Badge in Azure

Two-hundred yards away at the rear of the storm region, a small vessel of about forty yards long chased after the storm. A young man was seen on the bow, wearing a black cape with his arms folded at his chest, keeping his cape down. His expression hinted that he was feeling rather cold.

The man’s looks were that of a typical Tanggulasian. His facial features were clear cut, his nose long. He had black hair and his eyes were brown with hints of gold.

Four soldiers clad in black armor stood behind the young man. The equipment the four of them carried were prominent ones. A large emblem was printed at the breastplate, a spike stood tall above their helmets, making them look like single-horned demons.

The joints of the black armor had quite a number of such metal spikes on them. The visors of their helmets have had tiny holes all over them. They were the professionals among the wardens, and the tiny holes were etched with precious crystals. Such a visor allowed the wearer to see at a wider angle, which also required special skills to allow the wearer to process the large number of images acquired.

The small warship moved at immense speed. The storm region controlled by the Eye of the Storm moved aggressively forward at a speed of one-hundred and fifty miles per hour, yet the small vessel kept close behind without fretting. The young man wearing a black cape sneezed all of a sudden and smiled. His face was impeccably clean, and his expressions relaxed, lacking the gloomy look often associated with the members of the tribunal.

The winds at sea were strong, yet they parted before the small vessel. The young man’s eyes were clear, as they looked faraway. The four wardens behind stood faithfully without saying a word, like four mountains.

The young man spoke all of a sudden, “Hunting is one of the most boring things one can do. The life just ends up lost in your hands, and that is just too brutal for me. The Lord’s head warden knew I didn’t like operations like these, and yet I was sent here. There is no doubt that they didn’t want that thing taken back alive.”

Murmurs were heard from the four armored figures, and it was clear that the warden leaders were unaccustomed to such insolence. The Lord’s head warden was someone who was like the head inquisitor—an unquestionable figure demanding respect from all. In the tribunal, the status of the head warden was on par with the head inquisitor. The Black dungeon had always been the most important power of the tribunal.

The young man was obviously taking jabs at the Lord’s head warden, but the young man was also of high status himself, and one that none of the warden leaders dared to offend. They would not even dare to report what he said to the Lord’s head warden. If what he said was to be reported to the Lord’s head warden, what would have followed was probably the immediate execution of all four of them, sweeping the incident under the rug.

“Are you guys mute or what? Man, you guys are boring. I take it that none of you know about that thing yet then. If it wasn’t for me, they wouldn’t have been able to finish their research. It’s a real pity there are just too many bugs on it. Even if it was something capable of defeating the Cloudflow fleets, it wouldn’t have been enough to go against the kind of warship Grand Duke Iron Blood has. The more the head inquisitor puts his hopes in that thing, the greater his anger will become when it fails. Do any of you understand? When that comes, I’ll be one of those who’d get it. It’s better to let it run loose. It’s not my problem anyway.”

The four warden leaders shivered at the mention of the head inquisitor. Of the six head inquisitor positions of the tribunal, only three remained for the last century. The head inquisitor was seen like a god of the tribunal. No one other than the head warden would be able to go against the head inquisitor. Two head inquisitors died a couple of years ago, and the two who replaced them, were even more brutal than the ones that came before.

One could have anything when working in the tribunal; anything but a sense of safety. If one ended up offending the head inquisitor, there would be only three ways out of it: getting tortured by the head inquisitor’s men to death, being sent to the black dungeon to serve as guinea pigs for research, or the most common option was if they were chosen for such a predicament—suicide before they were caught.

Under such circumstances, many who worked in the tribunal developed twisted temperaments, and they were known for their aggressiveness and brutality. Even the holy masters from the pivotal council would rather not mess with the tribunal.

The young man continued after taking jabs at the head inquisitor, “The pope is yet another joker. Why did he insist on making peace with the tribunal? Isn’t it just great that the two sides keep being at each other’s throats? Doing so might even clean some useless garbage out. Now both sides are buddies and devoted all their might at Qin. Well, then what? Unless they can find a way to take Holy Rock City, a city like that that stands tall on the mainland wouldn’t care about being surrounded. You can surround them for one-thousand years, and they will still not starve. After all, if both Holy Rock City and Alchemy City can’t be taken down, the holy war will be all but a joke.”

The young man went on to not only explicitly defy the pope, but also throw insults at the holy war. The four warden leaders wanted nothing more than to jump into the ocean right there and then. It was just impossible for them to pretend to have not heard what he said.

The young man was a candidate for the position of next head warden, and he was the only one.

The position of head warden was unlike that of the head inquisitor; it was held only by one person. Once a candidate was named, the current head warden had to step down no matter what in twenty years, to make way for the next head warden.

It was due precisely to that that the current head wardens spent great effort to nurture their successors. The twenty years time was a time to enable to the named candidate to grow. The old head warden would then step down to become one of the elders of the black dungeon, spending his days training.

Most head inquisitors died in battle, yet most head wardens died of old age.

That young man was a candidate for future head warden. Anyone who wanted to move against him would have required permission from the elders of the black dungeon. A candidate needed to be a grade-9 professional and able to develop a lifespan of one-thousand years, to become head warden. How long had the black dungeon been around? With the head warden changed every twenty years, just how many grade-9 professionals were around?

