Badge in Azure

Chapter 1450: Battering the City (Part 2)

Faro opened his eyes wide and stared at Saleen. Saleen was very serious.

Faro thought for a moment. “Your Majesty wishes for me to do something important, doesn’t he. Faro is afraid that his abilities will fall short of what is required.”

Saleen smiled. Faro was way too good at talking. “I will have you take on no more than you can handle. Actually…let’s not talk about this. Just follow me.”

Saleen tossed a Scepter of the Fallen at Faro. There was a blood soul tower on the scepter. The scepter did not use the Three Kings’ scepter. Ultimately, Saleen was aware of the item’s value. Its materials were exceptional among those below level 16.

Faro was overjoyed. Although he did not care about having any benefits, the item that Saleen had given to him was of good quality. It demonstrated that Saleen did not plan on treating him lightly. He liked to climb his way up in the ranks. If his gamble had been wrong, there would not have been a chance to turn back.

The subduing of Faro had purely been a coincidence. Saleen had not considered that such a talented person would come. If he needed any Followers, he did not want any traitors. However, he wanted to search for a Pope for the Winged Skull. The jade skeletons, the Winged Skull’s subordinates, had become gods and would have to spread their religion. There was not only one Death Dimension. Once new Death Dimensions were discovered, they could allow this fellow to carry out his work in secret.

Of course, Saleen was afraid of Faro becoming the next Pope of the Nature Faith and causing the Nature Faith to become stronger. No matter what, the Nature Faith could not be allowed to continue expanding. The Myers Goddess had already been revived. If it expanded any more, the goddess’ strength would increase and no one would be able to keep it in check.

With the first traitor, a second would be much easier. Close to 50 Holy Masters chose to turn. That did not mean that there were only 40 odd traitors. Rather, there were others that had no means of escaping Holy City’s blockade.

The Holy Masters were brought up by the metal angels one by one and arranged by Saleen’s side. They gazed enviously at Faro. Faro did not speak and allowed them to continue staring at him in envy.

The Holy Masters felt regretful that they had turned too late. If they had been a step earlier, perhaps they would have become the next Pope of the Nature Faith.

Saleen did not say anything about Faro’s actions either. If he was to choose a suitable person out of them to become the Pope, he would be doing Faro a favor. Also, only something that was difficult to obtain would be valued.

Saleen did not expect the Holy Masters to be grateful. He only wanted them to remember the day’s events and know that he had many tricks up his sleeve. It would be fine as long as they knew that they should fear him.

Saleen did not wish to grasp too much political power. When you possessed absolute power, it was easy to do anything. If he did not have Floating City and did not have powerful magic equipment, Saleen could not have tempted so many high ranked Holy Masters over to his side with just a single exclamation.

To Saleen, Holy City had already been taken down. Without the aid of dozens of powerful Holy Masters, Saleen could search for cracks in the city’s large array, and fling a large number of stones down at them.

The large stones were not just any ordinary rocks, but infused with the Goddess of Nature’s divine power. The stones caused the entire city’s defensive systems to run completely amok. They had been infused with the Goddess of Nature’s divine power, too. Even if the Lord of Glory’s divine power appeared between the churches, it would not be beneficial.

The city fell. Large numbers of puppets were sent into Holy City, followed by figures and demons.

Saleen brought Baldur’s Gate and personally flew down to Holy City. He opened the gates and allowed his troops to come out in full force.

Saleen had not besieged the city, nor had he sealed off the city gates. There were some knights and Holy Masters who fought desperately to make a last stand, and some who risked their lives to escape.

The ones who escaped were not intercepted, so more people chose to escape.

Only the band of Holy Masters from the Pivotal Council did not escape. They were surrounded by Saleen’s troops in the Nico Cathedral.

Saleen was not anxious. He allowed the troops to slowly clear out the city. There wasn’t much wealth in the city. The true assets were concentrated in another city on the Glorious Plains. That nameless city was the headquarters of the Pivotal Council.

However, its defenses were not like the Holy City. It was due to its geographical advantage that it had become the fortress in which the Pivotal Council managed its affairs. Saleen had Floating City and could mobilize a large number of troops to enter the city and fight. Thus, Floating City only intercepted one type of person: the ones heading towards the Pivotal Council’s headquarters.

The city was still present in Saleen’s thoughts.

Although most of the Pivotal Council’s wealth had been divided up by the Cardinals, the Cardinals did not dare to move away some items. Saleen wanted to take them.

The battle lasted for one day and one night. Because Saleen’s attacks were not that intense and he had not sent many troops, it lasted until the Nature Faith’s army approached and before the knight corps within the city retreated completely.

The knight corps retreated, and the Holy Masters had scattered. A large number of Holy City’s defensive mechanisms and the church with long histories were empty. Saleen was able to directly look at the holy light on the walls of the church.

Each part of the city held traces of divinity. The Lord of Glory had once managed the place and had selected powerful Popes, knight corps, and oracle corps. Later on, the Lord of Glory had left to fight with other planes, after which the people of the Holy See were never united again.

