Badge in Azure

“As you wish, your highness.” Baudelaire walked out of the temple and a green bridge appeared beneath his legs. He walked up to the Floating City one step at a time on the bridge, as devout as one on a pilgrimage.

Saleen saw that Baudelaire was dressed in a lavish, elegant robe and that his face was covered with an intricate mask. The mask was transparent, with a blank, deadpan face of the figure visible underneath.

Green holy prose coursed over the transparent mask, exuding a mystical charm.

The eyes of the figure were made from a pair of tiger-eye stones. Such low-level gems shone with a brilliant light over Baudelaire’s face.

Baudelaire did not conceal the fact that he was a figure. He had used unknown means to get the adherents of Nature Faith to acknowledge him as the pope.

People who had been in contact with gods had all learned a trick or two. The tricks were either used for deception or salvation.

The green bridge was conjured using divine spells. Saleen did not know that the Goddess of Nature had once created such flashy yet practically useless divine spells. That might have actually been an invention of Baudelaire’s. However, Saleen had to admit that the believers loved that scene very much.

The feeling of walking up to heaven, and the temptation of attaining eternity.

Baudelaire came before Saleen, kneeling to kiss Saleen’s shoe.

Saleen did not feel any disgust over what he did, as Baudelaire was a devout follower. None of what he did there was seen by any of the 800 thousand believers below, but they were able to feel it nonetheless. The pope submitted before Saleen. Saleen behaved very in a very composed manner.

In other religions, such a scene would have wrought havoc. But then again, Saleen was the one who had established the entire Nature Faith in the first place, and every single believer knew that.

Furthermore, with even more shocking scenes unfolding right before their eyes, what they saw right then did not surprise the believers all that much.

That was the subtle influence that Saleen had on his audience.

On that day, he shocked the believers with the advent of the Floating City. Baudelaire took the chance to channel his faith through Saleen, making his silhouette look even clearer in the minds of the believers.

“You’ve done well, Baudelaire,” Saleen said to him in encouragement.

Baudelaire did not stand up. He simply straightened up while still kneeling and answered, “Your highness, I feel that now you have all the power you need to crush the Holy See.”

Baudelaire was talking about the Floating City. The size of the city notwithstanding, what was more important was that every inch of the city’s land could be used to craft equipment.

It was extravagant to the extreme, yet such extravagance was played well. It exuded their weight and importance instead of only their wealth.

“Baudelaire, I know that you hold great enmity for the Holy See. But there are two level-12 oracles there, and they are from his divine kingdoms…”

Saleen looked at Baudelaire’s demonic eyes and found the resentment and hatred within them to have considerably thinned since he last saw him. Baudelaire then lowered his head and said, “Your highness, I shall keep waiting then.”

“Yes, you need to keep waiting.” Saleen paused for a bit and sensed no ripple from Baudelaire’s soul. He only continued after feeling that. “I’ve killed Theisio completely. I take it that you’ve gotten rid of the great head inquisitor, no?”

Baudelaire’s body only shuddered as he said, “Indeed, I’ve completely eradicated the great head inquisitor. Not even the Divine Tablet spell would be able to save him.”

He did not know what he felt when he heard news of Theisio’s death. There was no way he could have asked to be allowed to exact revenge with his own hands.

While Theisio looked amicable and kind, the Tribunal had only been able to pull off all their unforgivable atrocities because the pope had given his silent permission.

Theisio had died, but Baudelaire had wanted to end him very, very much.

The Holy See had only regained its vigor over the past several decades because of Theisio. Because of him, the power of the Holy See had expanded significantly. Theisio had raised over 100 red-robed bishops by himself. While they were not extremely powerful, they were good at management and administrative work.

The Tanggulasi royalty had only been able to take back some of what was theirs after toiling for hundreds of years, all of which they lost again during Theisio’s time as pope. Such was Theisio’s worth.

If he had not encountered Saleen, Theisio would have definitely become the greatest pope in history. However, was also the weakest in terms of combat capacity.

The previous pope had been at level-12 when he’d taken up the position.

Saleen did not care how Theisio died, but Baudelaire did. He had hoped to see Theisio die within Holy City, right before his devout believers and the red-robed bishops. Instead, he had died unceremoniously and silently.

“Your highness, I mean no offense, but I feel as if Theisio is still alive,” Baudelaire blurted out all of a sudden.

“Maybe. If Theisio has methods to resurrect himself, there is nothing I would be able to do about it. But at the very least, he has already died once by my hand. The Holy See is truly a pain in the a**…” Saleen answered nonchalantly.

Baudelaire did not continue. Saleen was an astrologer, so Baudelaire’s words put him on guard. The great head inquisitor had means of resurrecting, so why was Theisio, the leader of the Holy See, killed so easily by my hands?

Night fell. Pope Baudelaire and Saleen the Lightning King spent hours talking. Millions of seeds rained down from the Floating City, taking root, sprouting, blossoming, and finally, bearing fruit in Nature City.

When dawn came, Nature City was filled with the fresh scent of the red fruit.

It was the purest fruit of the Nature Faith, a favorite of the Goddess of Myers.

The Floating City hovered above Nature City for three days, sending down hundreds of thousands of demons. All of them were clad in temple knight armor as they joined Nature City’s ranks.

