Badge in Azure

The mages did not participate in the subjugation of the ancient warriors, as the difference in levels between both sides was simply too great. If the mages were to actually participate in said battle, any one skill the warriors were capable of casting would have proved more than enough to kill all of them.

All twenty-four ancient warriors wore Tainted Blood Armors and stood in formation at Saleen’s flanks to protect their master, which ended up looking like a pair of wings engulfing Saleen in the middle. A warrior standing at the front pointed their spear forward. The resulting sharp aura unleashed almost cracked the magic shield that the mages put up in haste.

The mages were finally relieved. The combat prowess of the twenty-four warriors were shown to be far more than enough to break any defenses they could erect. Saleen was near absolutely safe under the protection of the warriors. Saleen’s earlier words were spoken just in case something untoward did happen. Having recalled how cautious Saleen used to be in his earlier days, the mages finally quieted down, and agreed to not accompany him into the oceanic ice block.

Still, the mages’ understanding of the danger of the oceanic ice block posed was limited. The place was covered with giant ice sheets of more than one mile thick in average. Once having entered the region, the only way out was to dig at the ice tens of times stronger than steel.

If there was to be ample time and they were in a safe environment, digging out of such places would have been nothing difficult for Saleen, who possessed mystical water current techniques. The oceanic ice block was a place teeming with dangerous magic beasts. There was no time to slowly dig their way out of the ice when danger was right in front of their eyes.

After saying his goodbyes, Saleen had the pan’s turtle alchemical boat descend into the water, making its way into the oceanic ice block.

They were at a place about four to five hundred miles away from the edge of the ice sheets. The depth between sea level and the ocean floor exceeded five-thousand yards. Where they were at was far deeper than the outskirts of the ice block. The outskirts of the ice block seemed to have continuous mountain ranges underneath, which surrounded the ice block. The depth increased sharply once crossing the undersea mountain ranges.

The winged skeleton took the pan’s turtle alchemical boat moving along the mountain and tracing along the north-south direction undersea. They dared not move for deeper trenches. It was said that packs of the most fearsome creatures found on the Myers Mainland lived in those trenches, which were places devoid of any light element. Defenses of the pan’s turtle alchemical boat were hardly worth mentioning in the underwater trenches with depths of up to ten-thousand yards. The ship would have hardly lasted over a month down there, and such inference was made mostly due to the fact that the magic beasts that dwelled in such depths were known to eat about once a month.

The ridges of the mountains themselves were hardly safe either. Many migratory underwater magic beasts were known to pass through those places in set seasons, and the course charted by the pan’s turtle alchemical boat was one that would have definitely teemed with such beasts.

The winged skeleton had the ship go searching in those ridges. Single-horned white whales were huge animals. If they were to make their way into the oceanic ice block when they were near their deaths, they would definitely leave tracks around the place. The whales would also be unable to breathe in such depths, leaving them no choice but to use magic to extend their time underwater. As such, the elemental traces left behind would be near-impossible to wipe out.

The winged skeleton learned the whales’ smell and special magical traits. So long as the path was something left throughout the ages, the winged skeleton would be able to quickly detect it, even from more than ten miles away from the actual site.

Sunlight was unable to pass through the ice sheets and get into such depths, which meant the temperature there was far lower than at the outskirt. The world seemed pitch black there. Many types of fish glittered as a countermeasure. Their bodies were able to accumulate fire elements, enabling them to shine light onto their surroundings.

The pan’s turtle alchemical boat would also lifted its altitude at times, moving just below the ice sheets.

The winged skeleton informed Saleen that some magic beasts there were so powerful that even if they did not have any intentions of attacking anything, they could tear their ship apart just by playing.

The most special among the creatures was the squid king. Those creatures were able to grow to lengths of more than one-hundred yards, and dared to kill any magic beasts they found, except creatures like the single-horned white whales, which were known to grow to lengths of more than two-hundred yards.

Saleen thought of the kraken he happened to encounter some time ago, knowing all too well that the tentacled creatures somehow possessed inexplicably terrifying powers. Being caught meant one would have had to fight a fierce battle to get out. There was no doubt Saleen would have been able to win against the ancient warriors by his side, but killing the squid kings would have filled the area with blood. That in itself was more terrifying than having to fight such creatures.

The only peace of mind Saleen had in that place was that the oceanic ice block was filled with the power of death. Souls of untold numbers of magic beasts who had died there in ancient times could have still been found, as the dispersal of souls there was extremely slow. The power of death became concentrated instead. In many places deep within oceans where there was no light element to be found, it was near-identical to the environments of the spirit plane. The winged skeleton would be able to create spirits easily in such places.

There were two ways the pan’s turtle alchemical boat went about sensing its environment. The first of which would have been to release bone spirits, while the other was to use Spirit Gaze to observe the environment.

Not only was the use of Spirit Gaze there absolutely inconspicuous, the range of detection was also greatly enhanced, enabling one to see what was going on more than twenty miles away.

Even if there was to be a human grade-9 sorcerer nearby, they would not have found the pan’s turtle alchemical boat which was using active sensors in the dark. The same went with magic beasts in the sea. They simply thought the ship to be a dead pan’s turtle, leaving nothing but its shell behind. While they were unable to grasp the reason why such a dead thing was able to move, the magic beasts nonetheless showed no interest in a turtle shell devoid of any signs of life.

