Badge in Azure

In the air, Saleen commanded personally and explained to Safilos how the magic net worked.

It was not that Safilos knew nothing about magic. He had learned the skill once upon a time to understand more about the power of elements. He was unable to develop magic chords from his training, however. He was only able to pick up level-0 magic. None of that got in the way of his training in swordsmanship though.

This basic knowledge provided a good foundation for what he learned from Saleen. He was all set.

“Your Highness, wouldn’t there be any side-effects to using the magic net?” Safilos inquired in a rather formal tone.

“There are. Enchanters who use magic nets damage their bodies in exchange for heightened mental powers. But the enchanters I employ are all demons. Their bodies already have intimidating self-repair prowess that keeps them from suffering too much while they’re alive. If they can’t work for me as enchanters, they have to live their lives in a kill-or-be-killed manner in the demon plane. Who knows how long the can live like that.”

From what Saleen had already told him, Safilos knew that if humans became enchanters, the consequences would be direr. Human bodies were not as formidable demons in terms of self-repair.

If humans became enchanters, they would also age rapidly. Unlike true mages, it was impossible for them to have strong bodies.

Saleen’s constitution was stronger than a silver grand swordmaster. If he learned martial art techniques, his prowess in clashing head-on would equal a silver grand swordmaster’s, except for the use of sword aura.

It would have sufficed if he had a weapon in his hand that was resilient enough.

After the magic net was completed, Safilos knew he would need to hand over the defense to Saleen. He was unable to just mobilize his powers from the imperial capital to his own kingdom. Moreover, he was unwilling to leave Holy Rock City.

No doubt Saleen had ways of getting Safilos to return to the imperial capital. Annihilating the mages of Alchemy City would be an excellent way of accomplishing that.

As for the crimes of the mages of Alchemy City or whatever, none of that mattered anymore.

Alchemy City’s current level of powers threatened the safety of the empire, but the mages were unwilling to provide the empire with any help anymore. That would have been a great crime.

Saleen got what he came for—getting Safilos to agree to work with him. Taking on Alchemy City was just an excuse. That’s not what Saleen was there for. He only had one goal in mind, and that was to have Safilos secretly support him, thereby allowing him to propagate the Nature Faith.

The Goddess of Myers was hardly discriminated against on Myers Mainland. In all records found regarding the goddess, she had always played the role of protector of the mainland.

Saleen knew enough to tell that some measures had been left behind by Goddess of Myers herself. There would definitely have been a great many who reaped benefits from her, whereas some, like him, were working to resurrect the goddess.

Those who received less would have probably needed only to spread the good name of the Goddess of Myers.

Saleen did not really annihilate the mages sent by the Elemental Hand, as some of them were not in the city at the time. Some were loitering about tens of kilometers away, cleaning up escaped troops.

Those mages were quick on their feet. Saleen did not bother pursuing them.

One newly advanced level-7 sorcerer was flying eastward as quickly possible with no worries about being followed. Rafel pursued that mage personally.

She gripped her spear as her body seemed to meld entirely with her surroundings, making it impossible for that sorcerer to detect her.

After flying for over 1,000 kilometers, a ten-meter-tall puppet burst through the mountains all of a sudden and headed straight for the sorcerer. Elated, the sorcerer took out a scroll. They were about to go up to the puppet when Rafel sensed that something was wrong.

A black beam shot from the puppet’s chest and penetrated the sorcerer’s body.

The young sorcerer was killed by the puppet in a single shot. The puppet exploded seconds later and was reduced to a cloud of broken parts. Rafel charged at the puppet and realized that she would not have been able to recover anything useful from it. Its core, magic nucleus, and magic arrays had all dissolved.

Rafel intended to trace that mage’s tracks to find out where the Elemental Hand was hidden, but the Elemental Hand killed one of its own to remain concealed. It was all done without warning.

The scroll that the mage took out was nowhere to be found. Rafel thought second before deeming it best to keep flying east. That mage never adjusted his flight path. In other words, there would definitely be people of the Elemental Hand if Rafel continued flying straight ahead.

The Violet Angel had caught up to her by then. It had cleaned up even more mages behind it. It came all the way of pursuing the angel specifically because it did not want to be near Saleen. There was no telling what kind of mission its master would have given it.

The Violet Angels hated doing missions of any kind. Given its preference, it would do nothing.It would have enough for it to eat up all kinds of creatures, enabling its body to continue evolving.

It never crossed its mind to follow Rafel because of the risks. The mages from Alchemy City were going against Saleen. If they found the Violet Angel, they would have thought of ways to capture it and turn it into a puppet serving the Elemental Hand.

“Lady Rafel. May I know what happened?” The Violet Angel approached her in a pandering manner.

“Get lost,” Rafel quipped dismissively.

“Right away.”

The Violet Angel transformed into metal and rolled down the mountain as soon as it detected Rafel’s foul mood. Being a puppet, it was easy to turn into nearly anything, except a person.

