Badge in Azure

The dead knight’s armor was still in perfect shape. Only the mask on the face had been charred black. There were bits of carbon stuck around the holes for breathing.

One was able to deduce that when the knight had fallen, he’d been breathing fire. The fire was derived by burning the fats in the knight himself. His teeth were carbonized. When the flames shot out of the mask, the bits of carbon had gotten stuck to the holes.

The knight had been turned into a walking body of fire in purgatory.

They were burned as if had been sacrificed. This meant that there was no way the knight could have been saved using divine arts. Not even Theisio would have been able to do anything but watch the knight as he burned to death from the inside.

“Divine spell from the God of Purgatory I take it?” Saleen asked Nicholas.

“Indeed. Divine arts of the God of Purgatory have spells many involving sacrifices and curses. Evil exists in the hearts of men, and the God of Purgatory is always able to find ways to get to us. However, there is no need to worry, my liege. The curses of the God of Purgatory and the Lord of Light are different. Only people with huge exploitable darkness in them are targeted.”

Saleen nodded. Mages usually had stable, resilient temperaments. Such skills were mostly meant for dealing with warriors.

That had a lot to do with mental factors. The mental powers of mages were comparatively high and had better immunity against curses. Saleen notwithstanding, common level-11 mages did not even have mental powers comparable to Saleen’s. Furthermore, he had the Ring of Cosmos with him. When equipped, his mental powers would eclipse even those of level-12 mages.

“What about your lesser prophecy spell then?” Saleen asked all of a sudden.

“Lesser prophecy spells are not curses in their nature and they do not borrow the power of the gods. While they are not as powerful as greater prophecy spells, they leave no trace of their attacks. They are very potent against mages,” Nicholas answered. Seeing Saleen pause, Nicholas added, “My liege, you have the Figure of Fate, so lesser prophecy spells are basically not able to cause you any harm. They also wouldn’t be able to affect your skills.”

Saleen was relieved then. He knew what lesser prophecy spells were like. Those spells were not lethal in nature, but they worked by affecting the rules of fate. Such effects were usually very lethal in battle.

However, such skills needed to affect the soul before they were able to affect the target’s surroundings if they wanted to affect their target without leaving a trace.

Such skills had little effect on Saleen, but in actual practice, they were nonetheless an ability that could be leveled-up indefinitely. Greater prophecy spells were affected by the gods. For example, the greatest prophecy spells of the pope were capped at level-15.

The pope had never cast any greater prophecy spells on Saleen. Such skills were apparently very damaging to the pope as well.

“Logic… Yes, it’s material logic!” Saleen came to realize the workings of lesser prophecy spells all of a sudden. Nicholas looked at his lord with a startled expression. Even holy masters would have envied such a level of comprehension.

It seemed to him that Saleen was ill-suited to become a mage. If Saleen had become a holy master instead, he probably would have been able to reach higher achievements than Theisio.

Lesser prophecy spells affected souls first, but they were limited by the scope of material logic. It was something that many holy masters were incapable of realizing during their lives. Furthermore, Saleen was using a magic language to describe the phenomenon, which was very apt.

“In that case, the purgatory curse isn’t actually all that threatening after all. My Thundering Sound skills would be able to dispel it at any given moment. If I were to acquire Thundering Sound Territory, anyone who cast such a skill in front of me might as well be digging their own grave!” Saleen felt refreshed and was considerably less concerned about Baudelaire.

They continued forward and found more dead knights of the Holy See on the ground. They had died in a myriad of ways and they were all cursed. What was similar among them all was that, based on their armor alone, they had no wounds.

Saleen began to frown after having seen over 100 dead bodies.

“Nicholas, does this purgatory curse come without negative effects on the user? The way I see it, Baudelaire seems to be using it without restraint!”

Nicholas wore a bitter smile and said, “My liege, the skill’s recoil reflects on the God of Purgatory himself. Baudelaire was merely the one to offer sacrifice. It has little to do with him. He just has a little to gain by killing.”

Saleen only came to realize why Theisio was so concerned about Baudelaire after hearing that. Such skills were very lethal to the common folk. Very few people had skills and luck like Saleen, who was practically immune to curses.

Most people around Saleen were not immune to such curses.

Common folk did not even have ways of defending against such damages. Theisio was worried that Baudelaire would act against the adherents of the Holy See frequently. Baudelaire was capable of using such skills with impunity after all.

If Baudelaire was allowed to run all over the mainland, looking specifically for low-level adherents, or even for common nobles and other people to kill, things would prove disastrous very quickly.

“Everyone, be on your guard. If you happen to see Baudelaire, find a way to end him and don’t ever let him leave the cemetery.” Saleen no longer bothered with the bodies and simply gave the order to kill Baudelaire on sight.

