Badge in Azure

To be accurate, the entrance of the underground palace was not discovered, but created by Cuisi’s brute force.

This was originally a room to keep rubbish. It was obviously not created by the Goddess, but by the things that were needed by her disciples’ basic such as eating and drinking. This included her disciples of all grades, including grade-12.

A small room within the temple was dedicated to the processing of rubbish. In the center of the room was a three-dimensional magic array. One only needed to throw the rubbish into the magic array and it would be disintegrated into its smallest atoms and categorized accordingly.

Saleen came to the room and saw the magic array that had been destroyed by Cuisi. Before giving him a chance to explode at him, Cuisi quickly said, “Master, this magic array almost killed me!”

Saleen pondered, “This palace must have been vacated for many years, probably at least seven-thousand years? A magic array that could still function on its own despite not being taken care of, that must mean that its core was made up of something like dragonshard. There were five of such three-dimensional magic arrays that remained, even if Cuisi damaged one, it can still be repaired.”

The crater in the ground was about ten yards deep and two yards in diameter. Saleen took one look and knew immediately that it was created by Cuisi’s whip. The weapon that he had refined for Cuisi had saved his own life.

The magic array was a three-dimensional structure and was sixteen yards thick underground. If Cuisi did not penetrate it completely, he would have been processed by the magic array like how it used to process rubbish, being disintegrated into atoms.

The Mountain Without End was already one-hundred and eight-thousand miles in height, so a sixteen yard thick underground crater was nothing in comparison. Saleen swept the entire area of the underground palace with his senses and was relieved to realize that the area below was not small. Even as he broadened his senses to a mile away, he still could not detect any boundaries.

“Cuisi, well done. Who will go down first?” Although it seemed to be an open question, Saleen was already looking at Lex.

“I will go.” Bain cut to the chase. He was the best candidate.

Bain silently slid down the crater. After planting his feet firmly on the ground, he threw out a transparent sphere. The sphere bounced a few times on the ground, then stuck itself to a pillar that was a distance away and finally lit up.

“It’s okay. Come down,” Bain shouted casually. If there was any danger there that he had missed, there was no way the other four would have realized it either if they were in his place. The assassin possessed certain attributes that even mages could not match.

The four of them slid down in order. Lex used illumination magic and observed her surroundings.

This was a place that resembled a storage room. There were tall shelves, boxes and all sorts of antique furniture gathered in one corner. In another corner, Saleen saw a few broken puppets. These puppets were about six-yards tall and had four arms.

Although the puppets looked delicate, Saleen knew that the humans at that time possessed alchemy skills that was a hundred times better than now. Back in those times, these puppets would definitely be considered to be crudely-made. Such puppets were basically created for the transportation of goods and not for battle purposes.

These puppets could be found in big harbors and cities that mainly functioned as transfer stations. There were many goods that would take up too much time if they were transported by humans. On the other hand, these six-yard tall puppets could transport more than twenty-thousand pounds of goods at one go. twenty-thousand pounds was the maximum load for most magic carriages.

The harbor of Metatrin City was building this exact type of puppets. This room looked like a warehouse. Other than a big space, there seemed to be nothing special about it.

Saleen and the rest had found quite a few things on top, there were no warehouses, only storage rooms. All the materials were limited.

“Cuisi, I think your luck is pretty good.” Saleen patted Cuisi on the shoulder and praised him.

Cuisi laughed bitterly, “I am in the same boat as you now. If we don’t fulfil the Goddess’ contract…”

“I know. I will do my best. You better not give up either.” It was rare for Saleen to have a conversation with this demon. All along, he had only been giving orders.

Cuisi’s lips moved, but he did not say anything else in the end. From the moment he put his name down on the stone tablet, he had already made up his mind to go all the way with Saleen. He was different from the other demons. He had already reached the ceiling of his growth as a demon. In order to possess powers close to a supreme demon’s and to be able to live up to ten-thousand years, he would have to grow some more. This desire for growth was what made him different from the other demons.

If he did not give it a shot and Saleen died in the end, he could still return to the demon dimension and continue to be a fighter for some supreme demon.

Lex frowned and said, “Should we split ways, or…”

“Let’s stay together,” Sika suddenly interrupted. She pointed to the door and said, “I think there is danger down there.”

Sika had barely finished her sentence and Bain was already at the side of the door, as quick as lightning. His body was so close to the wall that in the eyes of Saleen and the rest, it was almost as if Bain had suddenly disappeared and had become one with the patterns on the wall.

Sika looked around and concluded that the room was still not suitable for flying even though it had ample space. She took out her cudgel and faced the big door.

Lex took out a scroll and released a wall that stood in front of Sika. Cuisi took out his whip. He gave Saleen a glance, before dashing stealthily to the left side of the wall. Once there, Cuisi disappeared too. This time, Saleen saw very clearly that Cuisi had transformed into a part of the wall and had attached himself to the end of the ten yard wide wall.

