Badge in Azure

A grade-9 Professional that was able to create his own rule? It sounded as ridiculous as a grade-1 disciple becoming the Pope.

Imposa did not see the funny side in it. He did not fear Saleen, who possessed the elemental badge, but the golden grand swordmaster would be a big problem. That was because the attacking abilities of a golden grand swordmaster could easily threaten his own safety.

A distance of 200 yards was too short to defend against a golden grand swordmaster, what more one that had already grasped a rule.

Jola destroyed the array and Saleen followed up quickly. Both of them worked together seamlessly, but in actual fact, Saleen had rarely brought Jola along into battles and only brought him along that time around because he knew that there would be danger. A duo of mage and golden grand swordmaster was the best combination.

Saleen was able to complement Jola’s actions because he had grasped some soul power. Although the bond between Saleen and Jola was a follower bond, their souls had already become as close as that of soul bonds during the clash. Whatever Jola was thinking of doing, Saleen could already foresee it even before he did it.

Tempest Dragon-mights and Blue Ice Maidens provided wind and water elements. Saleen suddenly flew up and led his elemental creatures past the siege laid by the iron blood warriors.

That was the fastest speed that Saleen had ever moved at. The Blue Ice Maidens had infused the Rainbow spell into Saleen’s Quickcloud spell, but unfortunately, the speed was greatly reduced since he was bringing along so many people with him. Gloria, alone, would not need more than three frames of time to reach Imposa.

The reason why Saleen was still so calm and composed was because he still had a secret weapon up his sleeves.

An assassination by grade-10 elemental creatures was probably not something the grade-9 sorcerer would be prepared for.

When Imposa saw Saleen flying out of the encirclement, he laughed coldly. If that golden grand swordmaster had broken through the encirclement and continued attacking, they might have had a higher chance of victory, but instead, they had chosen to waste the elemental creatures’ powers to try and escape. They were looking down on Imposa’s alchemy spells!

Imposa shifted his legs slightly and all the metal gears moved accordingly. 118 iron blood warriors broke out from the previous formation and got into a formation of a hexagram before ramming hard against the enemy from the rear.

Most magic arrays took the shape of rings because a hexagram was difficult to sustain. It also went against the principle of setting up magic arrays, hence very few elemental mages were fond of using hexagram magic arrays. The attacking abilities of hexagram magic arrays were swift and powerful and could boost the power of weaker spells.

Saleen’s stone statue soldiers were all 100 yards tall. They were not capable of flying, but due to their height, they were also dragged into the iron blood warriors’ attack.

The sound of the elemental core exploding continued. Behind Saleen, another 20 or so elemental creatures collapsed and were dismantled before returning to the elemental badge. The only creatures that remained unharmed were the 36 Angels of Brightness. The Angels were light-element creatures and would not be affected by physical attacks. If not for the fact that the iron blood warriors’ long lances were glowing with red light, the Angels of Brightness would not even care less about them.

The Angels of Brightness looked very similar to Heavenly Angels, after all, the Lord of Glory was trying to replicate the former when he created the latter. The only difference was that the Angels of Brightness wielded light-element chains instead of Swords of Glory.

When six Angels of Brightness were gathered together, they would be able to form a powerful magic array with their light-element chains and unleash a light-element spell. Light-element spell attacks were usually fast. With the ability to manipulate it, Saleen’s Angels of Brightness were able to unleash even greater power.

Against the warriors, Angels of Brightness would be more effective than the Midnight Fangs.

When the iron blood warriors rammed towards them in their hexagram formation, Saleen commanded the Angels of Brightness to attack the iron blood warrior that was leading the way. Their light-element chains did not manage to control this warrior, and instead, they were stabbed by the warrior’s long lance.

The light-element core exploded into tiny shards and returned to Saleen’s elemental badge.

An Angel of Brightness was at least 20 yards tall and both sides were at least four to five yards apart. When the iron blood warrior’s long lance attacked, the Angels of Brightness did not manage to dodge, and their elemental cores were stabbed, resulting in the explosion.

It was extremely difficult to stab an elemental core into explosion because the core was the hardest and most resilient part of an elemental creature. Even high-level spells had to be able to find the core’s weakness in order to destroy it. The lance did not manage to find any weakness, instead it was because the tip of the lance suddenly became hundreds of times more powerful. All the other iron blood warriors behind him had stacked all their powers together and passed them to him. The Angel of Brightness was unable to withstand the attack.

The hexagram magic array spun in the air as the six-pointed tips took turns to attack Saleen from behind. The elemental creatures were no match for the attack as each iron blood warrior attacked with power that was accumulated from every other warrior as well. Each blow of the blood-red lance was capable of piercing through the core of the elemental creatures.

“Jola, prepare to break the array.” Saleen could no longer stand what was happening. He summoned Gloria, the leader of the Blue Ice Maidens. He pointed at Imposa and said, “Gloria, kill him!”

