Badge in Azure

“Ha ha, I don’t know how to remove a devil’s imprint though.” Saleen rejected the demonic spirit’s request.

“Sir, the devil has hundreds of thousands of subordinates like me, if any of the imprints disappear, the devil will just think that I have died. I…” At this point, the demonic spirit suddenly stopped talking, it was obvious that his words were going to expose some of the devil’s secrets.

“You said that you helped the devil clean his palace, so what do you know?” Saleen snorted, he was starting to get impatient with the demonic spirit’s actions.

The demonic spirit’s eyes were bloodshot, he really wanted to spill the beans, but he did not dare do so. Saleen slapped the demonic spirit’s forehead, his left hand producing a green glow as this radiance seeped into the demonic spirit’s brain.

It was a contractual symbol!

Saleen was a little disappointed. In the demonic spirit’s brain, there was only one demonic contractual symbol which contained the devil’s imprint. This imprint was not considered very powerful, but if Saleen did not possess divine power, it could not be broken unless his magic had attained the standard of level-10.

In an instant, the Power of Life in Saleen’s left hand melted the imprint left behind by the devil, then it transformed the imprint and absorbed it. It was not because Saleen was mightier than a devil, but because this demonic spirit held a lowly position among the devil’s lackeys. The devil could not be bothered to use any powerful abilities.

After removing the devil’s imprint, Saleen did not retract his hand. The green radiance continued searching the demonic spirit’s body, and it found the demonic spirit’s soul after a short while. If Saleen was the goddess’ believer, he could control the demonic spirit’s soul without coming into contact with the demonic spirit’s physical body.

Twenty-four holy words were etched into him in a flash, and then Saleen withdrew his hand with a smile. A god’s skill was indeed very mystical, especially against a soul.

Even though a devil carried a holy character with them, they could not even be considered as demigods. The technique executed by Saleen was a secret skill which simulated one of the many divine powers the goddess had.

The demonic spirit only felt a moment of pain before everything reverted to normal. He had been controlled by a devil before, so he knew what Saleen did. Smiling bitterly, the demonic spirit got up from the ground, then said gingerly, “Sir, I have gotten some perks, can I rest first?”

Saleen nodded his head. He had controlled the demonic spirit by simulating a divine spell, however, some Power of Life was depleted in the process. This bit of divinity-infused Power of Life would also be absorbed by the demonic spirit. Once Erbai absorbed this power, he would never be able to break free from Saleen’s control. Despite not being a believer, the demonic spirit would also carry some divinity after absorbing the goddess’ Power of Life. The mental strength, soul power, and vitality of the demonic spirit would be amplified. Those were his perks.

“Gods are really evil!” Saleen was astounded after sensing the rewards reaped from contributing such a small bit of divine power.

The demonic spirit had gotten some benefits, and so did Saleen. Saleen had left an imprint in the demonic spirit not only for controlling him, he also wanted to do an experiment. The strength of this demonic spirit was measly, Saleen did not value it at all. The soul of the demonic spirit had been diluted by Saleen’s divine power, then Saleen absorbed a little bit of it. This bit of soul could not be replaced by divine power. The divine power Saleen desired would be slowly provided by the leaves of the Tree of Life, and this tree might never wither. The speed of growth of soul power was even tardier, it could not be boosted by medicines.

Nevertheless, a mere imprint had allowed Saleen to collect a tiny share of the demonic spirit’s soul.

Saleen was very clear that magic would begin to be related to one’s soul after reaching above level-7. Mental strength could not be developed infinitely unless one’s soul was extremely powerful. The diluted portion of the demonic spirit’s soul had been converted into pure soul power, then it was absorbed by Saleen. As a result, the growth of Saleen’s soul was instantaneous.

Such an intense method of boosting one’s soul required the target to be agreeable in order to work. The soul power would be impure otherwise, the adverse impacts from the absorbing it would be too great.

“But, a god can slowly amass souls. I guess the Lord of Glory should have one-hundred, if not eighty to ninety million believers on this plane right now. As long as all these people enter into a deal with the god, it will be akin to them sacrificing their own soul power. If each prayer came true, then the god would receive a present. What’s more pathetic is that the believers of the Lord of Glory are going to enter paradise after death. Their souls will enter a space constructed by the god, so it will mean that they will gift themselves to the god. Damn it, a soul is an essential component of life. If all the soul power on a plane is absorbed by a god, then that plane will cease to have life in the future. The Goddess of Nature wasn’t willing to use this method to recruit believers because the humans and she were creatures from this plane. If this plane was destroyed, then the goddess will have to live in a lifeless world.”

Saleen’s line of thought became increasingly clear. He had vaguely gained some breakthrough in the areas he did not really understand in the past.

“If the Lord of Glory is allowed to gain more believers, the plane of Myers mainland will eventually become a place like the hell of god’s punishment. No, the hell of god’s punishment still contains some beings, I am afraid Myers mainland will be totally ruined.”

The more holy words Saleen learned, the more exposure he gained into the knowledge of gods, consequently, he became more guarded against the gods.

