Badge in Azure

The Lord of Glory intended to stop Dante, but was quickly suppressed by Saleen with a single lightning icicle.

The Lord of Glory was no longer anxious. He snickered at Saleen and said, “What can a level 15 god do in my divine kingdom?”

“I don’t know, that’s why he’s out here to find out.” Saleen answered patiently. There was an 80 percent chance of Abyrus hiding somewhere in the Lord of Glory’s divine mountain. So long as Abyrus was in here, the mountain would never be safe.

Saleen would only need to keep the Lord of Glory’s main body where it was. Dante’s power looked like that of a level 15 god because it was suppressed by the rules of the Lord of Glory’s divine kingdom. In actuality, Dante’s power was equal to a combination of three level 16 gods. Furthermore, the three were not on guard against each other, enabling them to work in sync with each other.

Such a god would have definitely be more powerful than three separate level 16 gods in terms of combat prowess.

Furthermore, one of Dante’s divine personas was lightning, and it had control of more rules than Saleen. The rules of the divine persona were not something that the Lord of Glory would have been able to suppress.

The second divine persona it possessed allowed it to manipulate elemental powers, granting it the ability to cast magic like mages. The third divine persona enabled it to turn invisible and conceal its traces, and no gods of similar levels would be able to detect it.

The Lord of Glory lifted his scepter slowly and pointed at Saleen from a distance, seeing how Saleen was targeting him.

The Thunder Dragon Bangle in Saleen’s hand shot out. The 24 thunder dragons turned into a set of armor in an instant, covering his entire being. The Lord of Glory was dumbfounded, but intensely blinding light lit up from his staff shortly after.

The beam of light was intense and majestic, which impressed Saleen quite a bit. Saleen cast his own territory.

The Lightning World.

It was a level 17 territorial power. According to conventions, the spell was no longer considered a territory at level 17, but Saleen’s lack of understanding of the rules did not allow it to advance to the level of ‘world’ in terms of power.

The power of World was equal to a god creating their own divine kingdoms. Generally speaking, any level 15 god would have been able to create their own divine kingdom, but it needed careful, patient management before the kingdom could gain fighting strength. A god like the Lord of Glory, who was capable of having such a huge divine kingdom and that many believers at level 15, had eclipsed many comparatively more powerful gods at level 16.

The Scepter of Light had served the Lord of Glory for countless eons, from the day he touched the power of light until that very day, making him a powerful god who was capable of destroying level 16 divine kingdoms with level 15 powers.

The power of light and lightning clashed and tangled. Saleen finally able to realize how powerful the Lord of Glory was. Back when he was being chased by the Lord of Glory’s double due to his lacking level, he was already able to sense how terrifying he was. At present, however, the Lord of Glory was facing him, a level 17 mage.

The two had a difference of two levels, and even though they were inside the Lord of Glory’s divine kingdom, that difference was not something that could have been completely done away. The Lord of Glory was at a disadvantage in terms of level and his rules were comparative, yet he still managed to tear a huge hole in Saleen’s Lightning World. The power of light conjured all manner of creatures of light as well as a huge number of angels, who all charged at Saleen.

They were not specters, but were constructs of interlinked powers. If one of them was to be able to get near Saleen, the power of all the other creatures of light would be transferred into that one single creature in an instant.

The skill made Saleen’s eyes sparkle. Gods indeed had unique ways of fighting. That was actually how his lightning warriors fought, but if one wanted to get to the bottom of how it worked, the calculations would take days. The fight that was to come was not something Saleen was capable of mastering in an instant.

He had initially thought gods lacked creativity, a point which was quickly proven wrong.

Saleen had a massive number of creatures of lightning in his Lightning World territory, which tangled with the creatures of light. The creatures of lightning had an absolute advantage due to the level difference, but the creatures of light’s resurrection ability caused quite a headache to Saleen.

Furthermore, there was no way the Lord of Glory would just simply stand where he was. The god took out his second godly item, which was a thick Codex of Light.

Book type equipment alerted Saleen the most, as the type of equipment was capable of containing a huge number of skills and were of high enough levels. Furthermore, some of them were even capable of casting skills that not even the user was familiar with.

If the Lord of Glory’s codex were to contain such skills, they might have been skills above level 16. Level 16 divine arts could easily be amplified to level 17 in the divine kingdom.

Saleen’s magic amplifier would only allow his magic spells to be maintained at level 17. There was no way he could get any higher than that.

The advantage of a divine kingdom was demonstrated right there and then by the Lord of Glory. The angels were still incapable of making use of their home advantage.

The Lord of Glory flipped the Codex of Light open. “I say, let there be light.”

The entire Lightning World territory was destroyed by that one line from the Lord of Glory. If it had not been for protection afforded by the thunder dragons, Saleen would have ended up severely injured. Saleen never thought that god’s attacks would be so ferocious, so much so that he felt that he had been thrust into darkness.

All light seemed to have been robbed by the Lord of Glory, who seemingly was the supreme ruler and creator of light.

