Badge in Azure

The battle lasted until dawn. Grand Bishop Nicholas stood very still and looked at all the strong opponents gathered on the top of the city wall.

The people beside Saleen did not move. All of them stayed on an area five-hundred yards wide on the city wall. If they left, Grand Bishop Nicholas would immediately come charging over.

If Grand Bishop Nicholas decided to attack another part of the wall, Saleen and the rest would rush over to help there as well.

Both parties continued to observe each other until the battle was nearing its end.

Saleen did not expect the enemy to use this tactic. The people around him could not move because Nailisi and he could no longer join in the battle. The rest had to gather together in order to fight off the red-robed man.

Only some mages and Eleanor could still help out elsewhere.

Saleen did not have many middle-grade mages and the abilities of his low-grade mages would be cancelled out by the enemy’s holy priests. Eleanor alone would not be able to defend an area five miles wide on the city wall.

Saleen did not expect the battle to end up this way, but there was no way he could change the outcome. His army needed to protect the merchants and citizens in the city. The noble families had already sent their own armies. More than ten members of the noble families who were well-versed in swordsmanship even defended the city wall personally.

It was a dangerous move, even if their bodyguards were fighting alongside them. Since Saleen had been monitoring the battle personally on the city wall, these noble families felt motivated and honored.

The first Emperor of Qin once said that only the noble families that could protect its citizens could be considered as good noble families.

Qin was the first country to abolish slavery. It had huge numbers of citizens and they made up most of their armed forces. Whoever had the most citizens was the most powerful. Noble families that had once deserted their citizens would find it difficult to attract new ones.

Saleen was not surprised that these noble families would join in the battle in the end. What shocked him was that the soldiers under these noble families were very valiant. He maintained a very strict control over battles like this. If the noble families became too obsessed with killing, Saleen would ensure that the future generations of the family would be protected to prevent the entire family from being killed off.

The ratio of deaths was one to three, three deaths on the expedition side was equivalent to one death on Metatrin City’s side.

Grand Bishop Nicholas appeared less than one mile away from the city. At this point in time, the expedition still consisted of about seventy-thousand soldiers.

After the deaths of the Three Kings, the spirits of the dead vanished and there was no one else to summon more. After losing more than ten-thousand spirits of the dead, Metatrin City had to deploy more armies to defend the city wall.

The fortunate thing was that there were more injured soldiers than dead ones. There were many troops under Saleen and he sent more than one-thousand magic wolf knights to the top of the city wall. These Caucasus people rode on their magic wolves. Once they saw soldiers that were heavily injured, they would order their magic wolves to bring the soldiers back to safety.

The flying axes of the Caucasus people and barbarians were extremely effective. The iron flying axes caused great damage to the enemy soldiers even if they wore heavy armor. If they were wearing only light armor, they would be killed immediately.

When the number of casualties in the second battalion was more than two-thirds, they came back down and were replaced by the third battalion. At this point, the sixth battalion set off towards the west from the south.

As they saw the disciples dying one after another, Grand Bishop Nicholas’ subordinates were terrified. Would they still have a chance to live if they went back? When the sun finally rose, tens and thousands of soldiers fought with their all.

Saleen saw that the enemy still had about ten-thousand soldiers, but had stopped attacking. The soldiers on top of the city wall quickly rotated with each other as the fourth battalion replaced the third battalion. All the mercenary soldiers had stepped back from the battle and all injured soldiers had been sent to the town hall to receive medical attention.

Next time, Saleen decided that he must use Broken Blade Pass to stop his enemies.

Saleen was calculating the number of dead and injured soldiers on his side, but he was sure that the number of deaths on the enemy’s side was close to ten-thousand. This was something that Saleen did not expect. The enemy’s strategy was basically to trade their own lives for those on Saleen’s side. Although Saleen had the geographical advantage, there were still many casualties on his side. He could not accept it.

“Give the order to western town. Tell them… not to stop the enemy.” Saleen looked at the ten-thousand soldiers at the bottom of the city wall. Ten-thousand soldiers still constituted a formidable force. If western town intercepted, the number of deaths would surely reach ten-thousand.

The sound transmission magic array at the town hall could enable communication with western town. It was Saleen’s order for western town not to interfere. Even when Grand Bishop Nicholas finally deployed twenty-thousand soldiers from the rear, Saleen still did not ask for western town’s army to launch an attack.

Saleen knew that even if he did not manage to destroy the entire Holy See army, they would not survive past a year anyway. It would be a waste to throw away precious lives to defeat them.

Not all of the Holy See’s armies were like this. The Pope must have chosen this strategy because he had no choice, but it still caused Saleen to lose more than half of his men to injuries. These soldiers that had been controlled by divine spells felt little pain. Even if one of their arms had been cut off, they could still move around with no concern for their pain or injury.

When Saleen’s soldiers were undergoing training, the main emphasis was on discipline rather than killing. Facing such enemies, they made quite a few mistakes in the beginning which resulted in unnecessary casualties. Some of the soldiers had already pierced through the enemy’s abdomen and were about to move on to their next target when they were attacked by the first enemy who was heavily injured.