Baudelaire gained his first bishop as well—a kind spirit.

It seemed to be a sign that the light of the Goddess of Myers was about to shine on other planes.

The spirit was a jade skeleton, was, of course, assigned from the Winged Skull’s side. The Winged Skull had finished cordoning the seas off. Alchemy City had attempted to break through, but they were met with resistance from Grand Duke Iron Blood’s fleet.

There was little left to the imagination when it came to naval battles. The power of the Ancient gave Alchemy City a hard time. Unless Alchemy City came to possess warships of similar class, the Ancient would simply be an insurmountable pass at sea.

The alliance between Grand Duke Iron Blood and Saleen was also a technical one. Restoration of the Ancient was one of the terms they’d laid out. Saleen had acquired dragons bred on Dragon Island, all manner of methods for taming dragons, as well as a large number of dragon eggs.

Grand Duke’s investment paid off. Saleen released part of the Ancient’s schematics to him. They, of course, had the manufacturing process of magic power furnaces omitted, but some technical aspects of building the magic net were included.

Laying out a magic net was costly. Without something like the Magical Element Tower present, a magic net was only good for defense and utterly incapable of being used for offense.

Of course, it was possible to set up a magic net on the Ancient, but the warship was incapable of flight and was only able to sail on the sea.

Saleen had no fear of the grand duke using the Ancient against him. The grand duke was not that stupid. In the same way, Saleen would have been able to use the dragons against the grand duke.

Saleen sent his teacher back to Metatrin City after he finished with the affairs at Nature City, He then assigned Sika to his side.

Saleen was unable to continue looking for temples because he had two matters to address first. One of them was building a memorial where Pompeii City had once been. The other was giving Gaine the Star Gathering Needle in the Imperial City of the Abyss.

He was unable to delay with either, as Saleen had promised to meet Gaine at the Imperial City of the Abyss as soon as he reached level-10 as an astrologer.

It was fortunate that Saleen already had the Star Gathering Needle with him, so he did not need to spend more time locating one. As such, he decided to make a trip to Pompeii City.

On his way to Pompeii City, the number knights in the Nature Faith’s corps expanded to 500 thousand strong, 400 thousand of which were demons. The number of human knights increased to about 100 thousand.

It was a very frightening rate of expansion. No religions had been able to expand at such a speed in Qin before.

Furthermore, Nature Faith’s expansion seemed to be increasing. It was like a monster that kept bloating up, taking up more and more of northern Qin. Pope Theisio had perished, the Holy See’s forces were crushed by the flood, all 49 of the red-robed bishops were dead, and the great head inquisitor was nowhere to be found.

All of that robbed the Holy See of their remaining powers in northern Qin, forcing them to retreat to Kroraina.

The Nature Faith absorbed the knights into their forces, preparing to retaliate.

Within Holy City, the church that had once belonged to the pope was gone, replaced with two towering buildings. The two oracles had moved two mountains and had the holy masters carve them out, building two churches that were near 1,000 meters in height.

The pope’s chief of affairs, Sharjah, had taken over the position of the pope for the time being. Sharjah, who was armed with the Ring of Many Gods, could have become a supreme figure at one time. But given the return of the two oracles, he was once again made into a figurehead.

His use was only to serve as a temporary appointee within the codex.

Until the next pope was elected, Sharjah would wield the powers of the pope in the pope’s place. However, Sharjah did not even have the right to appoint red-robed bishops. All of the new red-robed bishops were appointed by the two oracles.

Sharjah was vexed, yet there was nothing he could do about it. He was no match for the two oracles. Despite being pope, he was sent to Glorious City to investigate an important case from almost two years prior.

Glorious City had once served as the core of the Holy See. It had since fallen on hard times. Sending him to such a place was apparently a part of a move taken by the two oracles to get rid of any figures deemed as eyesores. The oracles needed to fool the Lord of Glory, so they were unable to outright kill Sharjah.

The pope’s chief of affairs was a position appointed by their god. If both the pope and the pope’s chief of affairs ended up dead at the same time, their god needed to take note. As a precaution against this, the two figures never ventured outside together.

One of them needed to take care of things at the core of the Holy See, getting ready to face any unforeseen circumstances.

The two oracles appointed a new pope as soon as Sharjah left Holy City.

The new pope was a boy. It was said that he had not been a part of the faith’s ranks for long. He was not even someone from the Tanggulasi Empire.

The name of the boy pope was Gagas.

The intention to cast Sharjah aside was apparent, but he had no choice but to take his orders. His entourage consisted of less than 100 people. He had lost the position as the pope’s stand-in while he was on the road. He was no longer able to serve as the pope’s chief of affairs.

Sharjah became little more than a joke in the Pivotal Council. Furthermore, if he were to return to Holy City, he would have to surrender the Ring of Many Gods.

The 60 holy masters he had with him felt dejected as well. It was as if all of them had been exiled. The Holy See’s core powers no longer had anything to do with them.

The horse carriages moved along the road, making almost no sound. The horse carriage at the front stopped suddenly. Sharjah frowned and his body froze. He saw a young man dressed in a white robe before him. He had no idea when the intruder had entered the carriage, or how he was sitting right in front of him.

“Lord Fycro…” Sharjah addressed the man before him.