Badge in Azure

Chapter 886: Life On the Line (Part 1)

An elemental stone statue soldier appeared about every one-thousand yards. The winged skeleton adjusted his speed just twice. Every time he saw an elemental stone statue soldier, he would use the power of Blood Cry Explosion within the meteor hammer to take the soldiers down.

The winged skeleton did not stop for the entire one-thousand mile journey. The meteor hammer in his hand was as hot as it could have gotten. It flared up on the surface, with only the core remaining so cold that it neared freezing point. The gap was where magic arrays worked most nimbly.

If seen from afar what Soldier had in his hand looked like a large fireball with a diameter of more than three yards. Every collision of the hammer brought with it an explosion on the fireball. The sound of it reverberated for one-hundred miles. Only the ancient warriors would have been completely unmoved with such thundering booms being near them. When the winged skeleton missed the vital points of any of the soldiers, the warriors would then swarm at the missed target.

The winged skeleton did not change his tactics until encountering the blue ice maidens. The blue ice maidens were unable to withstand such powerful explosions, resulting in them swiftly falling to the floor. They suffered grievous injuries from severely cracked cores.

The winged skeleton was totally unaware that he had just created an entirely new offensive equipment. All he had in his mind was that he wanted to see Saleen as quickly as possible. Until then, he needed to be familiar with his new weapon. He did not bother leaving the perimeter of the wall and simply kept up with his onslaught. The speed at which it was done prevented the elemental creatures from being able to gather their numbers and gang up on him. They fell one after another instead.

The speed at which the winged skeleton was able to reach the environment of the imperial city was three times that he had achieved on land. He reached a very quiet place in less than half a day’s time. The elemental creatures around those parts all fell onto the floor, their eyes looking empty.

Soldier made his way further into the city, and was able to hear a low growl.

“A powerful monster!”

The winged skeleton turned around and ran towards the source of the sound. The fires of his meteor hammer were still burning. The eyes of the ancient warriors behind him were still as cold as ever.

The ancient warriors were something that existed between humans and spirits. Some creatures existed in the gaps between the usual categories. The sound wave attack of the angel of fear was completely ineffective against the ancient warriors.

“Master!”

The winged skeleton finally picked up Saleen’s presence, or to put it in a more accurate manner, it was Saleen sensing the winged skeleton nearby. He had exuded his aura outside the divine tree magic tower, summoning his servant to him.

Outside of Saleen’s divine tree magic tower, the angel of fear had been laying siege for two days. She swung her blade at the tower repeatedly and nonchalantly, feeling the retaliation of the construct. The tower’s retaliation was very even. The same amount of energy was wielded regardless of where the angel of fear hit.

The angel of fear was looking for weak spots. It was looking for a place where she would be able to cut the tower open with just one slash. Minor weaknesses were all over the tower. In her perspective, she would have been able to tear down the magic tower slowly given enough time. She however, did not want to stay there and waste months or even more than half a year. She wanted to capture Saleen immediately and suck out his soul.

The angel of fear felt the winged skeleton coming as well. The level difference rendered the winged skeleton and the twenty-four warriors behind him as bright as daylight in the darkness to her. The angel of fear and the face on her torso laughed maniacally at the same time.

“O’ fallen human, what have you brought with you now, I wonder?”, the angel of fear stopped attacking and shouldered her blade, looking in the direction the winged skeleton was running.

Saleen was unable to hear what the angel of fear was saying as he had completely cut off all sound-based communications between the tower and the outside world. Without a soul contract, he would not have been able to sense the winged skeleton’s presence. Saleen had only his eyes to rely on at that moment, so he understood what was going on out there by sight. The angel of fear cast her eyes in the direction where the winged skeleton was making his way to her. Saleen saw it all and felt extremely worried.

The twenty mile distance between where he stood and the wall was hardly a problem for a grade-9 professional. Saleen was at his wits’ end all of a sudden. The face at the torso of the angel of fear suddenly started chanting solemnly, rendering all pests at her knees in her control. She then had them rush at Soldier, intending to overwhelm the newcomer with numbers.

Saleen’s mind raced with worry. He took out the witcher spider from his Devil Ring. He threw the spider into the water flame without second thoughts, and began crafting the magic arrays on the spider. Saleen’s alchemic crafting methods were stronger than Aini’s parents. He needed the spider to work at that moment more than he ever did.

Saleen felt himself being cornered. The angel of fear attacked the tower relentlessly in search of the tower’s weakness. The openings that Saleen revealed deliberately failed to catch the angel of fear’s attention. He probably had only one chance at attacking the angel. If he failed, him and everyone around him would be reduced to food for the angel of fear.

The magic array on the witcher spider’s back was erased and Saleen put his last piece of broken jade on its back. He infused it with a bit of power of life from his left hand. He then stamped it with his family badge. The rule of energy balance was worked into the magic array and imprinted on the family badge.

