Badge in Azure

Antos calmed down after hearing what Dwarf said. He plucked out two strands of his beard and spoke in a low tone, “Tyrant, my rage is growing. Could it be that something has gone wrong in my training?”

The dwarf closed his eyes and said, “Master, this is normal. Once you pass the stage of silver grand swordmaster, your rage will ease. Out of the twenty-four types of secrets in this world, Master’s secret is the most unique. If not for the fact that I cannot unlearn what I have been trained in, I wish I could learn from Master too.”

A strand of red aura flashed across Antos’ eyes like a flickering flame. He took in a deep breath and said, “I cannot blame Lex for what happened. I sent out troops to attack her city, but ended up in a crushing defeat. That is not a big deal. She is from the Grukos family. If I really killed her, Ojarvis will come after me.”

“Does Master want that sorcerer dead?”

“No, I suspect the person that has arrived at Daliang City is the King of Metatrin.”

“Saleen? His abilities are not strong, but he is not easy to kill. If we kill him, Lex will be upset,” the dwarf said slowly.

“Lex killed an entire battalion of my soldiers. I am upset too. If she gets upset, then we are even. Tyrant, take a trip to Daliang City. If the King of Metatrin is there, kill him and bring me his head.”

Antos spoke cruelly. By the time he raised his head again, the dwarf was already gone.

The nameless small town that was under the care of Earl Besta was now in its fifth day of being surrounded by the headless knights. The dark sky devil’s intention was to escape. He did not order the headless knights to attack the city and instead, become a distraction. If these headless knights followed their instincts, they would have entered the small town to hunt for souls.

There were more than ten catapults left behind by Saleen in the small town, more than one-thousand armors and equipment or elite soldiers, and a number of crossbows. Most importantly, there were more than three-thousand undead soldiers left behind by the winged skeleton.

It was unintentional on the winged skeleton’s part. There was a limit to his green spirit and it was already stored with all the spirits of the dead that he had summoned for his fleets. They could not be replaced. The newly created undead soldiers were left behind in Earl Besta’s small town. Without death mages to provide these undead soldiers with death energy, these soldiers would only last for a month at most before vanishing from the Myers Mainland. If they were lucky, their soul flames would burn again in the death dimension.

The undead soldiers did not smell good and the people in the small town felt disgusted by them at first. They soon became the most important fighting force after the headless knights came.

These headless knights were created by the dark sky devil and they all possessed the standard of swordmasters. Fortunately, they had already lost the abilities they had possessed when they were still alive. Now, they only knew to gather outside the city gate and hack at it with their weapons. The catapults in the city launched rocks at them for a few rounds, but stopped doing so after they realized that the headless knights would not be killed that way.

Some headless knights began to desert their horses and attempted to climb up the city wall. This was when they needed the undead soldiers’ help. These undead soldiers would attack the skulls that were hung on the headless knights’ waists.

Two to three of Earl Besta’s soldiers would use pikes to block the headless knight. Two undead soldiers would then charge forward and activate the corpse explosion skill to blow up the headless knights’ brains. Finally, the headless knights would tumble down the city wall.

The casualties were increasing by the hour. The new recruits could not be compared to Earl Besta’s bodyguards. The headless knights did not have any weaknesses and the people trapped in the city were helpless. If not for the city wall, everyone in the city would already have been killed by the headless knights.

It was too late to flee from the city. All they could do now was to defend the city and wait for reinforcements.

After holding on for two days, the people in the city were tired beyond words. The headless knights had only lost less than one-thousand of their own yet more than half of the undead soldiers were dead. Slightly more than one-thousand were left. The remaining headless knights were stronger than those that had perished. Even if three to five undead soldiers attacked a headless knight at once, they might not succeed in killing it.

Just as the morale within the city was at its lowest, two figures appeared on the plains far away like shooting stars and arrived behind the headless knights. These two figures paid no attention to the headless knights. They instead flew up and over the top of the city wall. The soldiers on the city wall wanted to shoot arrows at them, but found that they could no longer control their limbs.

Even the headless knights that were climbing the city wall found themselves unable to move. The two figures stopped. It was a man and a woman. The man waved his hand and suddenly, there was a very slight sound in the bodies of all the headless knights.

Ka…

Almost in one instant, all the headless knights turned into black powder and scattered onto the ground as if they never existed.

The woman opened her mouth and a green light shone from her fingers to form an illusion on the city wall.

The illusion was a monster that was more than twenty yards tall. It had three heads, four arms and an entire body of black scales with a horn on each head.

“Has anyone seen this before?” The woman’s voice rang throughout the entire city.

The soldiers shook their heads. The man glanced over and said to the woman, “Jessica, the dark sky devil has never been here. We have been tricked.”

“What do we do now, Gauf?”

The man opened his mouth and said, “When did these headless knights start to attack this place?”

“Two, two days ago…,” a slightly more courageous soldier replied. Even the new recruits had become braver after having managed to survive until then. Battling the headless knights everyday was a nightmare.