All seven of his followers acknowledged and the demons got closer to the center. The party did not move towards the center of the cemetery. They instead took a detour and continued to search the ancient battlefields and abandoned cities.

Saleen was certain that they were no longer on Myers Mainland.

While there were possibilities of ancient battlefields being hidden on Myers Mainland, the cemetery was simply too huge. According to the calculations of the mages, spaces concealed on Myers Mainland could not make up more than one percent of the total area of the mainland. Somehow, the land they were on was almost the size of an empire.

This place was probably somewhere like the Imperial City of the Abyss. Saleen sped up and chased after Pope Theisio.

More than 300 people around the pope were dead after pursuing their target for a day. Baudelaire did not stop. His resentment ran deep, right down to the bone. So long as he existed, he would act against the Holy See and attack them ceaselessly.

Furthermore, having embraced the God of Purgatory, the possibility of Baudelaire still holding any morals was nil. He would act against and attack any adherents that he was able to find. Saleen came to even realize that he would have probably acted against the believers of the Goddess of Nature.

It was a resentment directed to the gods, despite the fact that Baudelaire had embraced a god himself.

Saleen did not want to see Baudelaire killing believers of the goddess along the way. He would not have wanted to do anything if he had remained ignorant of all that, but now that he’d come to realize the gravity of the situation, he was compelled to stop Baudelaire.

They circled around the energy barrier at the center of the cemetery and had traveled over 3,000 miles before they caught sight of the Holy See’s party.

It seemed that the Holy See’s party had lost about half of their numbers, leaving only about 1,300 behind. Such an outcome exceeded Saleen’s expectations. Baudelaire had killed about 800 knights in his quest. The rate at which he slaughtered knights was frightening to even Saleen.

There were still 49 red-robed bishops with the knights to deal with, and not to mention, Theisio, who possessed the three godly items.

Baudelaire was right behind those powerful on beings, hunting down his targets one by one.

Saleen watched things unfold from about 80 miles away. He was still unable to find traces of Baudelaire. It was no surprise that the pope was at wit’s end against Baudelaire, as not even Saleen’s Elemental Eye was able to trace him.

Saleen shrunk the area covered by the Puppet Constellation to avoid stacking with the territory Theisio emanated.

While Saleen was being very careful, he nonetheless saw Theisio’s eyes turn in his direction. It seemed that Theisio’s three godly items had a greater range than what he had expected.

However, Saleen was indifferent. He knew well what Theisio was capable of. If he were to be robbed of the three godly items, Saleen would be able to take him on. With the three godly items still on Theisio’s person, none of them would be able to do anything against the other.

Theisio had indeed found Saleen. While Saleen had put the Puppet Constellation away and rendered the area under his control down to a dozen miles, the God Grace Staff was still able to pick up Saleen’s familiar presence.

Theisio thought that there was no need to fight Saleen further. Saleen’s skills were too eerie. Theisio needed to give his all to fight that mage. He would not be able to lower his guard for even a split second.

If he wanted to kill Saleen, he needed to wait until he could advance to level-12 and devour the two oracles.

However, Theisio did not realize that having such thoughts meant that he had begun to fear Saleen. He had, after all, been pierced in the heart by Saleen. Theisio indeed felt like he had already died once.

Raphael would have definitely been more than just a level-10 mage. He had created a skill capable of damaging souls that could make even people like Theisio fear Saleen. But then again, neither Saleen nor Theisio had given the matter much thought.

Surviving an attack by the Crystal Finger had its repercussions. If Theisio were to lose the three godly items, he would run right away and would not dare to face off against Saleen ever again.

No mage had ever looked into skills meant specifically for dealing with believers.

Saleen slowed down for a bit. He still had enough mental power to continue plundering equipment and materials, while at the same time keeping a close eye on the Holy See’s party. He wanted to see how Baudelaire hunted down adherents of the Holy See.

A demon fell on his back all of a sudden. Intense flames shot out from his armor.

Saleen shot a lightning icicle immediately. Baudelaire had actually acted against him!

The lightning icicle drew an extremely complicated arc in the air, pursuing the target that Saleen locked onto. Baudelaire had exposed himself by killing a demon.

A slit in space was conjured over 100 meters in front of Saleen. Baudelaire’s face was smirking in an evil manner at him.

Voom!

The Seven Nights rang and an elvish space arrow was loosed. Eleanor was prepared for this. The arrow pierced the slit, firing accurately at Baudelaire’s face.

“Saleen, you can’t kill me!” Baudelaire said with a shrill, bird-like voice. His mouth jutted out and looked like a hard beak. However, birds had no teeth, yet sharp teeth filled his mouth. There were black bloodstains on his teeth as well.

The elvish space arrow broke the slit in the space. Eleanor’s arrow worked perfectly.

Baudelaire drew a line at his side using his finger, conjuring another slit. He then leaped into it with the lightning icicle following close behind.