A demon who knew illusions was much more useful than other demons like Aiwa, who only knew how to charge ahead aggressively. In small-scale fights like this, intelligence was especially important.

Bang!

The door seemed to have been hit by something and let out a loud noise.

Saleen thought for a while and released a water shield for Sika. He flew up to mid-air and used fog to cover his body.

Bang!

A crack appeared on the door before it crashed down. Saleen was shocked to see a group of small and short creatures behind the door. They held metal war hammers in their hands and looked over the door viciously.

“Dwarf demons?”

“Dwarf demons indeed…” Saleen swallowed his saliva and his heart was uneasy. These little creatures did look like dwarf demons. Their skin color, the weapons that they wielded, and the ugly-looking facial features; they all resembled what was recorded in the maps. The only difference was that the maps mentioned that dwarf demons did not wear armors, but these ones were clad in metal armors from tip to toe. Although they looked bulky and clumsy, these armors seemed to be made from chimpanzee metal.

Chimpanzee metal was not like star metal and was a red-colored type of metal. The best thing about this kind of metal was that it was incredibly malleable, so they could prevent attacks from blunt objects and absorb strong impacts. To create an armor with this metal, one only needed to add a thin layer of armor plates and it would be able to defend against any type of weapon.

Dwarf demons were incredibly strong, but could not move fast and could be killed easily by archers. Now that they were clad in armor, fighting with them in a tight space like this would not be a wise choice.

This was bad!

Saleen looked at the dwarf demons that were rushing into the warehouse below him. He sullenly began to prepare his magic. Just as Saleen was in the midst of preparing his magic, a few dwarf demons rushed to the wall and began to smash at it with their hammers.

Uh!

Even Lex was taken by surprise. She had released the wall for fear of any huge monsters that would come rushing through behind the door. Instead, it was a group of dwarf demons. These demons did not seem to be very intelligent. They could have bypassed the ten yard wide wall, but were stubbornly choosing to smash it down instead.

Although the wall was created from low-grade magic, it had the ability to repair itself. As long as the element had not been completely expended and unless it was smashed completely with one hit, there was no way the wall could fall. Ground magic was more resilient than water magic on some occasions.

The dwarf demons were trying their hardest to take down the wall, yet none of them discovered Bain who was hiding behind them. Saleen still did not relax. Although Bain certainly possessed powerful attacking abilities, seeing how the number of dwarf demons just kept increasing with no signs of stopping, there was no way he would be able to deal with them alone.

By now, the ten or so dwarf demons that had been smashing the wall with their war hammers had realized that the wall was able to repair itself instantaneously. Even if they were not too intelligent, they were still able to conclude by now that there was something strange about the wall.

Immediately, another ten or so dwarf demons rushed towards the puppets in the corner. They must all think that the wall was an enemy that must be destroyed. These dwarf demons took out magic nuclei and mounted them on a few of the broken puppets.

Saleen was surprised to see that these puppets, who already looked rusty and broken, suddenly sprang to life. They took the war hammers from the dwarf demons and rushed towards the wall.

The wall was only two-yards tall. Under the command of the dwarf demons, the puppets wielded their war hammers and were fully intent on breaking down the wall, totally ignoring Sika who was behind it.

The dwarf demons had already appeared for a full minute but none of them had attempted to bypass the wall. They were all focused on battling against the inanimate wall. Although the puppets did not have much fighting abilities since they were designed for transporting goods, they had a lot of strength. With four arms wielding warhammers and attacking the wall like a tornado, the low-grade magic finally yielded. The wall suddenly gave way and revealed a hole of five-yards wide.

Soon after, something happened that amused Saleen so much that he did not know if he should laugh or to cry. Three of the puppets’ bodies started to make noises of things breaking and black smoke began to appear. After that, their eyes turned from white to red and began to swing their war hammers wildly while attacking the dwarf demons around them.

The sounds of the war hammer making contact with armor was continuous and the dwarf demons were sent flying towards the walls by the immensely strong puppets. The walls of this palace were made of black granite. When the metal armor worn by the dwarf demons made contact with the granite, the sound echoed almost unendingly in the warehouse.

These puppets could actually go into attack mode, but they were unable to distinguish between friend and foe.

By now, the number of dwarf demons had already exceeded two-hundred and was still increasing. They wailed while rushing towards the three puppets that had lost control. Saleen realized that the dwarf demons did not sustain many injuries even after they crashed into the granite wall. They only rolled a few times on the ground then sat up again.

These dwarf demons looked shaky and dazed. By right, the ability of the chimpanzee armor to absorb impact was extremely strong, but the craftmanship was poor, so this ability was reduced and could not totally absorb immense impact.

Even so, these dwarf demons were still troublesome. The armor covered their entire body except their faces. In order to kill them, the only way was to attack their face. It was easier said than done, since they had long arms, brute strength, and were constantly wielding their war hammers.

Lex controlled herself and did not allow Bain to initiate any attack. Although the dwarf demons were troublesome, it was still manageable if everyone worked together. Her only fear was that there were other tougher creatures behind that gigantic door.