Badge in Azure

While it was possible for a grade-6 grand mage to win against a grade-7 sorcerer in a fight, killing one might still have proven difficult. The flight capabilities of grade-7 sorcerers were, after all, orders of magnitude above grade-6 grand mages.

No mage would have even considered the thought of Saleen attempting to kill a grade-8 sorcerer.

What enabled the possibility for Saleen to do so, was the devil’s armor that Joey crafted for him. The armament was affixed with grade-7 magic, with the two grade-12 magic nuclei etched into the mask providing the energy required for holding the grade-7 magic spells within the armor.

The devil’s armor required only six hours to enable repeated conjuring of the magic spells. All other grade-7 spells were used up other than Stone Statue Army. What remained other than that, was the three high level magic spells stored within the wooden sword in his hand.

No mage, even one from Alchemy City, was as extravagant as Saleen when it came to spending gold for magic. All he relied on to conjure such an amount of grade-7 magic spells, was his powerful equipment.

The grade-8 sorcerer trapped in the Endless Night had just about done calming themself down, and was attempting to break the Endless Night using magic. It was then that they sensed someone breaking into the magical void that enveloped them.

Whatever pride that the grade-8 sorcerer have left, Saleen’s break-in had finally broken it. That grand mage had come for him instead of running away. What for indeed.

They were not able to see Saleen’s expression within the Endless Night, but they were able to acknowledge what was going through his mind. The puny mage was coming for his head!

While the sorcerer was in rage, they nonetheless still feared the Endless Night. They extended their left arm, which had a very large ring on it, etched with a black gem.

Every sorcerer had tricks to keep themselves alive in dire situations like that, and this one was no exception. Cloudflow mages feared death more than anything else. As such, their life saving equipment had always been the most powerful among everything they carried. As they lifted their left hand and struggled to control the elemental balance around their arm, an azure-colored water current coiled around their wrist.

The sorcerer’s arm was no tougher than a piece of rock. They were baffled as to how the water current had managed to coil around their wrist. They were able to sense that the mage had not been using any skill. They would have never thought about the possibility that the water current was not all that different from Water Puppets in nature. They had the ability to seek out targets and attack on their own.

Crack…crack!

Defensive magic activated immediately around the sorcerer’s wrist. As the water current kept turning, coiling and cutting at great speeds, the sorcerer was rendered incapable of activating the stored magic in their ring. The elements around their left arm were not only being dissolved by the Endless Night, but also completely disrupted by the Current Cutter.

While the grade-4 Current Cutter definitely had more power than its level suggested, it was still incapable of cutting the sorcerer’s defenses open. Then again, what it did was more than enough. Taking hold of the opening, Saleen rushed to face the sorcerer.

One slash was needed, nothing more.

A layer of greenish sheen appeared on the edge of Saleen’s wooden sword. He had never thought that he would have gotten so close fighting a grade-8 sorcerer, and furthermore, he was able to land a hit. Golden lightning shot forth from Saleen’s eyes, forming a huge mark on the sorcerer’s body.

The Eye of Lightning had an effective range of about six yards. Even when fired at full power, the distance could have only been extended to eight yards.

A layer of light formed around the sorcerer’s body. The grade-8 shimmer was their defensive magic, which had some transmutation effect in it. It also appeared to be more powerful than a Crystal Guardian of about grade-7. Magic spells’ defense did not rise according with their levels. The grade-8 Shimmer was able to diffuse all elemental attacks due to its transmutation effects, and worked exceptionally well against divine spell defenses.

The lightning attack rendered this grade-8 defensive magic useless, breaking it in an instant. Saleen’s wooden sword then landed on the sorcerer’s neck.

With a swift gushing sound, the sorcerer’s head was sent flying off elsewhere. The elements within the remaining body began to crumble, affecting the workings of the Endless Night. The spell even began to attack Saleen.

A grade-7 Vacuum Cutting spell was infused onto the edge of the wooden sword, an offensive spell that had the shortest range among all Wind Magic.

This spell, however, was more powerful than the Ice Ring spell and far more useful. The Vacuum Cutting spell was upgradable. If it could have been trained to reach grade-10, its sheer power would have nearly rivaled a Compound Magic like Space Cutting. Such magic was deployed by sorcerers against warriors who came close. It was a spell that was both stealthy and deadly. It was a spell capable of cutting the high level devil’s armor in half, let alone a mere neck.

The water current cut off the sorcerer’s arm as Saleen landed the fatal hit. It brought the sorcerer’s severed arm with it as Saleen summoned it back.

Six of Saleen’s Water Shields had already been broken by the Endless Night’s chaotic attacks. He dived and went out of the Endless Night’s reach, before he truly became the spell’s next target.

As Saleen just left the range of attack of the Endless Night, he saw a shadow of some sort coming for him. He immediately gathered the clouds around him, with the tornados within numbering to over a hundred, and dived sharply downward.

Killing the grade-8 sorcerer made him used up his most powerful magic — Endless Night. He had also just used Eye of Lightning, Saleen had just about exhausted all his mental powers. If a grade-9 sorcerer was to come for him at that moment, he had no confidence that he would have been able to take them on. The other option would have been the badge, but it required targeting, and that in turn, required mental powers.