“Yes, Master.” Gloria took one glance at the sorcerer without too much concern. Saleen waved his hands and summoned another six Blue Ice Maidens from the elemental badge on his waist. A rainbow lit up and Gloria suddenly appeared five yards behind Imposa.

Gloria was at least 20 yards tall and her ice-element blade was more than 10 yards long. The moment she appeared on the metal disc, she struck the disc with her ice-element blade at the same time. By then, the six Blue Ice Maidens had also arrived. They formed a circle with Imposa trapped in the middle.

The six Blue Ice Maidens unleashed Absolute Zero and the temperature of the disc dropped drastically. Imposa’s body was completely sealed in ice.

Crack…

The frost on Imposa’s body disappeared and ice began to form on his metal tail. In the blink of an eye, the metal tail turned into metal dust as the metal could not withstand the attack of Absolute Zero.

Imposa was like an animal that had given up on his tail. He had concentrated all the attack onto his tail, including the strike from Gloria.

That unexpected turn of events left Gloria floundering. Although she had a soul and possessed plenty of battle experience, she was nowhere near the level of humans when it came to scheming. She had never seen such a technique before, where one could direct all the attack onto one part of them. When Gloria decided to attack from behind, she had been extremely cautious about that fearsome-looking metal tail. She never expected it to be something that Imposa did not mind giving up so easily.

Imposa launched an attack on all seven elemental creatures at the same time. The disc underneath him cracked open and six metal puppets appeared under the Blue Ice Maidens. The gigantic metal disc was too small for elemental creatures, so it was already very crowded in the first place. Now that the six metal puppets had appeared, the Blue Ice Maidens were almost pushed over.

Without turning his body, Imposa’s two hind legs suddenly contorted and became very long, like two metal snakes. They began to coil up Gloria’s ankles. Gloria raised her legs and realized that her elemental powers were no longer functioning. Imposa’s back split open and a miniature magic cannon appeared that aimed at Gloria.

Saleen watched as Gloria was blown into pieces. At the same time, the elemental badge sensed the destruction of Gloria and quickly absorbed her soul back. Gloria would probably need at least a year or two to revive, unless Saleen was able to find a place that contained water elements that were even richer than the Imperial of the Abyss. Alternatively, Saleen could use up a large amount of grade-9 magic nuclei. No, they would have to be grade-10 magic nuclei in order for Gloria to recover quickly.

The assassination attempt failed and the six Blue Ice Maidens on the metal disc were also destroyed. The six metal puppets also fell off the disc at the same time.

The Blue Ice Maidens were grade-9 creatures, so the powerful puppets that Imposa controlled were severely damaged as well. Nevertheless, Imposa was not too concerned about the puppets. They could be created again as long as he had the necessary materials. The reason he summoned the puppets was to prevent the Blue Ice Maidens from stopping his magic cannon attack.

“Saleen, surrender now and I will let…”

Before Imposa could finish his sentence, Jola had appeared at the core of the hexagram. His golden sword aura was overpowering. The magic array that was formed by more than 100 iron blood warriors began to collapse. Jola struck six times in succession, each time cutting open the neck of an iron blood warrior.

Jola attacked because the power that he had accumulated was too overwhelming and he had no choice but to release it all at once.

Saleen’s Blue Ice Maidens’ leader had been defeated while Jola had destroyed the hexagram.

With one strike, Jola managed to destroy the 36 metal gears. The hexagram could no longer be formed temporarily. Even if it could, it would be of a smaller scale with much lower attacking power. Although the iron blood warriors could fly, their attacks were no longer as fearsome compared to when they had the gears with magic arrays.

Imposa had to stop his sentence in mid-air because of Jola’s attack. He was frustrated. He was distracted by the leader of the elemental creatures and allowed the golden grand swordmaster to destroy the core of his magic array.

That elemental creature could still be revived with the elemental badge, but as for him, he had invested a lot of time effort in order to refine the hexagram magic array.

Imposa could not afford to care about it too much. In any case, Grand Duke Iron Blood had promised that he would doubly compensate him for his losses. Imposa gritted his teeth and shifted his legs. The tens of iron blood warriors in the air suddenly changed into another formation. It was the formation of a sharp awl that was aimed at Saleen.

A stone statue soldier leapt high into the sky and was about to smash it with its magic warhammer. The leading iron blood warrior charged ahead, and the red light of his core suddenly dimmed before exploding.

The iron blood warrior dashed forward hundreds of yards and exploded on the head of the stone statue soldier. None of the other 20 stone statue soldiers managed to escape. When the tainted blood armor exploded, the tiny pieces of armor pierced into the bodies of the stone statue soldiers, splitting their elemental cores directly.

More than 20 stone statue soldiers collapsed on the ground. The iron blood warriors picked up their speed and the awl formation resumed very quickly. The leading iron blood warrior was focused only on Saleen. He had no qualms sacrificing himself along with whoever dared to stand in their way.