one who was most likely to get injured. However, golden grand swordmasters were no weaklings, and they would be able to survive better than level-9 mages.

Saleen put up his Puppet Constellation and unleashed the puppets. The Puppet Constellation was hardly affected within the cemetery of the giant. The area the territory was able to cover expanded to 60 a mile radius as Saleen’s astrology ability advanced.

It was an unexpected gain. But Saleen did not want to spend too much mental power on it. As such, he would not fight in such a manner.

The puppets began to collect all manner of material and equipment under Saleen’s instructions, even the broken ones. Many broken wares could be made into decent materials for alchemy.

Bronze rust, for instance, that was around ten thousand years old was would on par with gold in value. However, it had to be from alloys made according to certain ratios instead of naturally formed bronze.

Only such materials with bronze as the main ingredient and many rare metals added in, which then rusted for over ten thousand years, was ever deemed qualified to serve as alchemical material.

The cemetery was filled with things like that.

The ancient battlefield had never been cleaned and there were many ancient battlefields outside the energy barrier. Abandoned cities were all over the place. What Jalin was able to see was just the tip of the iceberg. The place seemed like another plane altogether.

Saleen no longer had any need for those alchemical materials himself, but Metatrin City needed them. A mage’s growth required many magical experiments to be performed, and alchemy was a good way to enhance one’s magic level.

Saleen had almost ten thousand mages in his employment, but he did not have lineages and stockpiles like those in Alchemy City. If he didn’t sweep everything up everything he found, he would be able to take care of the mages serving him.

There were over 9,000 mages that Saleen could put to work in the alchemy factories when he wanted equipment crafted.

Efficiency on that scale had its price. The price was having to keep those mages in long term employment while enabling them to live better lives at Metatrin City than they would elsewhere.

All eight of them had merged with their stand-in figures, yet none of them met any enemies. Saleen was unable to do anything about that. He was not a level-13 astrologer, so it was not possible for him to craft stand-in figures that could be stored for prolonged periods.

All the figures he crafted needed to be used immediately.

The walls of the city up ahead were wrecked. However, there were still some buildings left standing. Saleen had the puppets begin dismantling the city. The rate at which 500 thousand puppets worked to accomplish such a goal was frightening.

Many of the puppets were like mechanical souls, meaning that they were complex machines instead of weapons for combat.

The very reason why humans had crafted alchemical machinery was to have them perform menial labor in humans’ stead.

Those large scale puppets were only average in combat, yet they were far quicker at taking houses apart than golden grand swordmasters would be. Plus, they were able to do so with better efficiency. What Saleen needed were materials in their complete forms instead of materials that had been reduced to dust.

Saleen was very pleased with his progress. However, in the eyes of others, he was probably seen as a swarm of locusts, leaving nothing behind wherever he passed.

Saleen wanted what was within the energy barrier as well, but those powerful fossilized gods were not something that he wanted to take on at the moment.

He would probably have to leave the Magical Element Tower there from then on out, making it so that anyone who wanted to get into the cemetery of the giant would need to pass through the Magical Element Tower.

Saleen was in desperate need of power. The Magical Element Tower was a large scale piece of equipment that was inconvenient to prepare. It was also incomplete. The tower would eventually be placed on the fragments of the Sky City in order to create a flying city.

When the city was finished, Saleen would have no need to fear any army.

In Saleen’s mind, his royal city was definitely not Metatrin City. It was his Sky City. His most trusted people would be able to live in Sky City. The city would be able to move in lightning and thunder, preventing any powerful people from invading the place.

When humans created the Sky Cities, they usually took them to other planes, leaving none behind on Myers Mainland. Such was the power of the Sky Cities. They were capable of traversing planes.

Saleen had not dared to dream about such things initially, but Jason told Saleen with his actions that if a mage didn’t imagine and dream, then they would have been better off becoming warriors.

Every single piece of equipment Saleen had at his disposal was the product of immense feats of imagination.

There was no worry about running out of space in which to keep the massive amount of materials he’d taken apart. The 12 Notes of First Purgatory was Saleen’s largest piece of space equipment.

Other than the few pieces that possessed special properties that prevented them from being used for storage, all the other spaces were capable of holding practically endless amounts of items.

With a diameter and height of 1,200 miles, there was hardly anything that his equipment was unable to store.

Nailisi summoned some demons just in case and split them into squadrons. Every single squadron consisted of 20 demons that spread out near Saleen according to the rules of formations employed by armies.

Such worries were actually pointless since there were no plants to be found in the barren cemetery of the giant. No living being would have been able to survive for long in such an environment.

“Master, the Holy See.” Nailisi pointed to the front all of a sudden. She was sharing senses with Saleen and was the second furthest seeing person in the party.

Saleen looked up and saw a knight clad in crimson armor lying dead on the ground.

The knight’s armor was unscathed and not even their weapon showed signs of use. Saleen shuddered and checked the stand-in figure. He found that there was only an hour of life left on it.

If the curse is so powerful, how did Jalin end up unscathed back then?

“It’s a curse. Be on your guard,” Saleen said, reminding all of them before walking up to the knight’s dead body. He was only about 20 miles away from the knight, which was a distance that Saleen was able to cover in an instant with his heightened speed.

Saleen observed the dead body of the knight in the crimson armor up close.

The originally crimson mask of the knight had black marks all over it. It was a sign of being burned.

“My liege, it was a purgatory curse. A work of Baudelaire!” Nicholas’ voice was cold.