Saleen unleashed a fire elemental creature—a Vermillion Knight.

The Vermillion Knight was turned pitch black in the Lord of Glory’s World of Light, preventing it from unleashing any heat. The pitch black Vermillion Knight seemed to have been frozen, not moving a single muscle.

It was fortunate that the frost dragon and the other two bonded creatures of Saleen were very far away. The Lord of Glory had restricted the range of the World of Light to an extremely small area, just to kill Saleen.

Saleen immediately unleashed the Lightning Moon. A huge full moon rose in the sky, and Saleen was able to gain light that belonged to him. Countless lightning creatures were conjured again from the Lightning Moon again, who all charged at the Lord of Glory.

They were fighting a war of attrition. If the Lord of Glory’s World of Light wanted to kill all the lightning creatures, the drain would have been considerable.

The Lord of Glory snickered. Was the mage out of his mind? It is his divine kingdom, and he could have all the energy he wanted.

While the cost of killing a lightning creature would be more than what was deemed worthwhile, the Lord of Glory never lacked the power of faith. If his power of faith enabled him to acquire rules of a greater level, he could have advanced to level 17 right away.

The stockpile of power of faith throughout the entire divine kingdom was beyond measure.

An attribute-less cube hovered quietly within Saleen’s Lightning Moon. A magic scroll was sealed within that cube—the scroll that the Goddess of Myers had given to Saleen.

Saleen worked on that scroll back in the Hall of Gods, making it unable to be easily detected by anyone in the outside world.

Sealing the scroll using a cube made of attribute-less granules was a result gained through careful calculations. The power of the Goddess of Myers would probably be able to penetrate all types of magic seals, unless his understanding of magic became more profound than hers.

That was simply impossible, as she had once been a level 18 mage. Even if Saleen were to be able to advance to level 18, he still would not be able to eclipse the goddess in the field of magic.

As such, Saleen gave up on the idea of using the scroll. At the very least, so long as the goddess was still in control of the scroll, he deemed it off-limits. If the goddess were displeased with him and detonated the scroll, he, a half-baked level 17 mage, would not have been able to withstand the consequences.

Attribute-less granules were gained by purifying the Heretic God’s powers. They had a peculiar trait to them, enabling them to isolate things. With the scroll sealed within, all attempts of activating it would be blocked. The goddess would need to cast magic right before him to make the scroll work, as controlling it remotely would be utterly impossible.

The granules had perfect structures and glittered all over. However, under the work of the Lord of Glory’s powers, the beautiful crystalline structures had taken a pitch black color. Yet, the Lord of Glory smelled great temptation from the granules—the power of the Heretic God. Despite being purified, there were still traces of its power of rules left.

Saleen lacked the experience of extracting it properly, and that had driven the Lord of Glory crazy.

A piece of unassuming cloud at Saleen’s feet pounced at him, gobbling the attribute-less cube up.

It was unclear what had been hidden inside the cloud. Saleen only saw a huge mouth with no teeth, and it had made no sound when it absorbed the attribute-less cube with the level 18 scroll. The mouth then escaped quickly, so much so that Saleen’s lightning ravens were unable to hit it.

“What a mystical piece indeed!” The Lord of Glory extracted the attribute-less cube from the cloud and clenched.

An intense explosion happened immediately. Raging energy imploded at the core of the explosion, which then expanded. A huge skyscraping tree emerged without warning.

The tree’s height was about 2,000 meters. The third scroll of the goddess was actually a sealing scroll, which contained a divine tree. All powers of the Lord of Glory were suppressed to rock bottom when the tree emerged. Saleen sensed the elements becoming active again. The Lightning Moon in the sky had also expanded. The power of lightning had been completely restored.

The Tree of Element!

Saleen was surprised to find a Tree of Element sealed within the goddess’ scroll. Under the influence of the tree, a mage’s powers would be boosted by one whole level, while the power of gods would be suppressed.

Saleen knew that there was absolutely no way he could lose in that fight.

The power unleashed by the Tree of Element was so terrifying that the tens of the Lord of Glory’s doubles stiffened up, but the frost dragon was like a fish in the water instead. The dragon proceeded to freeze all of the doubles up, which were then thrown into Nailisi’s Purgatory of Purification.

The Lord of Glory was thoroughly frightened. His main body was there, and if he were captured, the doubles would revolt. Not all doubles had been able to be suppressed and be robbed of their own will, after all. If he died, he would not be able to use the doubles for resurrection. He was just a level 15 god, which meant that it was impossible for him to have powers of the likes of the king of gods.

Furthermore, that was where the flaw of the god of light was. The Lord of Glory did not even dare to have servant gods.

Saleen smirked, thinking that gods were still not a match for mages. The last scroll had been the killing move of the Goddess of Myers, which would have worked on all gods. The Tree of Element was the key to her ability to manipulate magic. She was able to nurture such a plant, but all the other gods would have only thought of destroying the Tree of Element if they saw one.

That was also the goddess’ way of warning Saleen—the power of magic was useless against her.