Badge in Azure

Eleven of the goddess’s followers broke through at the edge of the Purgatory Desert. They were veterans, and they knew the enemy’s power was not something they were capable of measuring.

That assassin had killed the most powerful mage in their midst, who was also the only one with the most powerful healing and support skills. Agares’ Snakerun dagger robbed them of any hope.

If they were to continue fighting, Agares would have been able to take them out one after another.

None of them was capable of seeing through Agares’ stealth skills, and they had no idea how to defend against his attacks either. If they had been able to discover the enemy prior, then Agares’ combat prowess would have been comparable to theirs. But quite a few powerful professionals were keeping a close eye on them, preventing them from focusing on tracking that assassin.

Saleen hired Agares and the assassin caused the situation to lighten up. Every profession had its strengths. Agares was definitely incapable of standing against the forces of the goddess. However, in the current situation where the goddess’s Nature Legion was tangling with Saleen’s forces, the assassin was like a fish in the water.

“You want to run now? Too late.” Lex chuckled and flickered, arriving right before one of the followers of the goddess. Mages did not need to attack enemies at such a close distance. She was only doing so to cast an extremely small territory.

The territory shrouded the tall warrior, preventing the other followers from providing aid.

The warrior discovered in terror that the enemy’s world powers were far more powerful than a common level 17 mage’s. The only drawback to it being of a very small area. It was due precisely to such a small area that the power of the world ended up being enhanced by several levels.

The follower was armed with a chain, which was about ten meters long. The weapon fell limply, like a dead snake, when the power of the world activated by Lex was at work. The warrior never expected something like that to happen. The weapon they wielded was considered a godly item, and its weapon spirit was mostly restored. It had only been yet to reach the pinnacle state.

The goddess spent a lot of effort resurrecting and restoring them. She would have long been able to tame everything in the plane otherwise, and Saleen would not have ever gotten the chance to advance to where he was.

The chain whimpered on the ground for a bit. The warrior intended to activate his power as forcemaster but quickly found his powers being held back. Lex flashed a smirk at the warrior.

“Don’t bother struggling. The power of the Grukos is an antithesis to the likes of you, after all.” Lex tangled a fire dragon and a water snake together, sending the amalgamation of creatures into the warrior’s body.

Grukos…

The warrior did not understand what the name meant. When the emperor of Qin established his empire all those years ago, the warrior was still hibernating in the tablet. There was no way they would have known that there would have been a type of secret art that worked specifically against warriors.

If they had been given time to look into it, they would have developed ways to do something about it. However, given that that was the first time they encountered such a skill, the level 16 forcemaster had no way to resist the powers and ended up being killed by Lex with a single hit.

Yet another one of the followers bit the dust. The followers of the goddess turned around and formed a circle, facing outward. The Nature Legion’s rate at restoration had gotten increasingly slow, and the followers did not have any backup. The only way out was to give their all to fight.

“Who should be the one that gets out?” The remaining ten discussed among themselves. There was no way for all of them to escape. They only hoped to be able to send one of them to tell the goddess what had happened there.

Every single one that acted against them was to be branded with a Mark of Hatred to enable the goddess to take revenge for them.

The circle was no longer perfect, given that there were two of them missing. But their enemy was not of level 18, and the ten had been laying out the formation just to find an opportunity to send one of them away.

Lex shattered the body of the warrior. When the power of the Source of the warrior was destroyed, a spatial fissure appeared in the middle of the remaining followers. Van Gogh appeared inside the circle of the ten followers, before disappearing again.

He was of an inadequate level, as he was only a level 15 fallen holy master. However, he was still formidable enough that the followers dared not take him lightly.

Sika charged during the momentary lapse of their attention, leaping high into the air and bringing down the metal totem pole in her hand hard. A mage cast a huge fire dragon, which was destroyed by Sika’s metal totem pole in midair.

The weight of the metal totem pole was brought to bear as Sika let it fall to the ground.

At that moment, the entire world within the metal totem pole was falling.

Sika’s people sealed their ears away using skills, before wrapping themselves in three layers of magic shielding.

The heavy impact caused the ground to tremble. All of the goddess’ followers, including the Nature Legion, was sent flying from the ground. A triangular piece of bone shot to the air, emitting shrilled noises.

The heads of a mage and a warrior were split open. Their souls absorbed into that piece of bone.

The souls absorbed into the bone were already broken and the powers of their Sources were destroyed. The one attack took two lives. While the followers were the weakest in the bunch, Sika made a very clear statement—I’m stronger than Lex.

She had not bothered herself with such things before, but seeing how Lex was about to give up being empress, the other woman would probably stay by Saleen’s side for good.

With her children all grown up, Sika’s focus was shifted back to such matters. Saleen’s days would have still remained spectacular, and he definitely would not confine himself to a plane. The magnitude of one’s powers would be a crucial factor having Saleen decide who would head where with him in the future.

