Badge in Azure

There was one catch to building a demon army and that was if they were not well-controlled, imps and demonic spirits could take over the Myers Mainland just by their incredible rate of reproductivity. Although demons did not reproduce as quickly as imps, they possessed better survivability and could command imps and demonic spirits to invade more lands. This was not even taking into account the supreme demons and devils.

If a devil arrived in the Myers Mainland dimension, it would be disastrous.

The Qin population reached billions, but they had less than one-million elite soldiers. Even as a member of the royal clan, Lex possessed her father’s wealth and weapons, yet only had two elite swordsmen camps. If the demons managed to get out of control on the Myers Mainland, there would be no turning back.

The demon city and the six types of devil armors that Nailisi mentioned gave Saleen some assurances.

The demon city would control their loyalties and the devil armors would boost their fighting abilities. The most basic demon soldiers could be controlled by the devil’s breaching armor.

After listening to Nailisi’s explanation, Saleen decided not to take away her collection. Until now, the elite soldiers under Saleen numbered to about one-thousand and most of them came from Sregl Island. Now that Nailisi could build up a demon army, Saleen could allow his own soldiers to train up on their own and just focus on defending Metatrin City.

Nevertheless, Saleen still asked Nailisi to transfer most of the items she had salvaged to his warehouse. She would be allowed to keep those materials that he could not use directly.

Even so, the items that Nailisi salvaged from the sea easily filled up three levels of Saleen’s warehouse.

Lex left eventually. She left with ten-thousand elite soldiers, a swordsman camp that Saleen had sent to her for training, and twenty-thousand of her auxiliary soldiers. forty-thousand men and horses rushed back to the borders of Phoenix. Although Holy Rock City had requested for them to arrive a few months earlier than now, winter had just passed. Holy See did not organize any attacks during this period of time either.

Saleen calculated that Sregl Island could be opened soon. Within a year and a half, the mages of Sregl Island would arrive in large numbers. This gave Saleen confidence. The Holy See’s army would never be able to breach their defense in such a short time. Besides, he had a deal with Fycro. Surely Fycro would look out for him and dissuade the Holy See from making trouble in his city.

Everything was well-thought out. It never occurred to him that his plans had already been revealed.

The Pope was offering a high reward to find a young mage that he saw in his dreams. Someone that looked like Saleen. His godly instincts convinced the Pope that the dream was real. The two of them somehow managed to be connected through the dream and Theisio had now discovered Saleen’s secret.

The Pope even gave a secret order to find this mage. In the end, the black Bishop from the supreme court who almost killed Saleen before finally told the Pope about what had happened outside of Metatrin City.

Once the Pope heard that there was a city in this world with that fellow that held onto an evil faith, his heart went cold. The Pope always listened to God’s every order and a few years back, one such order said that a disciple of evil faith had appeared in their world. The Pope did think on it too much back then, but now that he had heard what the black Bishop said, he immediately thought back to God’s order and knew that he had been too complacent.

There could be no other gods.

This was what the Lord of Glory had written on the Code of the Holy See. Any disciples of other faiths that appeared in the Myers Mainland must be killed immediately.

This mage was real. When Pope Theisio gave the order to find this mage, he was not sure if anything would come out of it. He could not believe that the people of the supreme court had known about this mage’s existence all the while.

The Pope would not punish the supreme court because of this, even though they should have informed him earlier. Now, this mage’s city must already possess a strong defense.

The idiots of the supreme court must have wanted to deal with this mage on their own in secret. They did not have the time nor the manpower so they continued to hide from the Pope. They only decided to tell the Pope after he gave the orders and they realized that they could no longer hide from him. The Pope would still have been kept in the dark if not for that strange dream.

Even if Theisio had a good temper, he still thoroughly hated the black Bishop who hid all these information.

Right now, the Holy See’s forces were divided into twenty percent stabilizing Titan Duchy, twenty percent fighting with Sikeqinya, and more than half were gathered at the borders of Luolan and Qin. They planned to break into Qin once and for all, how would they have the spare energy to deal with this evil mage?

“Lord Pope, why don’t we organize a voluntary expedition that will launch an attack from the borders of Phoenix?” A Cardinal suggested to Theisio.

“Voluntary expedition?”

“Yes, we can recruit voluntary disciples and request for Tanggulasi Empire to activate an army. Altogether, we will gather a one-hundred-thousand strong army and destroy that city.”

“What about the general? Are we going to let those rotten noble families lead our disciples?”

“We can deploy someone from the Black Dungeon. This time around, the three Head Inquisitors will not go against you.”

“Black Dungeon, hmm, might as well. Those people…,” the Pope did not continue. The people of Black Dungeon were all cruel and terrifying. They were the most suitable people to unleash on those disciples of evil faiths. Such opinions must not be said in the open. It was best not to unleash people of the Black Dungeon or they would be hard to control.

