Badge in Azure

Van Gogh extended his hand but did not reach for the Lance of Order. He was rendered rather paranoid by the structure of the Magical Element Tower. The tower was simply too sturdy. While it was not that the tower had no loopholes, the loopholes themselves contained rules of dimensional space! Judging by his own capacity, he would be able to open up the place with the aid of the Lance of Order and many holy masters, but it would take about three to five months.

“Three to five months?” He was only able to keep his Divine Eye active for six hours at most. Any more than that would have started to eat into his lifespan. He would only be able to keep the spell active beyond that time period by paying the price through aging.

Nailisi took to the sky at that moment. Under the effects of divine powers, the Eye of the Storm remained levitated above the ocean. It was incapable of breaking the seal resulting from Holy Prose Imprisonment and felt that its power was growing weaker and weaker. High pitched noises broke out from the souls within, causing the Eye of the Storm confusion.

Its intellect was derived from the many sorcerers within. However, crafting by the tribunal left it incapable of recognizing who and what it was, and there was no trace of humanity to be found in its being.

Nailisi’s body crackled with golden electricity. Holding the Twelve Notes of Purgatory on her left hand and Sword of Rules on her right, she charged straight for the Holy Prose Imprisonment, carving up a huge gash on it.

“Get out here!” Nailisi yelled. The Eye of the Storm intended to escape seeing the cage being cut up, but soon was able to see something like a portal within the gash. It was able to tell that it would only enter another cage.

“Hear me out!” The Eye of the Storm attempted to negotiate with Nailisi, and she responded with yet another slash. That other attack seemed to run right through the gash, landing hard on the Eye of the Storm itself.

The monster felt like its soul was being torn apart. The pain was so unbearable that it let a fierce eerie shriek.

“Come out. You have one second, or you will end up dead,” Nailisi said coldly, without any hint of emotions.

The monster understood Nailisi’s mettle.” I will be more powerful outside than being within this cage after all.” It thought as it immediately squeezed itself through the gash, only to enter yet another space.

Only after entering that other space did the monster find that it was being duped. That space was several sizes smaller than its body mass and volume. The opening was shut as soon as it entered. There was no way out altogether, and its body compressed by several times within the space. The pain was no less than the slash that it had suffered earlier.

The Eye of the Storm was simply down on its luck. The Holy See did not mean to destroy it after creating it, only wanting it to help them fight their wars at sea. If it had simply stayed behind on Black Dungeon Island, it would have become an important figure within the ranks of the Holy See. That would have been possible if it had developed a full personality.

It ran, and it ran in front of Saleen, and had tried to get him involved. Saleen was not one to be trifled with, especially when Nailisi was around.

The Eye of the Storm had thought that Nailisi had too intended to subdue it, and as such, tried to at least break itself away from the Holy Prose Imprisonment to try its luck. Nailisi was a demon, and her thoughts were not something the likes of the Eye of the Storm would be able to figure out.

That slash on its body had not been a warning. The injuries created by the Sword of Rules were incapable of healing. At the very least, in the case of the Eye of the Storm, the wound was to be a permanent one.

As the soul of the Eye of the Storm was formed by merging the souls of three-hundred-and sixty sorcerers and had the protection of magic chords at its external layer, it would have been safe. With the outer magic chords layer cracked and unable to heal however, the mass of souls within were in danger.

The space within the collection of purgatories was simply too small for it. It had thought only of escaping from the Holy Prose Imprisonment when it squeezed itself through the gash, and then found the opening shut as soon as it got through. The Eye of the Storm’s predicament was akin to a dragon being stuffed into a bottle. Worse still, the bottle was an incredibly sturdy one, far beyond its ability to break.

The souls that had been painstakingly merged cracked in an instant. The cracking of the merged souls of the sorcerers released terrifyingly powerful energies, surpassing even those demonstrated by the magic cannon. None of the three-hundred and sixty merged souls were able to escape. They all burst right through the wound, expanding the space they were thrown into.

A living being sought more than survival by instinct. Sometimes, living beings sought death as well. Deeming the intense pain unbearable, it tried with extreme measures to disperse its soul, turning into pure soul energy. All memories, senses, skills and life dissipated. In exchange, it attained eternal tranquility, freed from all pain.

The blown up souls were converted into energy within the collection of purgatories, expanding the space within. The body of the Eye of the Storm—the body that consisted of magic chords—began to be absorbed by the space within. The process had been well-calculated, and it differed not one bit as to how Nailisi had pictured it. The only unexpected part of it all, was how the soul did not hold itself back when exploding. The space had been expanded beyond her expectation, and no pure item spirit of any sort was born.

Nailisi had no time to check out the intricacies of what took place in the Twelve Notes of Purgatory. She was being surrounded on the surface of the ocean; the twelve holy masters had her surrounded from a distance.

Nailisi smirked. She knew that if she clashed with the holy masters, she would suffer dire consequences. The ones from the tribunal were sometimes an extreme sort. She valued her life too much to deem it worthy enough to be put on the line for those around her.

Nailisi put her weapons away and dropped herself into the water. During the dropping process, the holy masters were able to see that the tail of the demon burst in size as its body wiggled about, growing to hundreds of times of what it had been a while ago.