Sika’s attack was simply too ferocious, but the skill felt more solid than a secret art. It was just throwing down the totem pole, after all.

A hole that was tens of meters deep was seen in the ground. While the sand on the surface layer was loose and soft, there were huge chunks of solid rocks hiding underneath the layer of sand.

The metal totem pole had been so heavy that the rocks beneath could not resist. The pole was not something that even giants would be able to lift, normally. If she had not been using her power as a priest to cancel the weight, she definitely would not have been able to either. Sika’s current power could easily take on even a level 18 forcemaster. She could have easily used the totem pole to pull the simplest of attacks and deal the most severe damage.

The metal totem pole had never been a weapon when Raphael had it in her possession. Sika was the one who modified the pole into a weapon.

The followers’ defenses, which they deemed impregnable, were torn down by Sika with a single move, and she had even been able to kill two of the followers along the way. All that pride and arrogance in the followers’ minds dissipated right away.

It was no longer their era. Back in their time, everyone’s technique had been rough.

Due to drops in power throughout the entire plane, however, the technique became far more advanced for the professionals throughout Myers Mainland. After powers throughout the mainland were restored, those techniques had apparently become even more important.

Lex’s unique secret arts, Sika’s metal totem pole, Agares’ assassination techniques, and Van Gogh space-manipulating abilities, which had all been mystical back in ancient times, were rarely seen anywhere.

The disaster was far from over. Jola and Sul both held two swords of differing lengths, and charged at one of the mages, striking with four swords at the same time. The mage wore a cold expression as they cast two black balls, which were Black Waves in dark elemental magic.

Black Wave was a rarely seen dark elemental magic spell. While it was no doubt powerful, targeting it was very difficult. Both Jola and Sul were too near to the mage, which caused the level 17 spell to hit both of them squarely in the chest as the spell was cast.

Four swords pierced through the mage’s body while the two Black Waves dissipated without making a sound. Only their armor was shattered, metallic dust falling to the ground. Both of them broke out in cold sweat. If that had been other types of level 17 magic spells, they would have been able to resist once using only their sword aura. However, that Black Wave was incredibly corrosive, making it impossible for them to completely negate using sword aura, not even when it was cast by a grand swordmaster.

If they had actually been hit, their powers would have suffered massive drops. Even if they had been able to survive, it would have made it very difficult for them to return to their pinnacle states, unless a Goddess of Nature like Myers forged new bodies for them.

The remaining seven felt sorrowful. They had no idea why the odds were being stacked against them all of a sudden. The two sides were more or less equal in terms of power, and the followers were able to master greater power of rules compared to Saleen’s people. However, their enemies’ equipment was all insanely powerful, which evened out the inequality of the power of rules.

Suddenly, they realized that what happened was not a random encounter. They had been preparing meticulously for a very long time. Every single attack had been very well planned.

They had fallen into a trap laid by the enemy, rather than them intercepting the enemy.

Things were still going on in a rather leisurely pace in the temple’s space. The goddess realized suddenly that someone with Saleen’s temperament would have been the kind of person who kept the news about their showdown tightly sealed, so much so that he did not even bother to think about it. That caused her to not be able to sense anything. The method of concealment was so tight that she would not have been able to sense anything amiss. However, when he finally acted, none of her followers would have been able to survive.

That was indeed how Saleen pulled it all. He knew very well of the goddess’ powers. If he were to just think of killing the goddess, she would have been able to sense it.

The power of a level 18 god was so great that they were able to sense hostility without the enemy even showing any hint of it.

As such, Saleen hypnotized himself into thinking that he had no intention of killing the goddess, and he had only wanted to drive her away. None of Saleen’s people knew of his true intentions, but they hardly ever received clear orders from him. With him not bothering to bring his wife and children into the battle, his followers knew that he was out to kill the goddess.

If Saleen and the goddess were only out to determine the winner, both Sika and Lex would have been indispensable help. But if it were to be a fight to the death, they would have become liabilities instead. Saleen was a man who was incapable of ignoring his family’s safety, and that would have caused him to be suppressed in the battle.

All of that, coupled with very targeted training that left no trace, all of them would have realized what their lord was up to by then.

Furthermore, Agares had been the first to attack, killing one of the followers right away. Given how there was no way that man would have voluntarily helped them, he could have only been there because Saleen hired him. As for when the employment took place, it would have happened before the goddess was resurrected and would have been done in a place so secretive that not even the goddess would have been able to detect anything.

“Goddess, are you not going to cast your divine territory in full strength?” Saleen behaved nonchalantly. He had already unleashed a huge number of lightning creatures, which filled his world. The grave of heroes continued to wear down the power of the Source in that space. Even if the goddess kept dragging things out, it would not help to boost her attacks by any significant margin.