Badge in Azure

When the dragon skeleton combat vessel stopped, most of its body sunk. It relied on its sealed metal box for buoyancy. When Saleen saw the skeletal warship being pulled down into the sea, he immediately took control of the dragon skeleton combat vessel. With the grand mage’s help, they activated all the magic furnaces and the dragon skeleton combat vessel spread its gigantic skeletal wings and flew into the sky.

The dragon skeleton combat vessel was newly designed, but even so, the energy it used up from flying far surpassed that of Saleen’s elemental magic tower.

There were 18 magic furnaces on the dragon skeleton combat vessel, but usually one was enough to steer it around the sea. Eighteen magic furnaces had to be turned on in order for it to fly. Of course, the advantage was that the combat vessel would be able to make use of the skeletal wings to fly all the way to a height of 1,000 yards before stopping.

Saleen looked towards the sea and saw that all 12 skeletal warships were sinking. A huge whirlpool appeared and Saleen shouted, “Jade skeletons, abandon the ships!”

The jade skeletons were the ones in command of the skeletal warships. Although they were only grade-7 professionals, they could command many spirits of the dead and they possessed intelligence, so they were extremely valuable. Saleen would rather lose the skeletal warships than to lose those jade skeletons.

The 12 skeletal warships were still struggling. All the death magic arrays had been activated as they tried to escape from the gigantic whirlpool. Unfortunately, the whirlpool was too huge. The jade skeletons flew away from the skeletal warships and into the dragon skeleton combat vessel. Hundreds of other spirits of the dead, that were capable of flying, also followed the jade skeletons onto the deck of the dragon skeleton combat vessel.

“Truman, take over the combat vessel. Nailisi and Nicholas, follow me.” With that, Saleen put on his devil suit and mask and prepared to dive into the sea to find out what was going on. He could not ignore what was happening. Although the skeletal warships might not have been able to defeat the main Cloudflow combat vessels, they were still made from the bones of high-level magic beasts. If they were dismantled, the bones could still be made into plenty of armor.

That region of sea was too mysterious. There was no warning of what was about to happen. It was only when the skeletal warships dropped their anchors that such a gigantic whirlpool appeared and dragged them into the sea. Something must be lurking down there. It did not matter if it was a giant magic beast, or a man-made magic array. Saleen had already been to the Imperial City of the Abyss, so there was no reason for him to be afraid of whatever it might be.

“Your Highness, what about me?” Cuisi was confused when he saw that Saleen was not bringing him along. He was more powerful than the elemental creatures and the underwater environment would not affect demons too much.

“You will stay here and protect Truman. You are not allowed to leave the combat vessel. If you leave, I will not be able to find my way back if I am somehow in danger,” Saleen said to Cuisi. Cuisi and Nailisi were bonded to each other by their souls. Even if the underwater environment cut off the coordinates from them, there was nothing that could stop the soul connection between Cuisi and Nailisi.

Saleen was more cautious than before. He knew that there were plenty of dangerous places in their dimension. Not all grade-9 sorcerers understood that.

Saleen would have gone as far as he wished in the past. His attitude had changed ever since he entered the Imperial City of the Abyss.

If he chose to retreat, then what was the point of learning magic? The world was full of trouble, difficulty, and danger. Was it possible to become a mage that had nothing to do with the world and built a magic tower deep in the mountains to study the notes left behind by ancient people?

There were two things that were very important to mages. The first was to know and the second was to do. A real mage would not choose to know things, yet not do anything about it.

There was nothing Cuisi could do except watch Saleen jump into the giant whirlpool with Nailisi and Nicholas. He was not worried about Saleen because he knew how powerful Nailisi and Nicholas were. Saleen also had hundreds of elemental creatures with him. There was no way Saleen would die, unless he encountered an opponent more powerful than grade-10.

There were very few grade-10 opponents on the entire Mainland. According to the theory of proportion of advancement, there should not be anyone of grade-11.

Saleen unleashed his Quickcloud spell surrounding Nailisi and Nicholas as well. It was easy to bring Nailisi along because their soul bond allowed Saleen to be very familiar with how Nailisi’s mental strength functioned. As for Nicholas, his fallen staff was much more powerful compared to the past, so he no longer feared the water pressure.

An ordinary person that was able to reach a depth of 100 yards would be considered very powerful. When the three of them entered the whirlpool, they spun along with the water currents until they reached a depth of 5,000 yards. Even then, they were still unable to see the bottom of the sea.

Saleen was confused. Why were so many mysterious places found at such deep depths? That was the case for Imperial City of Abyss as well as the place they were in. The skeletal warships were broken by the whirlpool and thousands of spirits were sucked into the depths of the sea. Some of the more powerful spirits were still swimming and struggling in the water, while the low-grade spirits had already been crushed by the whirlpool into piles of broken bones.