Saleen dived straight for the protection of the magic tower at full speed, going straight for Stephanie’s tower. The sorcerer who was closing in airborne, had just witnessed his own subordinate’s head falling off. At that moment, the great area of congealed dark element let out a deafening roar of explosion.

Saleen did not bother to turn back, as he was able to sense the terrifying power of this particular sorcerer. His would-be assailant was so terrifyingly powerful that the fear it instilled in Saleen dwarfed that when he was facing the Golden Grand Swordmaster. The grade-8 sorcerer he had just killed, felt like an ant in comparison.

“So a mage this powerful was among the Cloudflow people then!”

Saleen thought that the mages of the Qin Empire were the most powerful. Mages of other countries were lacking in foundations and lineages. Not to mention, their conditions for practicing magic were far from conducive. This sorcerer who just showed up however, had Saleen on his guard.

“This must be the guy the winged skeleton talked about! If this guy were to take on Safilos one-on-one, there would be no doubt that Safilos would ended up dead.” Those were the thoughts stemming from Saleen’s intuition, and Saleen was not one to rely on intuition. Saleen’s intuition had never, even once, betrayed him however.

Saleen landed on the magic tower at three times his usual speed. He only dared to look back at the sky then. He eyes found a black-robed mage, who had just finished dispersing the Endless Night, He looked at the Daliang City below with rage written all over his face.

Saleen’s heart pounded wildly, and worried if the black-robed mage would have simply rushed at him. His new assailant did not seem to fear the no-fly zone. Saleen found himself clutching his family badge in his hands, tighter and tighter.

After using up the Eye of Lightning and the Darkness Shield, Saleen had practically exhausted all his magic chord and mental power reserves.

“Saleen, get in,” Lex’s voice was heard from inside the eight-floored magic tower.

Saleen did a flip and leaped into the tower below through the window. Lex was the one in control within the eight-floored tower. The magic images showing on the alchemy platform displayed the actions of the black-robed mage in the sky, at a height of more than a thousand yards up.

The black-robed mage raised his staff tall, and seemed to be preparing for a powerful spell. The spell seemed to require quite a bit of time for preparation, as the black-robed mage’s mouth seemed to have never stopped moving, chanting the words.

Grade-9 sorcerers were capable of conjuring any spells below grade-8, with the exception of spells that were inherently incapable of being conjured instantly. Grade-9 sorcerers’ attacks had always had the reputation of being furious and violent.

“That is not someone we can mess with. Unless the mage dares come down for us, we will simply use three towers to target him, and you attack with the badge,” Lex spoke as she looked at the sorcerer shown in the image. Her head ached.

It was obvious that the sorcerer was furious, and wanted revenge for the dead grade-8 sorcerer.

“I…,” Saleen opened his mouth and found that his vocal chords were hardly working. He had just had a very tense battle. While it did not last long, a great amount of his strength was exhausted. He was also suffering from tremendous mental pressure. He had after all, just killed a grade sorcerer. It was an unparalleled challenge for him.

“Some guts you had there. Fighting a grade-8 sorcerer and all that,” Lex glared at Saleen, angry over his impulsive actions that had just taken place. If the grade-8 sorcerer had had any equipment with them allowing them to evade Saleen’s lightning attack, it would have been Saleen who would have ended up dead.

Saleen turned a deaf ear to Lex’s complaints. He had to find someone to blow off all that steam pent up inside him on. Their palace was wrecked on the very night of their wedding. Then a humongous crater with a diameter of hundreds of yards showed up out of nowhere, turning all buildings within in ruins.

“If something like that ever happens again…”, Lex looked at Saleen, and sighed, “…remember to take me with you!”

Saleen drank some magic liquid to soothe his throat, as well as to recover some mental power and magic chords. It was only then that he went to sit by Lex’s side, “We will do it together next time.”

The grade-9 sorcerer in the air did not come for them. He had simply kept levitating mid-air and chanted words. Fire elements began to build up in the cloudless night sky, the density was such that it surpassed a common magic tower’s.

“This is bad!”, Lex stood up furiously and went over to the center of the tower, fixing six high level magic nuclei on the magic array set in the ground.

Saleen’s actions had riled up the other sorcerers in the other towers. Every one of them were now watching the sky. Even the magic towers at the edge of the city began activating their respective magic arrays immediately.

As the gathering of fire elements finished, thousands of fireballs rained down on the ground below.

That was a grade-9 Fire Rain spell. Common Fire Rains conjured about six-hundred fireballs, while the Fire Rain conjured by this sorcerer, brought more than four-thousand fireballs.

The sheer strength displayed by the mage had every sorcerer and grand mage in every tower feeling listless. He was a person, who was capable of taking on every single magic tower!

The fireballs flew into the six magic towers. The Cloudflow sorcerer had chosen not to attack any military camps, which meant that their capacity for reasoning was still intact. The massive fireballs banged hard on the protective shields of the towers. The resulting impacts made all the towers shake violently.

A burning smell spread all over Daliang City, as if the place was purgatory. The defense of the towers drastically reduced. They even began failing to maintain their respective no-fly zones.