“Jessica, it has been two days. That thing did not dare to fly so it is probably within two-thousand miles from here.”

“Damn it. He has devoured more than ten-thousand people so he has managed to stop his injury for the time-being. I can’t detect his aura!”

These two were the Goddess’ envoys that had left the purgatory desert. They did not have any important tasks at hand so they decided to track down the dark sky devil. During the first encounter, the dark sky devil was badly injured by them and had fled for its life.

These two oracles definitely possessed the power to kill him. The dark sky devil had been concealing his movements all along, but was still caught by them. Jessica used divine spells to hack off one of his heads and just like that, more than ten-thousand years of powers that he had accumulated had gone to waste. He knew that he was no match for the two envoys so he deserted the head and fled. It was easy to detect his aura through his blood so he took the risk of killing ten-thousand Qin soldiers to stop the bleeding for the time-being.

The dark sky devil’s third head was still unable to possess any abilities. In order to recover, he would need a large number of disciples to pray to him.

The dark sky devil took the risk of killing ten-thousand Qin soldiers and this took the envoys by surprise. He created more than two-thousand headless knights before hiding himself. He would wait for the oracles to track down these knights first before escaping in the opposite direction.

Ever since he developed intelligence, the dark sky devil had never been so aggrieved before. If only he had his full powers, he would not have to fear these two envoys.

Aside from the two envoys losing track of dark sky devil, Saleen had already led his one-thousand prisoners to Daliang City. All the prisoners were Qin and were not subjected to any mistreatment. Lex arranged for them to join the battalion of new recruits instead of becoming auxiliary soldiers immediately.

The King’s mansion in Daliang City was also called the Imperial Palace. Saleen did not stay in the magic tower mainly because it would be difficult for his demons to settle down there. Saleen stayed in a small building in the backyard of the King’s mansion that was near the magic tower. One level of this building was already used by Lex for military matters. The hall was broad and beside the gigantic oval-shaped table were the generals of Bitter Water Prefecture and the people that Saleen had brought over.

On Lex’s side, one grade-7 mage was stationed at the magic tower outside of the city so only one other grade-7 mage sat beside her. On the other side sat Wild Bear. This warrior was originally a cook, but was already a zun grand swordmaster now. Even Su was jealous of his talent.

Not only was Wild Bear fast in training up his sword aura, his god-given strength was also something others wished they had. Even if he did not utilize the sword aura, one hit by his hammer would still cause enough grief to most swordmasters.

It was not because of his outstanding fighting skills that he merited a seat beside Lex. Behind her stood four black metal grand swordmasters, two of them middle-aged and the other two were youths. Wild Bear was now the battalion commander of Lex’s palace swordsmen. He lead tens of thousands of soldiers who specialized in battles on foot. After a few years of grooming, his talent for military was on full display. No one would ever guess that he used to be a cook.

Lex still had another ten main battalions and their commanders were all seated at the table.

On Saleen’s side, Eleanor and Isabella sat beside him since grade-6 grand mages could not possibly stand behind. The four demons stood obediently, as well as the winged skeleton. Mu En was also seated beside Saleen with an expressionless face.

It pained him to disguise himself as a grand sorcerer, especially when surrounded by so many important people. He almost wanted to knock himself dead. Unfortunately, the winged skeleton had no intentions of letting him go. He continued to make him wear the black magic robe and sit beside Saleen.

Beside Saleen were Nicholas and Su. Su was now fully capable of leading Saleen’s first battalion into battle and they were stationed in Daliang City as well. As they had been in battles together, Lex’s generals were grateful and appreciative of the Metatrins.

The people of Bitter Water Prefecture witnessed for themselves how this battalion of new recruits went through the initiation of fighting on the battlefield to become seasoned soldiers. Until now, more than one-thousand soldiers from the first battalion had died and up to three-thousand had to leave due to injuries. The battalion had seen a turnover of more than half of its soldiers. Nevertheless, the first battalion had gradually matured and could now live up to its name of being elite soldiers.

Saleen used his senses, but was unable to detect the old assassin that used to stay by Lex’s side. That old fellow must have become stronger again.

Lex presented the images from the magic map. Separation Sea was tiny and covered by fog. As the images were gradually magnified, one could clearly see the twists and turns of the shore and its shape.

“After I killed the Cloudflow envoy, everyone else rushed ashore and my ships were thoroughly destroyed.” Lex used a magic staff to point at a coordinate on the three-dimensional map and said, “Although the group of envoys’ fleet was of a small scale and would not be able to launch any attacks on land, subsequently, Cloudflow will most likely gather all their fleets on the Separation Sea over here. There is only a small town with at most ten-thousand men stationed by the shore. It will not do.”

Everyone in the hall hung their heads gloomily after hearing what Lex said. If this was a battle on land, they would not have to be afraid. None of them were proficient in naval warfare. Everyone looked at Saleen and waited for his response.

These generals knew that the King of Metatrin came specifically to provide reinforcements, but they had no idea what brilliant suggestions he might possibly have. Looking at how simply he carried himself, the generals had little expectation of Saleen.