None of the 12 skeletal warships survived. Saleen did not forget to put the broken pieces of skeletal warships into his devil ring. The space in his devil ring was so huge that it had already surpassed that of dimension stone. It could store massive items. The hardest part of the skeletal warships were the dragon bones, but even those had been broken into shards by the whirlpool.

Saleen could only take the most precious magic beast bones while leaving behind those that had broken into shards by the water pressure.

The suction of the whirlpool was not as powerful as the one in the Imperial City of the Abyss, so Saleen was still able to control his Quickcloud spell and retain his ability to use elemental magic.

Approximately 300 spirits approached Saleen and broke through the barrier of the Quickcloud spell. The spirits were at least grade-5 and possessed some intelligence. The other spirits were unable to escape from the suction of the whirlpool and spun quickly towards the seabed.

“We are almost at the bottom. Be careful.” Saleen took control of the Quickcloud spell to reduce the speed of his descent. He did not bring the ancient warriors along, so he had to be extra cautious. When he sensed that they were reaching the bottom of the sea, he unleashed 12 Blue Ice Maidens.

As the whirlpool shrunk, its suction force became more powerful. Saleen had already infused vortex into his Quickcloud spell in order to counter the direction of the spin. It was to reduce the speed of their descent. Just as the bottom of the sea was within sight, the whirlpool vanished suddenly, and hundreds of transparent creatures pounced at them.

The Blue Ice Maidens attacked with their long swords, only to realize that the bodies of the transparent creatures were like jellyfish. The shape of their bodies was similar to humans, except for the tens of tentacles growing out from both sides of their ribs. When the Blue Ice Maidens struck with their long swords, the transparent creatures were split in half and blue blood oozed out.

Plenty of transparent creatures pounced on the spirits of the dead and tried to bite them. They were paralyzed by the toxins released by the spirits and their movements slowed down tremendously. When Saleen saw that the transparent creatures did not seem particularly dangerous, he cast an Ice Blade spell. Hundreds of tiny ice blades spun in the water. All of them struck the necks of the transparent creatures.

After their heads had been cut off, the transparent creatures collapsed and died. They were the weakest monsters that Saleen had encountered in all his adventures. They could not even dodge or defend themselves against the grade-3 Ice Blade spell.

Nicholas’ fallen staff glowed with gray light and sucked in the souls of the hundreds of transparent creatures into his blood soul tower. Nailisi could only stare. The souls of the transparent creatures were powerful and pure. If her blood soul tower was still around, she would never have allowed Nicholas to have all of them for himself.

Saleen looked around as his feet touched the ground. More than 300 spirits surrounded him. There were plenty of shards nearby and only a small portion of them belonged to his skeletal warships. Most of the shards had already been there an unknown number of years and were already piling up into a hill.

The place his feet landed was also covered with broken pieces of ships and bones of magic beasts.

The place seemed to be a high ground on the bottom of the sea. It was strange that Saleen could not detect the source of the whirlpool. Perhaps the source of the whirlpool had already stopped what it was doing. In any case, it was unlikely that the core of the whirlpool was there. Saleen looked further and saw a huge temple that was 12 miles away.

The bottom of the sea was dark and Saleen’s elemental eyes were limited. He could barely make out the exterior of the temple. It was definitely a temple of the Goddess of Myers and it looked huge.

Half of the temple was buried beneath the seabed, while the other half was exposed and looked like it was badly damaged. All the pillars in front of the temple had collapsed but some unknown power was still propping up the rear half of the temple. It still stood as tall as a few hundred yards. The temple did not have a door, and from within the empty hall, countless transparent creatures swam towards Saleen.

There was someone massive amongst them.

Saleen shared what he saw with Nailisi. When she saw so many transparent creatures, she groaned. If her blood soul tower was around, and she managed to devour all those transparent creatures, she would not run out of souls in the future.

Nailisi could not help but to take out her Twelve Notes of Purgatory. Each dimension in the equipment could accept different rules. Nailisi used the bone marrow of the Angel of Fear that she had been keeping all that while and infused it into one of the dimensions.

“Hopefully, that will create a Purgatory for absorbing souls!” Nailisi decided to draw the Sword of Rules to attack the transparent creatures. It would be a waste of energy to use Grey Memory against the transparent creatures. The souls of the creatures would be crushed after being stabbed by Grey Memory.

Saleen used the ability of soul connection to speak to Nailisi. “Put all the spirits of the dead into the Twelve Notes of Purgatory. Let’s see if we can use them to open up a second dimension!”

Nailisi was overjoyed. She was afraid that Saleen would reprimand her for trying to compete with Nicholas for the souls. What she did not know was that Saleen had discovered that the power of the Goddess of Myers existed in the souls of the transparent creatures. It was as if the transparent creatures were the disciples of the Goddess of Nature.