The being before them now sported a golden hide and scales, gleaming brilliantly under the sun. Nailisi let out a howl as soon as she was done changing into her golden dragon form. She knew that while the power of the dragon’s breath was immense, it was not something that she was able to endure for long. The howl itself spoke a volume of the might of the ancient golden dragons nonetheless.

The twelve black-robed high priests from the tribunal shook under the howl of the dragon. Nailisi did not spare any time tangling with any of them and dived for the deeper reaches of the sea beneath her.

Nailisi was mentally linked with Saleen. The reason she had left the tower was none other than to capture the Eye of the Storm. Since she had bagged her prey, she had no intention of tangling with holy masters or whosoever.

The body of the golden dragon was incredibly powerful. It put away its wings and spared no time thinking about breathing, reaching a depth of more than one-hundred yards in the blink of an eye. A powerful soul energy rushed at her, yet Nailisi’s dragon form hardly felt anything, and continued to dive.

They were many types of golden dragons, and most sported remarkable physical defense, while their magic defense remained average. That was the result when compared with other dragons. The golden dragon’s mental powers were so immense, that any soul type attacks would need to be one whole level above it to take effect.

Nailisi knew that Van Gogh split his attention to attack her. She paid him no heed and simply continued to dive, avoiding any contact with those people. The battle with the divine baby made her understand that if she was caught in a pinch, she would expose her master to danger as well. It was not worth the risk going against someone like Van Gogh. When her Twelve Notes of Purgatory was finished, she would no longer need to fear someone like him. The twelve purgatories within were connected with one another, and no matter who they were, she fully intended to skin them when she threw victims in.

Nailisi’s thoughts were sensible. Seeing that he was incapable of doing anything against the Magical Element Tower, Van Gogh turned his attention to Nailisi. He was slow in the water and had decided to simply thrust his Lance of Order at the water in front of him, creating a vacuum of one-hundred yards and traveled there instead, as he pursued Nailisi.

Seeing the vacuum was catching up to her, Nailisi swiped hard with her tail, collapsing the vacuum. Van Gogh, who had been pursuing her from behind, was suddenly caught by the collapse as he made it to the middle of the tunnel. The seawater that rushed in prevented him from going forward further.

While that move halted Van Gogh’s steps, the pain in her tail was so intense that it had her in tears. While it was true that the body of the golden dragon was powerful, it was also true that Nailisi had yet to completely digest said power. The action of her tail sweeping up the vacuum created by the Lance of Order was akin to her ramming full force at a mountain.

The tail of the dragon had bones connected to the spine. While said bone structure enabled attacks with the tail to be intense, the resulting recoil was equally as powerful, which caused Nailisi to feel as if she was being taken apart from head to toe.

Nailisi had no choice but to take her devil form as she continued to dive.

Van Gogh maintained his pursuit. Having been unable to kill off the fallen holy master in the tower, he would not forgive himself if he let the demon go free. His connection with the Eye of the Storm had vanished completely, a testament of the demon having completely subjugated the monster. Van Gogh would be rendered completely speechless to his superiors if he was to return empty-handed.

Under the effects of Divine Eye, Van Gogh became able to move frighteningly quick using the water currents. Nailisi took a form with three heads and four arms, and the weapons in her hands frightened him. He no longer dared opening tunnels with his lance, as the spear in the demon’s hand proved to be quite a threat to him.

It was incredibly frustrating to him that there were loopholes all over the demon. He would have been able to exploit any of the openings and get rid of the demon within mere seconds, if he was only able to get near the demon. His speed proved inferior to Nailisi’s and was able to do nothing as the distance between him and the demon widened.

Van Gogh was anxious, and Saleen was even more so that he was. As Van Gogh pursued Nailisi, Saleen took his tower in pursuit as well. The tower moved incredibly slow in water. If it had not been for Saleen’s Elemental Eye, he would have lost Nailisi a while ago. There was no way the tower could have launched any attacks worth speaking about while it was moving. Saleen was unable to help as the distance between the two widened.

Van Gogh’s mental powers were just too powerful. Saleen had attempted several times to lock onto him, attempting to wipe him out with his badge. Saleen’s attempts were always foretold, resulting in him unable to move against Van Gogh despite having the badge firmly in his hand.

Saleen had analyzed the power of the Lance of Order and determined that it was something that not even his grade-9 Darkness Shield would have been able to defend against.

“If only…Eleanor was here right now.”

Van Gogh was getting increasingly frustrated. His left eye lit up with golden light, conjuring holy prose. The golden light’s power was amplified by hundreds of thousands of times by the holy power and was shot right at the shield in Nailisi’s hand.

The bone shield was easily penetrated by the golden divine light, and Nailisi lost the arm that was carrying the shield, creating a hole with a diameter of about a foot behind her back.

It was a derived skill from the Divine Eye—the Mountain-crushing Beam. It was said that the Lord of Glory could easily penetrate any mountain and destroy any city, with just a single beam of holy light. The all-destroying beam of golden light was derived from the Divine Eye, and a skill bestowed to Van Gogh by the Lord of Glory himself.