Badge in Azure

Aini said coldly, “I did not make a loss back then. If not for the money that I made from reselling the magic nuclei, I would never have gotten my hands on death flames of such high quality and neither would I have accomplished so much today.”

Aini was aware of Nailisi’s background and did not wish to fall for the temptations of the imp. Of the four Dukes of Metatrin Kingdom, he was the only given an army and the reason for that was the close relationship he had with Saleen. Otherwise, there was no way he would have so many armies, even if he was a grade-8 sorcerer.

“Aini, do you think I will try to spoil master’s plans?” Nailisi asked seriously.

Aini thought about it carefully before saying, “I don’t think so. At least, not at this stage.”

“Then good. Don’t worry about the things here. Let the demons finish the job. It would be troublesome if they had nothing to do anyway. Aini, let’s continue our discussion over at your place…”

Aini quickly stopped Nailisi and looked around before leading her away from the mountains. The death mages around Aini looked at each other before ordering the spirits to step down. Since Nailisi did not need their help, the death mages were more than happy to save the effort. They had lost too many spirits in the battle outside of the city. Once they returned, they would have to manage the spirits that had not been trained yet. It would be another major project.

After the death mages left, the battalion commander and bannermen of the temple army left everything behind for the demons to finish. The supreme demon began to command the demons to build a campsite.

Originally, Aini had already asked the temple army to prepare a campsite, but it was too small, hence Nailisi wanted a new location. The humans of the temple army had already taken off their armor and were resting while the demons were hard at work.

Nailisi led the 24 ancient warriors to Aini’s magic tower. She let the warriors stand guard outside while she entered the tower with Aini.

The 10,000 or so spirits outside of the city were finally all hacked into pieces. It was useless for the Sikeqinyans to vent their anger on the spirits. They might have killed plenty of them, but they had also lost more than 20,000 of their own men, and more than 30,000 of them were injured. The proportion of injuries on both sides was so lop-sided because very few of the soldiers that were attacked by Nailisi and the demons could be saved. Especially those that were attacked by Nailisi’s dragon’s breath. They had all turned into ashes.

The weapons wielded by the demons were terrifying too. Most of their weapons weighed about 40 pounds while the stronger demons wielded weapons that weighed as much as 100 pounds. Even the halberds of the magic heavy-armored soldiers weighed around the same as the demons’ weapons.

Close to 5,000 soldiers had died from severe injuries caused by the heavy weapons. On the other hand, those that had been injured from battling the spirit armies could still be saved. There were quite a number of Holy Masters in the Sikeqinyan army, and they specialized in healing the damage caused by spirits.

The Sikeqinyans had attacked the city once again out of rage and lost yet another 1,000 or so bodies. They only managed to kill approximately the same number of spirits before being left with no choice but to retreat. Lonestar City was so resilient that even the huge catapults were unable to take down the city walls and the battering rams were unable to ram through the city gates. Even when the mages tried to fly to the top of the city wall, they were forced to descend by the anti-flying region.

The Sikeqinyans had no choice but to retreat. The one-million strong army was making losses every day, and even if that was put aside, the storage of their grain was another huge problem.

The Qin noble families loved grain, and even if the farmers grew too much, the former would never try to buy them at a lower price. There was enough grain in Lonestar City for it to remain under siege for decades without worrying that food would run out.

The Sikeqinyans had no choice but to wait for the Holy See army to break through from the Qin borders, so that they could all attack together. They have not heard any news of increasing more Sikeqinyan armies.

Across the seas was fog that refused to dissipate. The ancient combat vessel hid itself within the fog and followed behind Saleen’s fleet. The underwater combat vessel was 50 miles ahead of the fleet, searching for targets.

Saleen carefully circled around the islands controlled by the Cloudflow forces and headed towards the south. The address on Grand Duke Iron Blood’s invitation pointed to islands that were 5,000 miles east of Cloudflow. That was already a very dangerous region. Although it was still some distance away from the Stormy Sea, many high-grade magic beasts and storms frequently appeared in that region.

Saleen refused to get close to the islands that he passed by along the way because he did not wish to alarm Grand Duke Iron Blood. His plan was simple. He would get close to the island that the Grand Duke was on, then attack him with Jola and Nicholas. During that period of time, he could still refine the 24 shards of Eternal Control so that the 24 ancient warriors would go into battle with him.

Saleen refused to believe that with such power, he would still be unable to rescue Cuisi and the other demons. If he could not even defeat Grand Duke Iron Blood, how would he fare against the Holy See?

For the battles in the past, Saleen would always be careful and meticulous in his planning. Now that he finally possessed power that could influence the outcome of the battle easily, Saleen’s mindset had changed. Saleen began to feel that he was becoming more and more like his teacher.

Jason might have a very gentle outlook, but Saleen greatly admired the way he went about doing things. Sregl Island was a formidable collection of powerful groups, but he was able to leave the moment he wanted to, and many sorcerers were even keen to leave with him. Even the most powerful grade-9 sorcerer on the island was unable to do anything about it, except to look for new mages to fill up the gaps. He even allowed Jason to get away with large amounts of equipment and wealth. If it had been Saleen, he knew that he would not have been able to pull it off.

