Badge in Azure

Chapter 921: Removing Hidden Dangers (Part 2)

Nicholas crushed the soul beads with force. The souls and soul shards in the soul beads unleashed a terrifying scream.

Just when Nicholas was about to absorb all the souls in the soul beads with the blood soul tower, a powerful holy light shot out from the broken pieces of the soul beads, lighting up the dark seabed.

Fycro’s face appeared in front of Nicholas. Saleen was already prepared for that and he threw his grade-12 Star Gathering Needle straight at Fycro’s image. The image was burst by the Needle before there was any time to react. Fycro was a grade-10 Holy Master, and coincidentally, the grade-12 Star Gathering Needle was filled with power that was taken from the astrologer’s tower.

When Saleen was in the Outer Nebula, he had used the grade-12 Star Gathering Needle to steal away large amounts of power of constellations, transferring them into his own Needle. The way he did it was very subtle, but it did reduce the Outer Nebula’s energy.

The grade-12 Star Gathering Needle unleashed a powerful and colorful starlight, destroying whatever Fycro had left behind. Saleen did not care what Fycro would think. He had sent Nicholas there to support Saleen, not to keep a watch on him. Now that Saleen had destroyed the hidden danger left behind by Fycro, there was nothing the latter could do about it.

If it was in the past, Saleen might still have some reservations, but since he possessed six grade-10 elemental creatures, there was no way he would be killed so easily by Fycro. After getting in touch with the different levels of souls, Saleen understood that no matter how quickly the humans on the Myers Mainland were advancing, the speed would drop once they had passed grade-9.

All the grades below grade-9 were easy to achieve, even back in ancient times. Beyond that, the speed of advancing would become very slow, even if the power on the Myers Mainland had returned to the same level as the first dynasty.

Fycro was a grade-10 Holy Master, who could only advance to grade-11 at most. There was no way he could advance two grades consecutively. Saleen was confident that he would be able to handle a grade-11 enemy.

He would use the leaders of his elemental creatures to engage the enemy to buy him some time so that he could eliminate the enemy with his clan badge. Saleen believed that there was no way Fycro would be able to break through the mass of huge elemental creatures in one go.

After Fycro’s image was destroyed, the souls and soul shards in the broken soul beads were absorbed into the blood soul tower. It was not a long process, but Nicholas felt like an eternity had passed. By the time all the souls had entered the blood soul tower, Nicholas decided to mark the tower with a soul brand.

Holy Masters were different from mages. From very early on, they would already be in touch with the secrets of the soul and would possess many techniques that targeted the soul. A soul brand like that was something commonly used to exert control over equipment.

The soul brand turned into a towering and bright image. All the soul shards in the blood soul tower began to restore themselves by devouring each other and eventually transforming into complete souls. All the memory shards of the souls were erased, and the moment they were reborn, the only thing they saw was the towering and glorious image of Nicholas.

“My God!” All the souls knelt down and began to bow to Nicholas’ soul brand. The power of faith began to flow out of the blood soul tower continuously.

Nicholas was overjoyed. That was exactly what a fallen Holy Master needed. All the memories of those souls had been erased and all that was left was their love and respect towards him. Although these souls were weak, their power of faith was what Nicholas needed the most. With the blood soul tower, he would be able to cast any divine spells he wanted.

All along, the thing that troubled Nicholas the most was his lack of power. He was a grade-9 fallen Holy Master who only possessed the abilities equivalent to grade-8. This was because he could only utilize the power in his soul beads and the beads usually restored very slowly. He was usually unwilling to cast grade-9 divine spells because he knew that it was not sustainable.

With the love and respect of those pious souls, the power of faith had entered his body completely and would never be lost. The faith of tens of thousands of souls would be able to sustain a grade-9 fallen Holy Master in battle.

Besides, the longer the souls continued to pay their respects to him, the longer his life would be. He might even end up with a lifespan that was as long as a mage.

“Old fellow, how do you feel?” Nailisi asked with a sneaky smile. Nicholas was shocked. The item was given to him by Nailisi, why would she be so kind?

“Nailisi, don’t scare him. Nicholas, this blood soul tower is perfectly fine. You will be able to use it all the way until grade-12. Have you recovered all your powers?”

“Yes, my Lord. When will we leave?”

“Not yet. We will… gather all the bones around the city. I want to prepare some materials for the winged skeleton.”

“Yes, my Lord.” Nicholas no longer had any complaints. Saleen had given him equipment that he could use up to grade-12. Even if the Myers Mainland returned to its original level of power, he would still be able to use that equipment for hundreds of years or even one thousand years. In addition, his fallen staff was made of materials that was even more outstanding than the blood soul tower and it was also refined by Saleen. With this equipment, he would only need a Book of the Fallen or the Forbidden Code to become the most powerful grade-9 Holy Master.

Saleen was also pleased. With the Star Gathering Needle, he would no longer have to worry about any hidden dangers in the equipment of his subordinates and friends. Most of the items that the winged skeleton brought back from sunken ships usually could not be used. That time around, they would be able to dismantle all the constraints.