“You go and settle this.” The Pope did not personally look for the three Head Inquisitors. Such things must never be known. He had no choice either. Only the Black Dungeon still had many holy priests. These priests were in the Black Dungeon either because there were some problems with their faith or because they committed some crimes. Theisio did not wish to be linked to these people so he let the red Bishop handle this.

The red Bishop had merely given a suggestion and did not expect to land himself in trouble. Once he was linked with the people of Black Dungeon, he would have zero chance of fighting for the position of the Pope in the future. He did not dare to go against the Pope’s order so he proceeded to discuss with the people of the supreme court.

By May, an army had been gathered at God’s Grace Duchy. This army could be split into two parts. The core was made up of an army from Tanggulasi Empire and was twenty-five-thousand strong. The other part was made up of one-hundred-thousand volunteers. The ultimate goal of this army was Metatrin City.

For the past two weeks, the Holy See’s intelligence department managed to collect large amounts of information on Metatrin City. It was a city with a population of about one-hundred-thousand, there were thousands of warriors and barbarians. There were also a few mages, but no sorcerers. A one-hundred-thousand strong army including black high priests from the supreme court and five-thousand jail guards would definitely be able to take down the city.

There were also three mysterious characters from the supreme court’s Black Dungeon in the army. The three of them had all committed crimes before and were sentenced by the supreme court. Under the influence of the three Head Inquisitors, the three mysterious men became a part of the supreme court and were usually tasked with carrying out secret assassinations.

Although only twenty percent of such a huge army was trained, they were more than enough to destroy a small city.

Theisio thought that the defense of a city that had just been built should not be too formidable. Although the news he received was from half a year ago there was no way a city located in wintry lands could develop much within this period of time.

By right, Saleen could not have known that the Holy See was preparing to wage a battle against him just ten-thousand miles away. One morning, Saleen suddenly received a letter.

This letter was kept in a small magic array and was sent directly to the town hall. The mages at the town hall checked the letter and confirmed that there was no danger before delivering it to the temple before Saleen.

Saleen saw half of the holy prose on the envelope and thought it must have come from Fycro. He had no idea why Fycro would initiate contact with him so he opened the letter. The contents of the letter gave Saleen a scare. The Holy See had sent out a one-hundred-thousand strong army to destroy Metatrin City at all costs.

He did not think that one-hundred-thousand men could take down Metatrin City. The army in his city was close to one-hundred-thousand, although they were not elite soldiers, the core strength had increased to five-thousand. There were also more than ten-thousand Caucasus people under the command of Sika. On top of that, Metatrin City’s walls were unique, it should not be a problem keeping out a one-hundred-thousand strong army.

Saleen was actually more worried about Lex’s army. On their way to Metatrin City, the Holy See would pass by the area that Lex was defending. Lex only deployed a ten-thousand strong army there and she might not have left any elite swordsmen camps there. She probably deployed two-thousand soldiers and eight-thousand auxiliary soldiers.

If that was the case, those ten-thousand men under Lex would be destroyed in no time by the Holy See army.

“Damned it, can’t they wait for another year?” Saleen still remembered what Lex said before her departure. Her soldiers could defend a city, but would lose out in a battle on an open field against most conventional armies. Although only twenty-thousand of the Holy See’s army were trained, the numbers were still too huge. Of Lex’s ten-thousand men, most of them were probably only at the level of mercenary soldiers.

“Master, the Holy See army will travel along the borders of Phoenix. They most likely do not wish to be attacked by Phoenix. See, they will pass through Deep Forest town,” Nailisi pointed along the red line on the magic map and told Saleen.

“Deep Forest town is too small. It can’t serve as a point of obstruction,” Saleen took one look and already objected to it.

“Master, let Luola and Judikaka go. Judikaka can summon spirits of the dead while Luola can lead a small group of mercenaries. If they can kill off a few holy priests, it will be worth it.”

“We have to alert Lex’s army. Let Tolesi go. That fellow’s illusion spells are pretty good and will help him to escape if need be.” Saleen calmed down very quickly. There was still a lot of time before the Holy See arrived. The distance between God Grace Duchy and the borders of Phoenix was about ten-thousand miles.

An army that was hastily formed by the Holy See would not be able to travel fast. The fastest they could travel should be about one-hundred and fifty miles a day so they would need more than two months to cover ten-thousand miles. The borders of Phoenix were five-thousand miles away from Metatrin City. If he sent one person over, he should reach it within half a month.

“Master, I feel that we can make use of this opportunity to train up our soldiers. We can divide a camp of soldiers into five and deploy them to different locations to act as points of obstruction against the Holy See army,” Nailisi suggested.