Badge in Azure

“I got this weapon from a Duke’s castle. I only found it after wandering for 150,000 years. It was because of this weapon that I managed to become the leader of the Midnight Fangs and possess my own soul. Saleen, my attacks will not be subjected to any limitations of energy and even if we are not in the Imperial City of Abyss, I will still be able to unleash power like this. Please…”

With that, Jinn’s body turned into black smoke and he floated in the waters, slowly spreading out into a mass of black fog. The half-sword he wielded had also vanished.

Saleen’s elemental eyes lost sight of the half-sword as well but they were still locked on the leader of the Midnight Fangs. By right, they were two grades apart, so Saleen should not have been able to see through Jinn’s ability to conceal. It was due to Saleen’s grade-9 elemental eyes that he could just barely see amidst the black fog that Jinn had not disintegrated. Instead, Jinn had come to the 17th level of the divine tree magic tower, with the half-sword in his hands. He was constantly adjusting the angle of the half-sword.

Saleen could see that each time Jinn adjusted the half-sword’s angle, he pointed at the points of weakness of the magic tower. Nevertheless, Jinn did not launch any attacks. It was as if he knew that even if he found the weaknesses, there was nothing much he could do about it.

Compared to the Angel of Fear, the speed at which Jinn was able to discover the magic tower’s weaknesses was frighteningly fast. At that rate, Jinn would be able to find the biggest weakness of the magic tower in less than a day. Such a level of intelligence was definitely much higher than the Angel of Fear’s.

Saleen was not going to allow Jinn to carry on what he was doing. He unleashed the grade-9 Icy Light Spear spell.

Saleen cast the spell using a magic staff. When the Icy Light Spear was cast from the magic tower, it also pierced directly into Jinn because of how close the he was.

Jinn was scared out of his wits. He twisted his body and barely managed to dodge the ice spear. The spear stopped in mid-air and exploded into a bright light instantaneously. It was a spell that was a combination of water and light elements, which was very effective against dark-element creatures.

If this ice spear had induced a light-element attack in Jinn’s body, he would be badly injured, even if he was one grade higher than the grade of the attack. Nevertheless, Jinn’s combat abilities had been honed from many fights and battles against other high-level elemental creatures in the past, hence he was able to react quickly and dodge the attack. As his body was made up of elements, he was able to twist his body at an impossible angle in order to dodge the ice spear.

The ice spear disintegrated and exploded in a powerful light-element attack. A layer of the armor that Jinn was wearing immediately melted way. The rest of the Midnight Fangs that were standing far away quickly raised their half-swords and blocked the front. The Icy Light Spear was boosted by the divine tree magic tower and its second wave of attack turned into a group attack. As the light elements shot down, the half-swords wielded by the 144 Midnight Fangs disintegrated cleanly.

More than 100 grade-9 creatures lost their weapons and armors from the grade-9 magic attack. All the Midnight Fangs hurriedly retreated back into the black crystal tower.

In order to create a dramatic effect, Jinn had made all his subordinates waste 90 percent of their powers in order to kill 144 of Saleen’s elemental creatures. Even his own defense was decreased to the lowest point. It was precisely because of all those factors that Saleen decided to attack the Midnight Fangs with Icy Light Spear so that he could teach them a lesson.

There was a warm glow of light in Flare’s purple eyes. He began to develop admiration after seeing how Saleen counter-attacked. A single grade-9 spell was able to leave a grade-10 elemental creature hapless and injure more than 100 powerful subordinates. The Midnight Fangs were so badly injured that they had to retreat back into the black crystal tower.

Jinn was in combat mode, so he was not going to be distracted by healing his subordinates. The Midnight Fangs had no choice but to self-heal. The speed at which they could self-heal was the same as ordinary grade-9 elemental creatures so they would not be able to return to the battlefield anytime soon.

Clear judgement, accurate use of techniques, and strong grasp of opportunities had all allowed a grade-8 mage to make full use of the magic tower’s power to defeat a grade-10 elemental creature leader. Flare was very satisfied. If Saleen advanced again, he would become a legitimate Master and would be qualified to lead the elemental creatures into battle.

As a fire-element creature, Flare loved combat, but as his powers were suppressed in the Imperial City of Abyss, he had no chance of winning against dark-element creatures. That was why he immediately led his subordinates to investigate the moment he discovered the presence of a human. Then, he chose to submit to Saleen once he realized that the latter was powerful enough to kill the former. This was his plan all along. He did not care what kind of person Saleen was as long as Flare was able to leave that damned and quiet city to see the light again and feel the power of fire elements everywhere.

