Badge in Azure

Across the black desert, the two people walked side by side. They might have appeared to be traveling very slowly, but in actual fact, every step they took covered almost a mile. At such a speed, they were way faster than a mage who was flying. The flying skill of a mage tapped into the power of the wind element, while the two goddess’ envoys were borrowing the power of the earth.

More accurately, they were not just utilizing the power of the earth. Earth, water, wind, light, darkness; these six elements were mutually convertible, none of them were dispensable. Located at the core of the earth was fire, coupled with rivers. On the other hand, the environment above the earth was enveloped by an endless supply of the wind element. Situated beyond the earth was space, where light and darkness was present.

None of these elements were ever separated. Yet, when a mage was at too low a grade, they could only cast spells containing a single element. It was impossible for them to fuse the different elements together.

Saleen had already grasped the initial stages of elemental conversion, but he only managed to do so because of his constitution and guidance from Joey. Even if he had become a sorcerer, he would still need to master these skills gradually otherwise.

When all of these had completely fused with one another to the point of zero distinction, then that was the power of the Goddess of Nature. Thereafter, the seventh power, life, would be created. After the birth of life, death would be subsequently derived.

After the two goddess’ envoys left the temple, the towering black sand dune began sinking into the ground slowly. Eventually, the ground became flat. The temple had also sunk into the desert, leaving no traces behind. With the original position of the temple as the nucleus, countless microscopic runes quivered in the midst of the black sand particles, as though they were fish in water. These runes expanded outwards, eventually forming a region with a diameter of one-hundred miles. In this region, everything remained still.

In the blink of an eye, Gauf and Jessica had already walked hundreds of miles. They stopped at an area filled with gravel, where all the rocks were white in color. The sandstorms which occurred in the past ten thousand years did not erode them into powder. As a result, this white gravel looked extremely blinding against the backdrop of the black desert.

Gauf scanned his surroundings, before bending down in front of a rock which was one and a half times taller than a human. He then extended his hand and caressed the rock.

“It escaped from here. Seems like it hadn’t fully recovered yet, it only regained ten percent of its power. For some unknown reason, its recovery process has stopped.”

“Poor rock.” As Jessica gazed at this rock, her eyes were filled with sympathy. To the goddess’ envoys, this rock also had life. After coming into contact with the Dark Sky Devil, its life had quickly ebbed away.

As if to verify her words, the rock burst open with a crack the moment Gauf lifted his hand.

“Since it hasn’t fully recovered, it will go into hiding. It will be really challenging to locate it,” Jessica said worriedly.

“Since we have left, we shouldn’t be too anxious. It is a devil, it must have believers in order to regain more of its powers.” After a round of short discussion, the two goddess’ envoys altered their direction of travel, they began walking southeast. Even though both of them claimed that they were not afraid of the believers of the god from a foreign plane, the two envoys did not want to get into a conflict for the time being. The scent of that god was very concentrated in the northwest direction, so the two envoys had to avoid that area temporarily.

After such a long time, they were clueless about the situation on the mainland. Other than that devil, which was extirpated in the past, giving them information about the current turmoil on the mainland, no one else had entered the Purgatory Desert.

South of the Purgatory Desert, within the Black Rock Mountain, Lex’s camp had spent the past fifteen days and fifteen nights uneventfully. The ten swordmasters, two Black Metal Grand Swordmasters, Wild Bear, and Jola had already acclimatized to their new magic armor.

With the Spirit Snake Armor on their bodies, the swordmasters’ actions were unrestrained, it was as though they were wearing normal cotton clothing. As the armor was almost weightless, the weapons of the swordmasters had also undergone some adjustments. As a result, they had to train for half a month before being able to adapt to the armor completely.

The swordmasters had changed their weapons, the Qin Eight-sided Swords were changed into the more suitable double-edged serrated knives. Short weapons included the armor-piercing short sword and an axe. The soldiers only had one long weapon, the double-bladed spear. This spear could be detached in the middle. Even if all the parts were connected, it was not very long either, less than three yards. The body of this spear was crafted from an extremely lightweight metal. The swordmasters would put the spear in a spear pouch and sling it over their shoulders.

Each person got an alchemical crossbow, while the skeletal warhorses were fitted with intermediate-sized metal shields.

The swordmasters’ backpacks were filled with fresh water. Even if the swordmasters got separated from the mages, they could still survive for several days.

Each mage was allocated hundreds of scrolls, Lex did not dare be thrifty at this point in time. As she did not bring along many people, she would lose a great deal of offensive power the moment any one of them died. The quality of her mages was very high, and they were not old either. In the future, some of these mages would definitely become sorcerers.

The magic war chariots were repaired. Saleen returned Eleanor her original robe, as her equipment had been seized by Nailisi. Saleen gave Eleanor ten level-4 scrolls, twenty level-3 scrolls, and one level-6 scroll.

Eleanor was grateful towards Saleen. Even if Saleen did not give her these items, it would not be considered a breach of contract. In an environment like the Purgatory Desert, it would be ideal to have the magic chords untouched though.

Logically speaking, Bifano had the worst luck. Saleen was obviously the one enjoying all the benefits, yet Eleanor hated Bifano.

In these fifteen days, other than learning holy prose from Eleanor, the only thing Saleen did was to produce a set of equipment for each of the four newly recruited demons.

This was Nailisi’s request, which Saleen did not refuse.