“Luckily I agreed to help resurrect the Goddess of Myers. As the god born on this plane, the Goddess of Myers will never allow the plane of the Myers mainland to crumble. Perhaps this is also the reason why the Goddess of Myers helped the humans to do battle against the other gods. So it turns out that the main issue between the gods is also profit.”

Saleen and the Goddess of Myers only shared a contractual relationship, but after understanding the link between a god and their believers, he broke out in cold sweat. “If I do not remove the religion of the Lord of Glory from this plane, it may not matter to me, but what about my descendants?”

What sent chills down Saleen’s spine was that the Goddess of Myers never allowed her own plane to be ruined, she would rather fall and prevent the other gods from descending upon her plane. In one-thousand years, the Lord of Glory could turn this plane into hell already.

The perseverance of a god was not any lesser than that of humans.

Saleen never expected himself to gain so much enlightenment from removing a devil’s imprint. “Seems like I have to work faster to exterminate the believers of the Lord of Glory.”

It was deep into the night, the time when the magic beasts emerged. Incessant roars could be heard outside the camp compound. Lex deployed some people to establish a firing point. They installed an alchemical crossbow, but they would not provoke those magic beasts. Nailisi had ordered the four demons to go out in pairs to slaughter all the magic beasts who got close to the camp.

The weather appeared to have become chillier, thick clouds had also gathered in the sky. The weather in this space, which was all along clear, had begun changing.

Without the rotation of the four seasons, there would not be many different life forms. Following the signs of the birth of a god in this space, the weather in it had also started undergoing vigorous changes.

“Erbai, come over, tell me about things in the demonic plane.” When it was almost daybreak, Saleen opened his eyes and summoned the demonic spirit.

After consuming the leaf of the Tree of Life which contained divine power, the demonic spirit had made progress. When he heard Saleen’s call, he did not dare rest anymore. He came to Saleen’s bed and began describing the things he had learned from the demonic plane.

This Erbai was pretty lucky, he was about seventy years old, so he was still considered young and able amongst the demonic spirit race. The first thirty plus years of his life were spent on the run. The moment he was born, his mother had been eaten by magic bugs. During his journey of escape, Erbai had once fell into a crypt, then he devoured all the bug’s eggs in it and developed rapidly.

In most cases, when a demonic spirit had no family, they would be swiftly hunted by the demons or imps. Erbai had escaped from fatal threats time and again, and one day, he suddenly ran into a devil.

This devil had just made an advancement, so he needed large amounts of manpower, hence he captured Erbai to be his laborer. Erbai was very intelligent, he quickly learned demonic language and amassed vast knowledge. He became a stronger presence among the other demonic spirits. The most fortunate thing which happened to him was when he mastered a spell; the level-0 Cleaning spell.

In the human world, a low grade magic disciple could already grasp a level-0 spell like this. If humans from ten-thousand years ago were present, it was likely that every single one of them could cast this spell easily. A demon was not talented in the aspect of magic practice, only those with special bloodlines or who were devils could learn magic. In fact, those inborn spells were not considered a big deal, they were even inferior to a demon’s melee attacks.

An example was Nailisi, who had taken the opportunity to obtain the ability of releasing scrolls. Even if she possessed an infinite number of scrolls, she could never defeat a grade-5 mage using magic.

If Nailisi could travel as fast as a grade-5 mage, she would be able to tear them to shreds using just her hands and teeth.

Since Erbai had grasped the demonic language swiftly and could cast the Cleaning spell, the devil was very satisfied with his performance, so the devil allowed him to enter the study room. Demons also possessed language inheritance, but unlike humans, their study room was a warehouse stored with many classics.

When Erbai entered the study room, he was in charge of removing the dust in it. His job was very simple, so he would have some spare time every day, thus he could follow the devil and wait on him. For more than thirty years, Erbai had peeked at countless of demonic classics and interacted frequently with a devil, hence he was privy to a number of the devil’s secrets.

As Erbai’s power was mild, the devil did not mind that he knew so many forbidden secrets. Erbai’s soul contained a devil’s imprint, the devil could kill him anytime, and his soul would also be completely dispersed.

As Erbai followed the devil, he managed to survive. He would long been devoured given his original capabilities otherwise. He would never have lived for more than seventy years.

Previously when numerous spatial passageways appeared in the Purgatory Desert, the other end of these passageways led to locations with unstable spaces. There were wars in the demonic plane as well. As that devil was newly promoted, the nearby devils deployed troops to invade his palace. In that intense battle, the space sunk into chaos, causing Erbai to be sucked into a spatial passageway and arrive on the Myers mainland.

“Why are there wars in the demonic plane?” Saleen asked a seemingly unimportant question.

Erbai answered earnestly, “Because a demon has a long life and their survivability is too strong. If they do not fight, the whole plane would run out of space very shortly.”

“Did you come up with this?”

“No, the devil told me himself.” Erbai stood in front of Saleen respectfully, waiting for Saleen to continue asking more questions.

“So, how does a devil control his army?”