Energies overflowed from the surface of the witcher spider, and Saleen set tens of magic nucleus shards around the edge of the family badge, creating a mini magic array. The only use of the magic array was to make the spider seem very powerful. It was to make it seem to be at least a grade-9 creature.

The winged skeleton rushed all the way to Saleen. It ended up facing tens of thousands of grade-7 monsters all of a sudden. The more powerful ones among them had even reached the peak of grade-9.

The winged skeleton’s senses told him that there were even more powerful monsters lying in wait just about a dozen miles away. That was where Saleen’s presence laid. He swung the meteor hammer in his hands. The pests were hardly able to defend against it. The winged skeleton easily sent tens of their enemies flying at a time. He headed for the angel of fear like a tidal wave washing over ants.

The flaming meteor hammer burned brighter and fiercer in the dark and under the water pressure. Any pests encountered were quickly blown to pieces with just one single piece of bloodstone the winged skeleton created.

The tens of thousands of pests hardly slowed the winged skeleton and the twenty-four ancient warriors. They were like invincible elite troops slaughtering their way into a turf held by a bunch of peasants.

The angel of fear was rather surprised. She had thought that it would be easy for such massive numbers of pests to overwhelm twenty something grade-9 beings in an open field. Her enemies proved far more powerful than she had initially anticipated.

The angel of fear smirked in joy after the feeling of surprise subsided. The stronger the ones coming to look for the human in the tower, the more important they were to the human. She refused to believe that the human inside would simply allow her to kill his savior.

Saleen, of course, would never allow Soldier to simply be killed in front of his eyes. The winged skeleton would be no match for the angel of fear, regardless of how strong he had gotten. Such difference in levels was near-impossible to be adequately covered by the power of equipment alone. Nothing other than his own family badge had worked. Even Raphael’s Crystal Finger would not be able to kill the angel of fear.

“Master, don’t go out!” seeing how the plates of the devil’s armor flipped about Saleen, as he put on his mask and tookthe wooden sword that Joey crafted for him, Nailisi knew right away that Saleen was about to sneak up on the angel of fear.

“Head out with me. If death does come knocking, none of us will be able to get out alive! Nailisi, give me a nightmare!”

“No!” Nailisi shouted.

“Give it to me, or I will sever my contract with you!” Saleen said with a cold expression.

“Master!” Nailisi had not anticipated Saleen to be so determined. He had even prepared to open the magic tower. If she did not follow Saleen’s order, he would simply go out himself instead of waiting for an opening.

“Darn you, Soldier! I…” Nailisi was crying. “Is that pile of bones worth that much to master? He might die going out to save that thing!”

“I would do the same if you were the one out there,” Saleen extended his hand to Nailisi. She gave in. She then took her three-faced bone demon form, summoning two nightmares along the way.

Black flames burned beneath the feet of the massive nightmares. The soul flames bursting outward in their eyes were black as well. Saleen rode on one nightmare and Nailisi followed suit. She took her spear with a cold expression. She headed for the wall of the tower with her master.

The wings of the winged skeleton spread outside the divine tree magic tower as he made his way before the angel of fear. The two yard tall skeletal being looked like a child before the eight yard tall angel of fear.

The Winged Skull flapped his wings and shot upwards, bringing the meteor hammer down on the angel of fear’s head.

The speed of the attack surpassed the limit of a grade-9 professional. A vacuum followed right behind the hammer. Mirages flashed in the vacuum, which boomed with thundering sounds of explosions. The hammer fell right on the face of the angel of fear before the sound caught up.

The angel of fear smirked coldly. She turned around slightly and brought her blade down silently. It landed right on the winged skeleton’s meteor hammer.

The meteor hammer, which was crafted using the horn of a single-horned white whale, was split in two by the angel of fear’s blade. The shimmer of the blade told the winged skeleton that the edge was headed for him next. The winged skeleton was only barely able to turn and evade it in the nick of time. He sacrificed one of his bone wings to the blade.

The two-colored soul flame in the winged skeleton’s eyes danced furiously. He was able to feel pain, after all. His wings, which would have served more than enough as weapons themselves, were as weak as a blade of grass before the angel of fear’s blade. Tens of black faces swirled on the angel of fear’s blade, shrieking eerily. Soldier felt intense pain where his wing got cut off. His body gave and rolled to the left.

The angel of fear played around with her blade for a bit, cutting off their other wing while she was at it. The winged skeleton moaned in pain. He saw the face on the monster’s torso open its mouth wide and lash out a black tongue. The tongue was more than ten yards long like a snake, coiling at his waist.

“No!” the winged skeleton yelled in terror. The golden heart in his chest cavity shrunk to the size of a fist violently. Large amount of spirit energy within the spirit space was absorbed into the winged skeleton’s body and crystallized. The winged skeleton’s power jumped by ten times after being powered by so much spirit energy. He threw the broken half of the meteor hammer away and took out his own battle axe.

Crack…

The angel of fear’s blade swiped lightly at it. The magic array, which resembled two eyes on the axe, was pierced by the blade. The massive axe shattered into twelve pieces soon after.