While the oceanic ice block was definitely a dangerous place to be and the magic beasts there were not the kind to kill for sport. They hunted only they were really hungry. Of course, magic beasts in heat would have proved to be a threat nonetheless, but the signs of being in heat were obvious. The aura of danger exuded from such a creature was one that one would be able to sense from more than one-hundred miles away. The winged skeleton had no reason to go pick fights with such beasts.

Life was so numerous and diverse underneath the ice sheets that Saleen almost doubted his eyes. There were times when their ship made it into the midst of a school of fish, and it took the ships hours to make it out of such schools. The number of such fish there was so massive that if he was to hunt there, Saleen would have easily acquired thousands, or maybe millions ofmid-level magic nuclei.

Of course the fish were not something that were easy to deal with. Saleen swallowed down his urge of wanting to hunt them, and had the winged skeleton keep looking for the cemetery they came for.

Light was seen afar, emanating from innumerable shining plants growing on the ridges. The plants took root on the rocks, and their leaves that were tens of yards long, danced in the water, making the place looked like a shining underwater jungle.

The pan’s turtle alchemical boat went up. From the images gathered using Spirit Gaze, Saleen and his companions saw a group of grade-7 iron sharks chasing after tens of slim, elongated magic beasts into the shining jungle. The dancing leaves shone more intensely all of a sudden. The sharks’ eyes, which were able to see clearly for miles in the dark, were blinded by the strong light. The sharks were in pain.

“The iron sharks are doomed,” the winged skeleton sighed. While the iron sharks were only grade-7 beings, they nonetheless dared to form groups and attack grade-8 creatures, and the success rate was extremely high as well, making them very dangerous creatures. These twenty yard long iron sharks ended up being entangled by the shining leaves, and then injected with powerful venom from the tiny pricks on the leaves. The iron sharks struggled fiercely as a result.

One of the sharks had more than one-thousand leaves entangled with it. The shark was strong nonetheless, enabling them to easily shrug off and break more than one-thousand of the shining leaves. More leaves around simply waited to entangle the sharks again. The sharks’ hard, armor-like scales were torn during such struggles, enabling injection of the venom from the leaves increasingly easy.

The group of iron sharks twisted and turned in the jungle. Every time they struggled free of the leaves, another layer of flesh and blood was taken from them. The shining leaves sucked up the torn flesh and blood maniacally, and the iron sharks were rendered utterly helpless as soon as they got entangled. They were eventually wrapped up entirely by the leaves, without so much as an opening to see what was inside.

The sharks of more than twenty yards long each were rendered from fearsome predators to food in speed observable by the naked eye. The pan’s turtle alchemical boat moved cautiously above the jungle. Saleen was able to see the number of bones collected beneath the shinning jungle with his Spirit Gaze, spreading out as far as one could see.

“Horrible plants indeed!”

“Master, if we were to plant such plants at the bottom of our ports, no one would be able to infiltrate the city from below,” the winged skeleton looked at the shining plants below, with eyes glittering with fondness.

“Forget it…these things..,” Saleen dreaded to think about such horrible plants existing. If the plants proved to be ones with immense capacity to breed, the seas around the port would have ended up in permanent lockdown quickly.

“Master, look,” the winged skeleton pointed at the image, or more specifically, at the tens of slim, elongated magic beasts which slithered their way into the jungle.

Saleen took a closer look. He found that these magic beasts were at least ten yards long, slithering about the shining leaves like they were in a playground. They all had small mouths, which had no teeth within. Many pieces of the meat torn off the iron sharks earlier ended up in the mouths of the long creatures.

So the beasts served as bait to lure them into the shining jungle then. Once the plants are done killing the sharks, the long beasts would be there to pick up whatever scraps were left.

“We need to be careful and not simply chase after anything we find here,” Saleen’s his voice had a tinge of terror in it.

These beasts might not have been very intelligent, but their methods might not have been ones that human would have been able to deal with nonetheless. If he had found the beasts and given chase, he would have ended up in the jungle, and only the gods could know what would have happened next.

The world beneath the ice sheets was a cunning and brutal one. Killings happened all the time. Magic beasts capable of surviving under such environments all possessed unique abilities. In that particular region of the ocean, human intelligence would barely have any edge or advantage to speak of.

The pan’s turtle alchemical boat continued making its way north, the way past the undersea jungle was pitch black. Spirit Gaze was used to its fullest, allowing the winged skeleton to keep everything within a twenty miles radius under surveillance.

“Master…,” Nailisi pointed at an image and said, “This is not something we can afford letting go, right?”

Saleen turned and looked at the image. A fish about one-hundred yards long was speeding through the water heading forward. The sound created rang inside the ship without even needing detection from magic arrays.

The fish had a long body and a spike of about eight yards long in front of its mouth.

“A spearfish?”, Saleen’s mood dissipated after finding the fish to be a mere grade-8 spearfish. A grade-8 magic beast hardly piqued his interest. His goal was the single-horned white whale after all.

“A Silverline Golden Spearfish. Definitely a grade-9 magic beast. Master, that spiky mouth is the world’s sharpest weapon!”

Nailisi elaborated after seeing Saleen was still unable to get her point, “Master. The silverline golden spearfish is the only magic beast who dares to hunt a single-horned white whale. Its mouth can easily pierce through the whale’s body. If we had one such weapon with us, we would no longer need to run even if the target whale is still alive!”