Badge in Azure

“Yeah, the Eye of the Storm… It was shouting ‘help me’ at me.” Saleen’s expression was a sarcastic one, and he continued, “So you tell me, should I believe that thing?”

“Master, all creatures capable of thought, are capable of lying,” Nailisi added. She was figuring it out from her point of view. Even her master would allow her to lie to him?

“That thing…why should I save it? That was something not even the tribunal was able to control. If I save it, their troubles will become mine,” Saleen murmured to himself.

“Master, you are really smart,” Nailisi complemented, with full intention of licking Saleen’s boot.

“Yeah, right. You have an eye for that thing, don’t you?”

“Indeed, master. I want to open a purgatory of elements. That eye of the storm would probably make a great foundation and structure for the purgatory,” Nailisi answered honestly. She knew by then that whenever something was concerning the growth of her powers, Saleen rarely shot down her proposals.

“Purgatory of elements?” Saleen recalled that the collection of purgatories all had separate elements. It seemed that Nailisi came to understand that if she were to form complete rules, she needed to fuse all six elements together. “What does she intend to do to get the other five elements, after subduing that Eye of the Storm?”

“Master, if we are able to get our hands at the Eye of the Storm, I’ll have my ways to slowly expand the purgatory of elements,” Nailisi did not explain further. The most difficult part about the Twelve Notes of Purgatory laid in opening up spaces. Doing so required very special materials, before opening them up one by one. When a space was opened, completing it would be comparatively easy.

Saleen weighed the options in his mind. “The Eye of the Storm is at least something of grade-10. One such powerful thing was running away from the tribunal. It would have been rather stupid of me to save it.”

At that point, Saleen walked out to the corridor outside of the rather shaky hold, making for the control room.

The captain of the dragon skeleton combat vessel came from Sregl Island as well, but the one in charge at the moment was Truman. Naberyne was thrown into the hold below, and no one entertained him anymore.

All nine magic power furnaces were cranked to full power. The elements around the vessel were abnormally stable. When the vessel was flying above the water, waves hit the ship every so often, causing it to rock occasionally. The dragon skeleton combat vessel was kept at low altitude. The ship was big after all and flying close to the sea surface enabled it to ride on the air currents near the sea, costing the ship ninety percent of its energy use. If the ship was to be taken to high altitudes, magic nuclei would have been depleted every single minute.

“Teacher!” Truman was relieved to see Saleen around.

“Truman, change course. Head west.”

“Teacher, heading west would be…”

“Just do it,” Saleen did not explain. There was nothing but vast open ocean westward. It was said that the end of the Myers Mainland laid one-hundred-thousand miles away, but no one ever made the journey, as they would have arrived at the Sea of the Dead heading west for five-thousand miles. It was a place that not even Cloudflow ships would have dared to venture. Even the edges of those waters would have been enough to make a powerful fleet disappear without a trace.

Truman did not question his teacher any further. While the Sea of the Dead was indeed fearsome, it was six-thousand miles away from where they were at that moment. They would not have been able to reach it even if the ship was to fly at full speed for one whole day.

When the vessel changed course, the storm behind them changed as well, chasing after Saleen’s ship. Saleen grew even more certain that the Eye of the Storm was up to no good. Saleen was even able to tell that even if the Eye of the Storm had caught up to them, it would not have attacked. With the tribunal forces at its tail, would have never let him off easy though.

If he ended up attacking the tribunal forces, the Eye of the Storm would have gotten what he wanted. If both sides ended up being losers, the Eye of the Storm would wipe out both sides, instead of remembering the deed he had done for it.

In the case of such monsters that were forcibly created, it would not have been a big deal to burn bridges behind them. They might have even enjoyed doing so.

Saleen was still calculating his combat capacity in detail. He had lost a great number of his elemental creatures fighting the grade-9 monsters under the sea, with only the over one-hundred reserved ones left. The ancient warriors were unscathed, yet there was no way to replenish their numbers once they perished. The only trusty ones by his side were Nailisi and Nicholas.

Nailisi was keeping one-hundred-thousand demons in her purgatory of devils. It was a pity that they were not of high levels. While they would have had an edge in conventional battlefields, they stood no chance against the Eye of the Storm at sea.

It seems like one’s personal powers were still more important most of the time!

Saleen sighed and walked to the window behind, looking at the huge Eye of the Storm faraway through the crystal window. The distance between the ship and it was further widened to more than ten miles away. It was obvious that it had also been increasing its speed. Saleen’s dragon skeleton combat vessel, having increased its speed by eighty percent, would have shaken it off long ago otherwise.

Saleen’s Elemental Eye was best used for observing the flow of energy. That, coupled with Figaro’s Magic Formula, enabled him to quickly determine an enemy’s weaknesses.

The Eye of the Storm was practically laid bare before Saleen’s Elemental Eye, which was a comfort to him. He had worried about the monster’s level being too high to have its capabilities gauged, but the core of the Eye of the Storm was able to hide nothing as he looked closely.