Saleen had entered the Imperial City of the Abyss, and while he did not obtain the ancient graveyard of the single horned white whales, he actually gained quite a lot and the most important item of them all was the mysterious Star Gathering Needle. The space within the Needle was even more massive than the Outer Nebula on top of the astrologer’s tower. The Outer Nebula was like a dimensional passageway and the power that it could provide was limited. On the other hand, Saleen’s Star Gathering Needle contained a star sky. Saleen believed that this was the power of a grade-19 astrologer.

The astrologer must still be alive but had gone to another world that was unrelated to a dimension like the Myers Mainland. Saleen could not help but admire someone like that; someone who was able to leave freely after leaving behind a lineage.

Although the Grandmaster had given Saleen a bunch of equipment that was full of traps, the traps had already been removed by the Star Gathering Needle and some of them have managed to regain their magic arrays. Saleen was more than content.

What he gained the most was from the battle with the grade-12 Angel of Fear, where his mindset became more resilient and determined than ever. If another Angel of Fear was to appear again, Saleen believed that he would not succumb to the Angel of Fear’s control anymore. Saleen felt that this confidence was the reason why the power of his soul had increased tremendously. Even with the help of the Outer Nebula, Saleen could not possibly have achieved a breakthrough in the limit of his soul otherwise.

The weakness in Saleen’s heart was gradually becoming completely repaired. It would no longer be shaken, even if something similar was to happen again. This was the biggest reward a mage could hope to receive, and it was something that required luck too.

The winged skeleton took out the pan’s turtle alchemical boat. It was more than 40 yards long and it was much more spacious inside. When the Grandmaster refined this pan’s turtle alchemical boat for the winged skeleton, he did not use a dimensional stone. Saleen guessed that dimensional stones must have been quite a rare item even in ancient times.

The winged skull urged everyone onto the pan’s turtle alchemical boat. At that moment, Nailisi released Eleanor. Eleanor was almost about to suffocate in the Twelve Notes of Purgatory. It was not too bad after the Grandmaster had refined it, as the space in the Twelve Notes of Purgatory kept increasing. Once Saleen destroyed the magic arrays, the Twelve Notes of Purgatory began to shrink until it was the size of about 10 square yards.

It was as if Eleanor was trapped in a prison without any windows.

It was with good reasons that Nailisi did not let Eleanor out. The latter was only a grade-7 elf and was even weaker than Nicholas. Nicholas was almost killed by the water pressure after staying at the bottom of the sea for a long period of time. Based on Eleanor’s powers, she would probably be dead in less than an hour.

Nailisi did not let Eleanor out while she was waiting in the astrologer tower because she was afraid that Eleanor would be transported to other places and could never be found again. If that had happened, Saleen would surely blame Nailisi. She was fully aware how upset Saleen would be.

When Eleanor had finally been let out, but she did not seem to harbor any hatred. Nailisi asked her carefully, “Eleanor, are you alright?”

“No worries. I planted some flowers in there. Luckily, I know some magic, otherwise I would have suffocated to death.”

“Flowers?” Nailisi’s expression was awful. Although the Twelve Notes of Purgatory was an equipment, its attribute was a replication of the Purgatory dimension. It was impossible for that dimension to be planted with flowers that elves were fond of. Eleanor has messed things up, so it would be even more difficult to restore the Twelve Notes of Purgatory.

“Nailisi, are you upset?” Eleanor asked with a smile.

“Not at all. I locked you up for so long after all. If it was me, I would have punched someone the moment I was let out.” Nailisi was courteous, even though her expression was still upset.

“That’s good. I planted tawny daylilies for you. Next time, when you are repairing your equipment, you can start from Purgatory of the Soulless.” With that, Eleanor began to meditate, ignoring Nailisi completely.

Nailisi felt a little better about Eleanor. It seemed that the elf was not as problematic as the elves mentioned in the legends. She heard that Eleanor had even brewed medicine for Master so that his children could be delivered safely. Nailisi decided that she should stop making things difficult for Eleanor in the future.

The pan’s turtle alchemical boat moved slowly. Soldier released plenty of spirits of the dead to gather the dust of the bones. The bones of magic beasts were not in the Imperial City of the Abyss, so they were not in good shape. Even those that seemed to be in one piece would turn into dust with a simple touch.

Tens of thousands of spirits of the dead combed the area and gathered the dust of the magic beasts’ bones before bringing them back to the winged skeleton’s alchemy ship. The ship would move ahead slightly faster for every hundred miles that had been combed. It was already the month of March them. Saleen did not wish to delay further and hoped to return to Metatrin City by May.

He had no idea what had happened to his country. He had left for almost half a year.

Indeed, many things had happened to Metatrin Kingdom over the past few months when Saleen was not around. The most serious of them was that Lex’s rescue team had been trapped in Lonestar City.