There was no need for them to be united. In the hearts of the disciples, as long as the Lord of Glory was present, the Holy See would never fall.

Since it would never fall, everyone was just in the massive organization to make a quick profit.

Enter paradise? As long as they made some contributions, they would be able to enter it. Thus, they could not lose anything when they were still human.

That philosophy had caused the entire Holy See to become hollow. Otherwise, with Theisio’s capabilities, it was unlikely that it would have fallen to such an irredeemable situation.

Saleen allowed the Nature Faith’s troops to enter, and his army gradually withdrew into Baldur’s Gate. The remaining Bug Angel Army stayed to maintain order. Attacking Holy City was not strange as there was no leader.

The Pope had vanished, and they could not nominate a suitable candidate to replace him. When Saleen’s Floating City arrived, everyone was still scheming against one another and felt that they could rely on the city’s defenses to hide from it all.

Gathering his troops, Saleen caught a glimpse of Don, who was leading them.

Don no longer held any regrets. He personally brought soldiers to enter Holy City to kill and destroy churches. He destroyed what he hated with his own hands and gave up what he believed in.

It was not what he had wanted, but since fate had turned out that way, he no longer resisted against it.

Saleen had allowed him to become the leader of the Nature Faith’s knight corps. He did not want to believe in any Goddess of Nature. He was extremely grateful towards Saleen. However, now that the goddess had sent down her divine omen, Baudelaire had explicitly told him that the goddess had been revived.

That was somewhat troublesome. Don worriedly asked Saleen, “Your Majesty, with regards to the matter of the goddess’ resurrection, what are your thoughts?”

“You should continue to handle your affairs. There are still many places that have not been conquered,” Saleen replied.

Continue? Don smiled. It seemed that Saleen really did not have much respect for the goddess. One always had to ask the goddess first before proceeding. The goddess was the god of the plane. Once she appeared, she would personally take control of the situation.

Saleen seemed to have understood Don’s thoughts. “I will personally visit Myers. All you need to do is to handle your own matters. The current you…is not Myer’s match.”

Don bowed and retreated. Saleen waited for all of the miscellaneous people to leave Floating City before he put Floating City away. He brought Rafel and advanced towards the center of the continent to Purgatory Desert.

He could no longer wait for the conclusion. If the Myers Goddess held bad intentions towards him, now was the best time to approach her. The Myers Goddess’ power would increase by leaps and bounds every day.

His mistake in his calculations had allowed the Nature Faith to expand so quickly.

Rafel felt it was somewhat strange. “Why do you want to see Myers?”

In Rafel’s opinion, gods were capricious beings. It would be very dangerous.

“There are some matters that I must ask her personally. Rafel, what do you think? There are good ones among the gods, but I don’t know if Myers is one. At the very least, she used to be a human mage.”

“With just one identity, what is there that can be considered trustworthy!” Rafel’s tone was somewhat ominous.

“It is not trust; it is a gamble. If I wait any longer, all of my secret plans will be discovered. Although her plans had many gaps, as long as someone can complete her contract, she will be able to obtain all that she wishes to obtain. This is the intelligence not of a god, but of a human.”

Saleen meant that gods were not humanity’s equal.

Rafel was speechless. She did not know how to persuade Saleen. Based on her way of thinking, the best plan would be to gather all of the strong people he had to go and see the goddess. It would only be safe once the goddess was killed.

But Saleen did not think that way. There were still a number of souls in the Cemetery of Heroes. Out of all them, the Grandmaster held a considerable amount of aversion towards him because the Grandmaster had wanted to plot against him for a few times, but never succeeded.

He had not done anything wrong. He had merely not wanted to become the Grandmaster’s plaything.

Would he not resist? Would he willing become another person’s pawn?

No matter if it was a soul from the Cemetery of Heroes or Myers within the Purgatory Desert, Saleen had never wanted to provoke them. But since things had come to that point, there was no way to escape it. As the saying said, you could not escape fate; it would accompany you for all your life.

Saleen wanted to meet Myers because of her ambiguous attitude.

She would not accept aristocrats from outside Metatrin for her religion.

Were his own citizens so outstanding that even the goddess respected them? Of course, Saleen did not think this way. He was not crazy.

Along the way, he pondered deeply. Saleen’s Weapon’s Spirits did not dare speak. They were afraid of even one powerful god. Furthermore, they were pseudogods, and their fear of other gods greatly surpassed humans.

Only the Violet Angel was simple-minded. He took the initiative to request to come out and accompany Saleen.

Of course, he wanted to accompany Rafel.

After arriving at the borders of the Purgatory Desert, Saleen descended to the ground and walked into the desert. He slowed down slightly, and he recalled all of the other troublesome points that he still needed to settle with the goddess. He had thought through all of it before he had arrived and even sent Nailisi and the Winged Skull away.

He had used up the divine persona, but as he thought things through, he felt that the goddess would not nitpick at him for that. It had been his reward. Otherwise, what would he use in order to revive Myers?

There wouldn’t…be any problems, right?