“Get back here!” After realizing what the Violet Angel was doing, Rafel saw that she needed some help. She had sealed her own powers and could only use her level-12 skills.

Divine powers in her two spears were limited. It was important for her to aware of not using up all the powers she had when overwhelmed by numbers, as that would have prevented her from escaping.

The Violet Angel rolled up the hill again after hearing Rafel summons it. It was hard to climb and Rafel had to suppress her chuckle.

“Violet Angel, what can you transform into?”

“I could easily transform into anything within 100 meters.”

“Let’s see if you can transform into a dragon.”

The Violet Angel sported a troubled expression. The booming and clanking of its body were deafening as it increased in size. Scales, wings, and claws appeared on its body. The horns were the most challenging, as they needed to display dragon patterns.

It took about half an hour for the Violet Angel to transform perfectly. Except for a pair of eyes devoid of a dragon’s might, everything else looked like a real dragon.

Rafel leaped on the dragon the Violet Angel had just transformed to and said, “Hand me the War Drum of Fear.”

The Violet Angel took out the drum unwillingly, thinking it might be better to just return to its master.

“If you’re unwilling to come with me, get lost.” Rafel had no reason to be polite with the Violet Angel. She knew how that thing came to be. Strictly speaking, it even bore a resemblance to her.

“I’m willing!” An urge, similar to human desire, welled up in the Violet Angel’s mind as Rafel stepped on it. Feels great being stepped on! The Violet Angel took out the bone hammer. Rafel shrank it and hung it at her waist.

“Fly there.”

“Yes, my lady.”

The Violet Angel’s power wasn’t much weaker than Rafel’s; however, it kept feeling compelled to obey Rafel.

Never mind, master’s power was weak but I still listened to him.

According to the mages’ theory, I might have been tortured so much that I’m beginning to enjoy the sensation of pain!

The Violet Angel mumbled to itself while carrying out Rafel’s orders and continued to fly eastward. The Violet Angel kept feeling Rafel’s feet stepping on its back as it flew; oh, how good it felt!

Rafel was too focused on locating the hiding place of the Elemental Hand to pay any attention to what the thing beneath her feet was thinking. If she found out that the puppet was actually enjoying her feet, she would have taken the Violet Angel apart so it could never be put back together again.

Rafel was not flying very quickly. The Violet Angel beneath its feet lacked her flight abilities. Even after becoming a dragon, it only achieved a speed of around 300 kilometers an hour.

Although that was considered fast for mages, the fastest bird in flight in the world was capable of flying at just about the same speed.

When mages first learned how to fly, they were only a bit faster than ordinary warhorses.

A shadow of a gigantic being zipped past in the air. Rafel intentionally had the Violet Angel transform into a dragon to attract the enemy’s attention. If it had been something normal and common, the Elemental Hand would not have been alerted.

If their location was hidden somewhere deep underground, Rafel would have taken considerable time locating them.

As expected, there were some on the ground that locked onto the Violet Angel with mental powers after flying over 1,000 kilometers.

The Violet Angel then unleashed a dragon’s roar; however, it was unable to cast the dragon’s breath and the mimicked dragon’s might was pathetically weak. The attention of the ones on the ground turned to the dragon. So that thing’s an adolescent then?

To mages, the pull of an adolescent dragon was huge. If Saleen had not secured the help of Dragon Island, he would have thought of capturing such a dragon if it happened to fly past the top of Metatrin City.

Rafel smiled and said, “Good work. Continue.”

The Violet Angel continued roaring as best as it could. The mages on the ground couldn’t contain themselves any longer. The Violet Angel didn’t stop, in accordance with Rafel’s instructions. It kept flying east, pretending it had simply just flown past.

Rafel’s eyes could see the ground. Her feet left the back of the Violet Angel. She did not beat the drum. She had initially thought they would have been surrounded, but only three mages took flight and pursued from behind.

Light shimmered behind the Violet Angel’s rear, concealing Rafel’s body.

Rafel steadied herself. Her temperament was cool and collected from having experienced so many large-scale battles. She was at her most relaxed upon seeing the enemies approach, a signal that a bloody clash would soon follow.

To combat angels, the meaning of life was to do battle.

Out of the three pursuing mages, two were level-8 sorcerers and one was only level-7. They struggled to keep up with the Violet Angel’s flight speed, losing the dragon after chasing it for less than two minutes.

A level-8 sorcerer immediately unrolled a scroll. Black aura emanated from it and a huge explosion sounded shortly thereafter.

It was a warning spell that also concealed the caster’s identity.

Seeing the Violet Angel’s flight speed, the three mages thought that their eyes had deceived them earlier: They thought it was a high-level dragon. They never suspected other beings could disguise themselves as dragons.

Rafel was elated seeing the black mist explode and land back onto the Violet Angel’s back again, telling the Violet Angel to charge into that mist.

“This is poisonous, right?” Rafel twirled about with her spear. The green aura emanating from her spear quickly removed the toxins in the black mist.