These four sets of equipment were not of a very high level, but their materials were precious. They were highly compatible with the fighting styles of the four demons.

Aiwa was given a set of heavy armor. Even though a single piece of metal was not even used, the shell of the red krill had been repeatedly refined. As a result, his armor was still dozens of layers thick. The whole set of armor was filled with a kind of thorn which was exclusive to the red krill. Even though the thorns were slightly brittle, they were razor-sharp. These thorns were the strongest attack this grade-4 magic beast could offer.

If the thorns broke off, they could always be replenished, wastage was not a problem.

Aiwa’s forte was his strength, Saleen specially produced a shield for him using the metallized steel rocks from the temple. The shield was almost as tall as Aiwa, it could withstand any straight line attacks.

Aiwa’s weapon was pretty interesting, it was a meteor hammer. It actually was not suitable to pair this weapon with a heavy shield. Aiwa could wield the shield single handedly though. Coupled with the meteor hammer, he would enjoy both offense and defense.

Saleen thought of the Silver Grand Swordmaster who assaulted Lex’s camp in the past. His meteor hammer was really mighty, so Saleen decided to imitate his weapon.

Luola’s forte was long weapons, his skills were in no way inferior to that of humans. Saleen had imitated the Spirit Snake Armor, producing a magic armor which emphasized flexibility. Luola had another advantage over others; his leaping ability was really outstanding. With just one leap, he could jump even farther than Jola. With such agility, there was no need for him to use a long weapon anymore. Saleen crafted a horse-killing sword for Luola. A horse-killing sword could barely be regarded as a long weapon, but its method of usage was similar to that of a normal longsword, it could deal with targets clad in heavy armor.

The magic beasts in the desert would surely have tough shells, otherwise Lex would not have equipped her swordmasters with the armor-piercing short swords.

Tolesi’s ability was immense mental strength. He could learn magic, but Saleen had no time to groom him, so Saleen crafted a set of leather armor for him. This armor would not affect his ability to unleash his mental strength. As a demon, Tolesi’s strength was pretty great too, so Saleen made twelve pole javelins for him.

The javelins could be used for melee fights, or they could be tossed at the enemy. Given Tolesi’s strength, him tossing a javelin would be more horrifying than an attack from a heavy crossbow.

Saleen spent the most effort making Cuisi’s equipment because Cuisi was mightier than the other three demons combined. He needed costlier equipment.

Saleen had used his savings of rhenium gold to craft a set of metal armor etched with magic patterns. Luckily, Cuisi was slightly shorter than Nailisi. If he had an eight-yard tall frame, Saleen would have already gone bankrupt trying to produce his armor.

Nailisi told Saleen that Cuisi possessed outstanding martial arts skills and knew how to cast several inborn spells. This was the advantage a demon had over a human, they could possess magic and martial arts at the same time.

Saleen had never witnessed Cuisi in action, so he sought Cuisi’s opinion. Cuisi actually gave Saleen a drawing which was annotated in the ancient Myers language.

Most demons knew how to write in the demonic language, but those who could write in the ancient Myers language were definitely high grade demons. Some of the powerful skills and knowledge of the humans had circulated to the demonic plane during the ancient times. Consequently, many demons had learned human skills, and thus learned the ancient Myers language.

When the bloodlines of these demons were passed down, their descendants almost dominated the demonic plane. Even though humans had declined, the powerful demons still had a tinge of fear towards them.

Such fear was only present in the face of mightier humans. In the eyes of a demon, the average humans were actually thought to be less delicious than a magic bug.

Cuisi wanted a soft whip as his weapon. On a real battlefield, no one was seen wielding a soft whip, but Cuisi still wanted it. All the annotations had proved that this weapon would be indomitable on a battlefield with tens of thousands of people.

The soft whip had a length of sixteen yards. Saleen had used colloid found on the red krill, this material was even smaller than a finger. The colloid was refined to become the main component of the soft whip. The mightiest part of this colloid was not its toughness, but its ability to repair itself. Even if the red krill had died, the colloid still retained its properties.

At the end of this sixteen yard long whip was a razor-sharp hook, produced from the teeth of a sea magic beast. This was not the main killing technique of this soft whip. Sharp horns were mosaicked onto the surface of the whip, with a finger spacing in between every horn. These horns originated from the horns of the tiago dragon. Saleen had used the Water Flame Alchemy to refine them into the soft whip.

If one was struck by this soft whip, even their magic armor would be torn to shreds.

After obtaining this whip, Cuisi became more loyal to Saleen, he was no longer as arrogant like he was in the beginning. He knew that it was extremely difficult refining the horns of a dragon in such a short time, even if one was a supreme demon. Saleen only used ten days to craft this weapon for him. In Cuisi’s eyes, Saleen was considered a partial expert already.

Cuisi did not like using magic, but he had a spell which was very practical. It was the rare Arrow of Darkness, a dark spell conjured by tapping into the mental strength of a demon. For this spell, Saleen had mosaicked two tiny white crystals into Cuisi’s armor, allowing Cuisi’s mental strength to recover twice as fast.

Everything had been prepared, what was left was to set off. Metatrin City still had not sent any information over after a long time. Lex and Saleen were beginning to get anxious because the flying puppet recently spotted some cavalrymen from the Tanggulasi Empire nearing the periphery of the Purgatory Desert. If the enemy had discovered the team’s tracks, people might be dispatched to this location, which would lead to an unnecessary battle.