Badge in Azure

The Lord of Glory was a true god, however, as humans went on campaigns to conquer planes and slaughter adherents, even invading the realms of the gods, most powerful gods fell one after another. The Lord of Glory was but a lesser god of grade-15.

The Magical Element Tower that the grandmaster had crafted for Saleen had been a grade-16 equipment even at the very beginning. The dimension stones within the tower were all upgraded to grade-18 after it was modified by Gaine.

Regardless of how powerful a godly item of grade-15 was, in Van Gogh’s hand, it would have performed as grade-10 at most. Such was the limitations imposed by the rules. Any common person would have been able to go on a killing spree and fell powerful ones easily otherwise, and that would have been a joke in itself.

The competition between both sides had revolved completely around the strength of their respective equipment. Van Gogh mastered quite a number of rules yet was still unable to break the crevices between the dimension stones open. The Magical Element Tower was crafted in a tricky manner. As the power of the grandmaster was not what it used to be, dimension stones were used as connecting materials instead.

Even so, dimension stones were still mysterious materials, and they were not something Van Gogh was able to break. While he was able to touch the rules, he had yet to be able to master them. The power of rules was only able to be manifested using the Lance of Order.

The levels of those rules proved inadequate to break the dimension stones.

Even when Saleen used his water flame to craft the dimension stones, he was only able to modify their external aesthetics; he was incapable of doing anything about the dimensional space within. Fycro’s equipment would be directly upgraded to the status of godly items.

Rossen, the water puppet, touched the wound on his abdomen, which was attempting to heal. Despite the fact Van Gogh went easy on him, the Lance of Order remained a true murderous weapon. If it had been wielded by a golden grand swordmaster instead, he would have been dead many times over. The water puppet had yet to develop a soul. From the perspective of his nature, that bit of life force within it was inadequate to make him a true living being.

Such was the advantage of humanoid weapons—they were hard to kill.

“My liege, whatever you do, don’t let the ancient warriors fight. Their souls are weak, and Van Gogh’s prophecy spells are potent. They would make a nice target to ambush,” Nicholas reminded Saleen. He did not know that the Eternal Control shards were capable of providing protections to their souls.

“Really? What about the grand duke’s then?” Saleen did not elaborate to Nicholas. He only wanted to know if the iron blood warriors, which had once been ancient warriors like his, would share the same weakness.

“The iron blood warriors…well, their souls are almost gone. My liege, souls are meaningless in their case. What I fear is that he and I share the same equipment. His god’s grace was more powerful than my fallen divine spells. If he had something like the soul bead with him, he would have had at least one more chance to cast greater prophecy spells in full power.”

“Greater prophecy? Isn’t that a skill reserved only for the pope?”

“The ones from the tribunal wouldn’t care for such taboo. In life and death situations, Van Gogh would have even killed gods,” Nicholas explained.

“Just how terrifying is the greater prophecy spell are we talking about here?”

“My liege, you have a powerful soul, and that means you will be simply killed off by such spells. Van Gogh’s level was similar to yours after all. Prophecy spells have always been unpredictable, and furthermore, he was a formidable fighter as well. The thing on his hand is probably a godly item from the black dungeon. If you end up being under the influence of his prophecy spell in battle…”

Saleen understood. Imposa lost the previous battle because of the lesser prophecy spell Nicholas had cast. Lesser prophecy spells were incapable of killing someone like Imposa, yet it created an opening that Saleen was able to exploit against him. It was precisely due to such an opening that he was able to defeat him.

In the battles between professionals, split seconds would be more than enough to determine the outcome of a life and death battle.

“Rossen, come back,” Saleen sighed. It seemed that the Eye of the Storm was not meant to be his. It was simply too dangerous. It would not have been that much of a problem if it was just Van Gogh himself. If the twelve high-level holy masters were to go all out, it would have put Nailisi in danger if she insisted on getting her hands on the monster.

Saleen felt unsatisfied just walking away empty-handed. He summoned Vinny and handed the miniaturized cannon to him, ordering the creature to wait on the fifteenth floor.

Rossen sniggered coldly outside the tower and said, “Since you’ve stabbed me once, I’ll return the favor with an ice bomb!”

The water puppet conjured an ice bomb with a diameter of two yards as he finished, which he sent flying in Van Gogh’s direction.

Van Gogh smirked and lashed out with his Lance of Order, hitting the ice bomb accurately. The water puppet took the opportunity to sneak back into the tower.

Saleen was able to tell that Van Gogh wanted his water puppet very badly. Saleen had wanted research how souls were born using the water puppet. If was able to observe the entire process, it would enable him to advance into grade-10 almost immediately without having to accumulate experiences. The only limit to the growth rate of his magic chords laid with the depth of his knowledge; he had yet to be able to comprehend the true meaning of souls.

Upon understanding that, Saleen summoned the water puppet home and immediately had him enter the Shenhe. If Van Gogh insisted on getting his hands on the water puppet, he would have to take on the tower.