By right, there was no way a person whose abdomen had just been pierced through would be able to continue fighting. The soldiers of the Holy See could do it without their strength being weakened.

Only the alchemy arrows shot from the watchtowers on both sides could kill the enemies immediately. There were not a lot of Caucasus people and the flying axes of the barbarians could not deal with too many enemies either. One barbarian could only carry approximately five flying axes.

What surprised Saleen was that the barbarians had a positive effect on morale. None of the barbarians retreated and when faced with enemies so daunting, the barbarians became even more frenzied.

Due to Cuisi’s presence, there were fewer casualties in the other two areas in which Saleen had set up defense. He could use a long whip to kill enemies within more than thirty yards. By the end of the battle, there was blood everywhere on the top of the city wall. The mercenary soldiers did not possess very good equipment and were barely still standing. Saleen’s soldiers were still able to run amidst the thick pools of blood however.

When the attack finally stopped, no one cheered. The top of the city wall was covered in corpses, most of them belonging to the expedition. Amongst the corpses were soldiers who were heavily injured. They could no longer be healed by holy priests and would only die slowly.

Saleen was very anxious. Only when Grand Bishop Nicholas ordered his remaining soldiers to retreat did Saleen give the order to clean up the battlefield.

A gigantic furnace was prepared in the city. The corpses of the enemy were separated from those of his own army. Quite a few slaves died, but the ashes of the the army must be buried.

Aini and Daniel left the top of the city wall. They were put in charge of this. Death mages would usually be around the furnace to collect the black smoke produced by the burning of the corpses. Such smoke was harmful to normal humans, but was valuable to death mages’.

Saleen asked Sika to fly higher. He saw that Grand Bishop Nicholas and his army had slowly passed by western town. He then ordered the mages in the city to join in the cleaning up of the battlefield.

Saleen was relieved to see the mages stepping out. The number of casualties in this battle was a few times more than he expected, but at least none of his mages died. They were all safe in the buildings within the city.

The defense mechanism of Dante’s Sequence restricted the holy priests to be able to boost their warriors with divine spell only once and not cause any damage to the buildings on the top of the city wall. Saleen’s mages could hide in the buildings and attack with their spells as a result.

All the low-level mages came and began to use cleaning spells to clean up the fresh blood on the ground. Giant eagles were circling in the sky, waiting to feast on the dead bodies when the battle ended.

The giant eagles in the north were all scavengers. Since Saleen’s soldiers did not bother to leave the city to clean up, these eagles became bolder and began to swoop towards the ground to feast on the corpses of the expedition soldiers.

When Grand Bishop Nicholas was finally far away enough that Saleen’s elemental eye could no longer see him, he told Sika, “Take me back to the temple. I’m so tired.”

The five-thousand wardens did not join in the battle and instead, retreated very early on. They were led by two black-robed mages. These two grade-8 sorcerers looked dispirited and none of the black high priests dared to disturb them. Although the combined power of the twelve of them was higher than the two sorcerers, the latter had more ways to kill as compared to the black high priests.

If the gold grand swordmaster did not die the two of them would not have retreated in such a hurry. The two of them dared not test the power that defeated the gold grand swordmaster in such a manner.

By showing the Head Inquisitor the images they had recorded with their equipment, they might even be rewarded. If they had lost all five-thousand wardens, there would be zero chance of them being rewarded.

The two sorcerers consoled themselves in this way, but deep down in their hearts, they were actually petrified. The gold grand swordmaster was their spiritual pillar of support. Now that he has been defeated, their confidence have also been shaken.

A gold grand swordmaster and two grade-8 sorcerers were a terrifying combination. Now that the former had been killed, the two grade-8 sorcerers’ powers were no longer as formidable.

The enemy could control lightning. Even the gold grand swordmaster’s equipment was all turned into ashes by the lightning. Who could stand a chance against such power?

Once Saleen returned to the temple, he immediately went to the sixth level. There was a room there that was specifically for healing purposes. Saleen sank his entire body into the restorative water while putting his left hand, which was reduced to bones, into magic liquid.

Saleen was already used to such injuries. There were no signs of cracks on his dark green bones. The power of lightning had caused his entire left forearm and wrist to lose all flesh and blood. It would take half a year to grow them back again.

Saleen would not be able to advance into a sorcerer in the next half a year.

“Master!” Nailisi recovered much faster than Saleen. She entered the room and saw that Sika was looking after him alone. Nailisi was stunned for a while, but immediately understood that aside from herself, Sika was the only other person that Saleen trusted completely.

“Master, I know. You want the lightning dragon’s corpse.” With that, Nailisi removed the bracelet and put it on the ground. She knelt in front of the crystal box and looked at Saleen’s injured limb.

“Nailisi, what happened to you? I thought you would have wanted to keep it for yourself,” Saleen teased.