Jason was not even a sorcerer back then. It was a mystery how he was able to control so many mages.

That time around, Saleen did not utilize the magic compass, and instead, used the star chart to seek out the island’s coordinates. No matter how high the grade of a magic compass, it could still be detected by sorcerers easily. Saleen knew that Grand Duke Iron Blood would definitely order his sorcerers to look out for any movements on the seas. If Saleen used the magic compass to seek out the coordinates, he would be discovered even before he reached the island.

No matter how big the fleet might be, it was still an insignificant dot on the seas. Saleen and his 30 or so ships had traveled thousands of miles and were finally getting closer to Grand Duke Iron Blood.

Saleen called for Truman and said to him, “You will stay on the dragon skeleton combat vessel. You are not responsible for any commands, except whether or not to retreat. Don’t let the fleet suffer heavy losses. I will go to the pan’s turtle alchemical boat.”

“Teacher, I will not follow you?”

“Your grade is still too low. Truman, from now on, I will let you stay by my side for the long-term, but not this time. There will be more opportunities in the future. Besides, mages don’t necessarily need to fight. Remember, if you see the enemy’s ancient combat vessel, attack them with the magic cannon. If not, just pretend that you don’t exist. Do you understand?”

“Yes, teacher!” Truman answered spiritedly.

“You don’t have to be so formal, haha. Be careful. Once I leave, the fleet will split up to enter the protective circle of the ancient combat vessel.” With that, Saleen called for the captain of the ancient combat vessel. The grand mage from Sregl Island was already grade-6 but was still far away from advancing to a sorcerer.

“Your Highness.”

“Captain, you must not see yourself as a mage from now on. You will command like how you were trained in the Oceanic Ice Block. The safety of the fleet is top priority. After I return, as long as we are able to shake off the enemy, we will not go into battle.”

“Understood. I will treat this like my training.”

“Very good. Take care!” With that, Saleen left the dragon skeleton combat vessel with Jola and Nicholas and dove into the sea.

The pan’s turtle alchemical boat was waiting below as it was being controlled by the six jade skeletons. The jade skeletons were the winged skeleton’s treasured items. It was not easy developing intelligence in jade skeletons.

The moment Saleen got onboard, he took over the control of the pan’s turtle alchemy ship. The ship was no longer purely spirit equipment because a magic furnace had been built into it while many complicated alchemy mechanic structures had been removed. When the pan’s turtle alchemical boat traveled at high speed, the amount of noise it made was tens of times lower compared to the past. They would no longer have to worry about alarming the enemy from a distance away.

On board the ship were 24 ancient warriors in new uniforms. With the ancient warriors, Saleen was full of confidence. The amount of space in the ship had increased. The pan’s turtle shell was even bigger and of a higher grade than the one Saleen had captured. If they were to encounter grade-9 ground-element spells, they would no longer be fossilized, even if they were trapped.

The spirit eye on the pan’s turtle alchemical boat was activated and the ship continued moving while 500 yards underwater. No one would discover them at that depth, unless a grade-9 sorcerer looked for them specifically.

The magic furnace was silent. The six jade skeletons commanded a few skeletons around to throw low-level magic nuclei into the furnace. The magic furnace was an extremely useful item that was able to devour any type of energy before transforming it into pure magic power to be used for operating the alchemy mechanics or for magic arrays.

After being modified, the alchemy mechanics were no longer being used. The external shell of the pan’s turtle alchemical boat was enclosed in a gigantic bubble as it moved forward silently.

The only thing on the alchemy ship that was modified by Saleen was the warehouse. There were 12 spatial boxes that were made of the skins of purple-gold sea urchins in the warehouse. The spatial boxes could contain items of more than 10 square yards. They contained magic nuclei of various grades, as well as crystals produced by Demon city.

The winged skeleton was not around, so the pan’s turtle alchemical boat only contained 48 gigantic modified bloodstones, 24 high-level bone spirits in the spirit pool, and 24 high-level bone spirits sealed in the black crystal. After the 48 bone spirits had been used, the pan’s turtle alchemical boat would no longer be able to attack for the time-being.

Saleen was full of hatred towards the Grandmaster when he thought about that.

“My Lord, I think we have arrived.” Nicholas pointed at a three-dimensional object on the black-and-white magic image. 10 miles ahead of them was a huge reef. They must be close to the Grand Duke Iron Blood’s island or there would not be any reefs. So far, the shallowest parts of the sea were still at least 3,000 yards deep.

“Let’s go, Jola, put on your equipment!” Saleen stared at Jola and forced him to put on his magic armor and his mask. After Jola had advanced into a golden grand swordmaster, he had been refusing to put on armor.

Saleen knew that that was not about Jola wanting to challenge himself, but more of him wanting to put up a front in front of women. Although the golden sword aura provided better defense than any armor, Saleen did not want Jola to spend his energy during the dive.

The trio left the pan’s turtle alchemical boat with the ancient warriors. In the dark and cold waters, they swam towards the island. When a gigantic shark swam over, Saleen took out his bone mace, scaring the shark away.

The equipment refined from the spine and skull of the Angel of Fear possessed an effect of fear on all creatures of grade-9 and below. The shorter the distance, the stronger the effect.