In order to help Saleen become more powerful and not die so easily, Flare even took the initiative to help Saleen look for the other elemental badges. The number of elemental creatures that had developed souls in such an environment was few and far between, especially creatures of light and wind elements. The leaders of the elemental creatures of those two elements might be in deep sleep, but once they found a suitable environment, they would be able to restore very quickly.

The leader of the Midnight Fans was the only troublesome one. Flare knew that that leader was more powerful than all the other leaders combined. Not only did Jinn possess intelligence, he also possessed a powerful weapon. His attacks were so powerful that some of the elemental creatures that had possessed souls were also killed by him. Flare did not think that Saleen would win, but neither did he think he would lose, since the latter possessed the divine tree magic tower.

Instead, it turned out that Saleen only needed to use a grade nine spell to put Jinn in such a hapless state.

Jinn waved his half-sword and all the darkness elements gathered to repair his armor. The black fog that surrounded him ballooned into such a huge mass that it was able to cover the entire divine tree magic tower.

The dark elements began to attack every level of the magic tower. By doing so, Jinn had sped up the rate at which he could determine the magic tower’s weaknesses by 100 times.

Jinn began to spin around the divine tree magic tower. His movements were unpredictable, and his speed was astounding. Saleen had never seen any creature that was able to fly with such incredible agility and speed.

As a grade-8 mage with the help of the magic tower, Saleen had no problem locking on to grade-9 professionals or creatures. Against a grad-10 professional moving with such agility, Saleen was helpless. After all, the divine tree magic tower had to be refined completely. Flare looked at Saleen and wondered how his Master would solve that problem.

Saleen was troubled as well. Although he was unable to lock on to Jinn, he was able to predict his movements so if necessary, he would still be able to shoot down this arrogant fellow with his badge. On the other hand, crystal finger would not suffice because its duration was a frame of time and it would only hit the enemy after locking on to him.

“Master, let me go.” Nailisi twitched the long lance in her hands. She already found Jinn very annoying. If possible, she would eat his soul and Master could find another one. In any case, there were so many dark-element creatures there. It would not be difficult finding a second one that possessed a soul.

The most powerful spell that Saleen could cast was definitely Endless Night, but since it was a dark-element spell, it would help the Midnight Fang instead of trapping him.

Although light-element spells might not cause serious damage to Jinn, Saleen had no choice but to unleash the spell stored in his magic staff in such an environment. Unleashing such a spell would not produce much resonance of elements, so it would be impossible to extract elements from such an environment to boost the power of the spell. A spell like that could only sustain for a short while and the damage it could cause was also the lowest of the grade.

Saleen had less than three of such light-element spells in his magic staff. There was no way he could subdue Jinn with those three spells.

Saleen raised his shriveled left hand and stretched it in front of him. His mind never stopped thinking.

Both inside and outside of the magic tower, mage and elemental creatures were both trying to figure out the weakness of their opponents.

When Nailisi saw no reaction from Saleen, she was furious and leveled her long lance and faked a jab at Jinn. Saleen could not be bothered with her. Flare was taken aback by what he saw. The fake jab from Nailisi actually landed accurately on one of the points of Jinn’s movements.

In other words, Nailisi had managed to lock on to Jinn.

Flare only managed to confirm that Nailisi could have hit Jinn after Jinn had passed by. Based on Flare’s own estimation, he would not have been able to predict Jinn’s movements.

“Master, why don’t you let Nailisi give it a try?” Flare asked. It was just an experiment anyway. There was no harm if Nailisi died and there was a possibility of subduing Jinn too. Jinn would never surrender if Saleen failed in his attack.

“Nailisi can only hurt him but conversely, she can be killed by him. Flare, don’t bring up something like that next time.”

Although Nailisi felt a little rebellious, she was admittedly terrified of the half-sword that Jinn wielded. Jinn was powerful in his own right, but he also possessed a magic weapon that Nailisi could not comprehend. There were 24 symbols on both sides of this half-sword and each symbol looked like powerful souls surfacing on the body of the sword.

Nailisi’s long lance might be able to injure Jinn badly, or even crush his elemental core, but the moment that half-sword touched her, she was as good as dead.

“Nailisi?”

“Yes, master?”

“Do what you did just now and fake a jab at him!” Saleen had also discovered what Nailisi did. While he was troubled over not being able to lock on to Jinn, Nailisi was able to pinpoint him effortlessly.

Nailisi did not fully understand what was going on but since there was nothing much she could do, she used her long lance to jab at a few points. All of them landed accurately on the points in which Jinn had stopped.

Saleen laughed out loud and said, “Nailisi, I have an idea!”