The Eye of the Storm was of the size of a mile in diameter. For an equipment, it was indeed huge. The core of the monster however, was only about twelve yards in diameter. The Eye of the Storm of twelve yards radius was something formed using wind element magic chords. It was a shocking find to Saleen. If that thing had not been created by the tribunal, he would have even been impressed.

Three-hundred and sixty mages…no, sorcerers! Magic chords of three-hundred and sixty sorcerers extracted and crafted together, creating the basic form of the Eye of the Storm. At the center of the magic chords gathered from three-hundred and sixty sorcerers, was a shadow that never stayed in one shape for long.

The voice was heard calling for help from the shadow. “Help me…”

The shadow was consisted of none other than the souls of three-hundred and sixty sorcerers. Souls were not only difficult to cut apart, but even more difficult to fuse. The more powerful the soul in question, the truer the fact became. The angel of fear’s body had a linked soul with her. The two souls hated each other, yet they were dependent on each other, but then again, they remained incapable of fusing with each other no matter what.

It was unknown how the Holy See managed to fuse the souls of three-hundred and sixty sorcerers. The fusion was an incomplete one as well. The voice heard from the soul felt like it was spoken by more than three-hundred people. While they shared the same rhythm and there were not even minute differences in it, Saleen was able to feel the noise within nonetheless.

“There has to be a way!” Saleen kept watching. Despite being able to locate the opening at the core of the Eye of the Storm, it was wrapped tight by magic chords and nothing could have been done about it. The chords needed to be cut away before he could attack the soul within.

The best way to go about it was to use Nailisi’s Sword of Rules. The problem was however, when the Sword of Rules was used, it would most probably result in the splitting of all three-hundred and sixty souls. The Eye of the Storm would not have been of any worth by then.

After the incident with the divine baby, Saleen grew reluctant of taking such risks. He decided to keep running and have the tribunal forces chase after them. He wanted to see how they would deal with the monster.

Saleen did not forget to gaze at the ghost ship at sea. As they were so close to each other, even the waves proved incapable of blocking Saleen’s Elemental Eye. Everything about the ghost ship was laid bare before Saleen’s eyes.

The ghost ship was within one-hundred yards long and was seemingly made of wood. When observed with the Elemental Eye, Saleen was able to see that the ship was crafted from bones of some unknown creatures and was crafted to a perfect whole. More importantly, the ship itself was a lifeform.

Saleen had seen ghosts himself, and every soldier of the ship was a low-level ghost. That did not affect their combat capacity. The soldiers had been professionals among humans, who lost their minds after being possessed by synthetic ghosts, becoming an even more potent weapon stronger than blood knights by one-hundred times.

Those things were like the iron blood warriors controlled by Grand Duke Iron Blood. “No, those things are more powerful than iron blood warriors, and even more powerful than my ancient warriors.”

As Saleen’s mental powers grew yet again, he became capable of commanding sixty-four ancient warriors at most. Those horde of ghost soldiers however, were all under the Eye of the Storm’s control.

The Eye of the Storm was created by fusing souls three-hundred and sixty sorcerers. While the quality of their mental powers would not have been enhanced by much, its heft was something Saleen could never hope to reach. Even if the souls of each of the three-hundred and sixty were only capable of commanding ten souls, the total sum enabled the monster to control three-hundred and sixty sorcerers nonetheless.

When such weapons were put under someone’s control, their combat capacity would grow considerably as well.

“That ship has at least hundreds of ghost soldiers, right?” Saleen thought for a bit. If the Eye of the Storm indeed wanted to go head on against him, he would not be able to have much of an edge over it. It was not an option to kill the ghost ship by having all of his elemental creatures dead. Saleen was being impulsive previously, letting his water elemental creature leader try to assassinate Imposa. The leader ended up dead, and resurrection would take at least a year.

Saleen learned his lesson. Unless the situation absolutely called for it, he would never again let his elemental creature leaders fight outside. While the grade-10 creatures were powerful, their intelligence was inferior to humans, making it easy for human professionals to crush them using special techniques or equipment to do so.

The greatest use of the leaders was to enable their grade-9 elemental creatures restored quickly, or to save Saleen’s life in life and death situations.

“That monster created by the tribunal is really some weapon indeed!” Saleen considered using his family badge to kill all of them, as there were hardly any better ideas he could come up with at that moment.

That alerted Saleen that he had grown too dependent on his family badge. When the family badge became unavailable, his thoughts became severely limited. He would not have been so dependent in the past.

Jason once told him that one needed to have at least three reliable ways to fight an enemy. Relying solely on one equipment or skill would enable one to live for no more than a year.

“Perhaps…the Star Gathering Needle will be a good option. The needle’s range is inferior to the Crystal Finger.” Saleen needed to be very near the divine baby to be able to shoot his target accurately with it. The core of the Eye of the Storm still had wind element hundreds of yards thick after all.

There was no doubt that the one that researched the monster was crazy themself.