No matter how powerful Van Gogh had become, he remained incapable of doing anything against Saleen’s Magical Element Tower. Even the divine baby had to spend a good amount of time looking for openings to exploit when he was inside his tower.

Van Gogh had only realized that the water puppet returned to the tower when he broke the giant ice bomb, when the tower dived into the water.

“You want to run?” Van Gogh dived straight into the ocean from where he levitated. Those behind him followed him as they did not have a choice. Golden runes appeared on the armor of the warden leaders, activating their divine armor exasperatingly as they dived into the water.

Armors of such levels enabled the wearers to be submerged underwater, though the combat capacity of the armors was greatly reduced.

Van Gogh pursued Saleen underwater, having no fear whatsoever of his magic tower. It would have been a surprise indeed, if someone of his level, holding a godly item and equipped with powerful gear, feared a magic tower.

He was unfazed, but the holy masters who followed him were terrified. They feared for Van Gogh’s safety. If anything were to happen to him, they all would be executed. The wrath of the black dungeon was not something they were willing to experience.

It was due to such that all twelve black-robed high priests and the dozen warden leaders dived into the ocean with him. Nailisi charged out of the tower without even bothering to tell Saleen. She was going beneath the tower. She returned to her imp form under one-hundred yards, wagging her tail as she swam forward at full speed.

A barrier of transparent light naturally formed around Van Gogh as he dived into the water. He was a quick swimmer and he noticed Nailisi who was swimming below, thinking that his opponents wanted to catch him in a pincer attack.

That was due to the fact the tower simply rested before him instead of running, opening a window in one of the floors.

Van Gogh saw a blindingly bright light soon after, and a hole with a diameter of three yards was seen before him as the seawater was evaporated. Van Gogh and Saleen were both able to sense danger before it hit. His Lance of Order went on to form a huge solid holy prose with its long chains before him, before the cannon was even fired.

The cannon hit the lance without making a sound and the light of the spell dissipated. No harm was seen on the lance, yet the seawater rushed for the vacuum created by the cannon right after, creating violent clashing noises.

Cold sweat burst from Van Gogh’s body. If he had not been able to sense the incoming danger, the attack, which none of his equipment was able to take head on, would have hit him squarely. That would have resulted in very severe injuries, even if he was able to survive the attack.

Magic cannons usually would not pose a threat to powerful figures. Even if the area of the attack had a diameter of three yards or more, it would not be able to lock onto someone like Van Gogh. The location where Van Gogh had entered the water seemed to have been calculated by someone within the tower. It seemed that the cannon was fired as soon as he looked in the tower’s direction.

His initially astonishment was quickly replaced with fury.

His divine spells had reached the pinnacle of grade-9 and were able to calculate after defending against the attack, that he was under the influence of a lesser prophecy spell. It was due precisely to that that he had stopped for a split second to look in the tower’s direction. The enemy had been coordinating impeccably to take advantage of that very split second to launch an attack.

“A lesser prophecy spell! That meant that there is a powerful fallen holy master onboard! That holy master is a cunning one, getting me to stop for a split second instead of using it to kill me outright. Such prophecy spells cause very little recoil indeed.”

Due to there being some fallen holy master capable of casting lesser prophecy spells onboard, it was only naturally for him to determine that he had to get his hands of those in the tower. He deemed it absolutely necessary to kill whoever that was, regardless of how far he had to pursue them to do so.

Van Gogh took out a book from the badge on his chest soon after.

Golden holy scripts were written on the black cover of the book. He freed his right hand, letting the lance form a Holy Prose Shield in front of him capable of Absolute Defense, before opening the book.

“O’ Lord of Glory, my god, my father, I implore that you open that evil protection before me with your wisdom!”

Divine arts were different from magic. While the arts possessed many powerful spells, casting required time to chant. It was all dependent on how much of god’s grace a holy master had. Van Gogh was a favored one of his god, who received divine blessings as early as the age of twenty-four, allowing his body to be suspended at twenty-four years of age, and enabling his training in divine arts to be sped up with no worries of aging.

Van Gogh was the one who received the highest number of divine blessings among all those in the black dungeon. As he finished his short chant, a full golden holy prose emerged from the book in his hand. The holy prose seemed to be tangible, collapsing quickly after emerging and compressing into a shining dot, which then flew into Van Gogh’s left eye.

Vinny continued firing away with the cannon. Saleen’s voice was heard deep within his soul saying, “Vinny, get back here!”

Vinny stopped his attacks immediately. His continuous four shots were all fired at different angles and locations, yet the Holy Prose shield formed by the Lance of Order remained completely unscathed.

The golden dot dispersed immediately as it got into Van Gogh’s left eye, forming a web-like structure, enveloping his eyeball. He was able to determine the loop holes on Saleen’s tower using the layer of golden webbing.

He was dumbfounded to find that, other than that window that had just been closed, all loopholes flowed around the tower. The material from which the tower was constructed from was nigh-indestructible. Even with the power bestowed to him by the true god, he was unable to find a single location where he could have landed a decisive hit on the tower.