“Wait? Why is it changing course?” The young man was astute enough to realize the peculiarity. The core of the hurricane controlled by the Eye of the Storm was changing direction. He did not pay any heed when it moved northeastward, but the monster was heading west that time.

The western waters were anything but peaceful. The Cloudflows would have been making themselves pirates and harassing everyone otherwise, instead of being so polite with things. The tribunal had also taken the geographical advantage, making a chain of islands three-thousand yards long using the Black Dungeon Island and the hundreds of islands around, barricading the sea routes of Cloudflow.

The end of the chain of islands were about one-thousand miles away from the Sea of the Dead. Even so, the Cloudflow did not want to risk venturing into the region. The waters of the Sea of the Dead were not stable. Entry into the region would come with a huge loss.

The western waters were the most dangerous place on the Myers Mainland, more than one-hundred times more dangerous than the Stormy Sea in the east. “The Eye of the Storm was one possessing an intellect and sported impeccable judgment. Why does it run westward instead?”

No matter how outstanding the young man was, he would not have expected a peculiar warship about seven-hundred miles away had caught the attention of the monster and had wanted to use it as a scapegoat. The waters nearby would not usually see any other ships in general.

The Kingdom of Metatrin’s assault on Ironwall City reached the tribunal quickly, but no one from the black dungeon would have linked the incidents together. No one had seen the Ancient or the dragon skeleton combat vessel, and the North Sea was filled with icebergs, floating ice, and powerful magic beasts were all over the place as well. It was common sense among Tanggulasi people that no warships would make it past the North Sea; that place was forbidden to all ship travel.

The group of souls continued to call for help within the Eye of the Storm, and Saleen pretended to not hear anything. His dragon skeleton combat vessel traveled at increasingly high speeds, and Saleen spared no expense with grade-12 magic nuclei.

The dragon skeleton combat vessel reached a frightening speed of two-hundred miles per hour. When done on water, the warship would have suffered intense resistance, and it would have probably been more expensive to do so than flying right above the sea surface.

“Master, we can’t just keep running like this. How about we go underwater?” Nailisi suggested.

“Good idea, just wait until we get more distance between us and that thing.” Saleen had a headache. The Eye of the Storm could definitely fly faster than his ship, but it simply went on to keep at its tail for some unknown reason, maintaining a distance of fifteen miles or so.

The ship increased its speed yet again, and Saleen summoned Vinny, telling him to take the miniaturized magic cannon in his arms. While the cannon was utterly incapable of locking onto small targets, the Eye of the Storm had a diameter of one mile. At such sizes, even hitting the edge of its elemental shell would have slowed it down somewhat.

The earth elemental leader navigated around the familiar places on the ship and came to the deck at the stern, transforming his lower body to that of a turret and took the cannon in his hands. The cannon had seen changes of grade-12 magic nuclei twice, and there was still some power left in the housed nucleus.

While the Eye of the Storm did possess an intellect and was able to see what was going on the ship, it was unable to recognize the miniaturized magic cannon. The first shot that Vinny took blew up the central area of the Eye of the Storm accurately. A large hole of tens of yards deep was seen in hundreds of yards thick wind element shell, and worse still, the wind element around was unable to cover the hole in time.

Vinny fired volleys at the monster without batting an eye. While the miniaturized cannon packed quite a punch, the wind element shell was simply too thick. The outermost part of the shell was about four-hundred yards away from the core. Penetration of wind element defenses of such a thickness would require large scale magic cannon. The miniaturized cannon itself was already something that Saleen was unable to replicate, and that meant he had no hope of making larger ones.

After firing about a dozen shots, all of which hit the outer wind element shell, the Eye of the Storm suffered quite a severe blow. It needed energy to accumulate wind element shell, and as such, it slowed down without realizing it. Saleen took the opportunity to lower the speed of his ship.

A dozen miles were near the very limit of the cannon. If stretched too far, the cannon would not have been able to do anything to the monster. As the shots went on from the cannon, both the monster and the ship gradually slowed down.

The souls at the core of the Eye of the Storm howled furiously. It dared not accelerate, as doing so would have presented an opportunity to get its wind element shell torn completely, or damage spread out over a wider area robbing it of the defense of further attacks. It would have caught up with the dragon skeleton combat vessel if that had not been a concern.

The vessel dived underwater when the speed was reduced to about forty miles per hour. The crafting on the ship was complex. Despite multiple modifications, it remained ill-suited for underwater battles. The ship was never made primarily for battles in the first place. It had only dived about one-hundred yards underwater, giving up on speed, just so that it was able to shake off the hurricane. It continued going west at the speed of twenty miles per hour.

The Eye of the Storm grew anxious. It was able to locate the whereabouts of its target, yet it was not able to attack something underwater, as the one at its tail had gotten within one-hundred miles from it.

The head warden successor in the small warship at the rear, the one wearing a black cape, returned to the control room and began to issue orders for battle.

“Attention to all hands, prepare the cage. Priests, it is all up to you now. Unless your lives are in danger, I’m not going to do anything to help you out.” The young man lost that smile he had before and was seen wearing an incredibly cold expression instead.