Badge in Azure

Chapter 1463: Returning to the Hall of Gods (Part 1)

Saleen took his three weapon spirits and retaliated. Because of their previous attempts to advance their level, the spirits’ powers were somewhat diminished. But that didn’t matter: What Saleen needed was the control and assassination abilities of the three, which they still maintained.

Dante was the first to fly to the top of the volcano. He cast Lightning Constellation, shrouding the fire dragon inside.

The dragon’s intelligence had already been wiped clean by the head warden; all that was left was its instincts. As such, it simply roamed around the magma after penetrating the underground without any intention of leaving or returning.

Saleen arrived soon enough. Under observations of his Eye of Souls, he was able to see the fire dragon’s core—a divine persona in its brain; it was fuchsia. Not even the head warden seemed to have discovered this.

That was because even if it had been observed by the Elemental Eye, it would have looked like a magic nucleus. Being pseudo gods, the three weapon spirits were highly sensitive to divine personas, enabling them to sense if something was different.

If this had ever come to the head warden’s attention, he would have extracted the divine persona and kept it for himself.

The divine persona was not actually the power core of the fire dragon but only a condition of its birth. Coincidentally, a god from the underworld had fallen there and its divine persona was left intact, gradually giving birth to one such creature.

Given enough time, provided it was not discovered by others, the fire dragon could eventually become a god, say in a few billion years, or maybe tens of billions of years.

The three weapon spirits looked at the dumb creature and were elated deep down. Even the weapon spirit of the magic amplifier, the most down to earth among the three, coveted that creature.

The fire dragon’s energies were so pure that if it had not been for the seal of the volcano becoming undone by a level-18 magic spell, it might have actually become a god. But if the creature had appeared before the others, it surely would have ended up dead.

“Move!” Saleen deduced that everything under the volcano had been destroyed, dissolved by that green hole. There was nothing to be gained this time. Had it not been for the divine persona, tens of thousands of his people would have died in exchange for the head warden’s death. That would have made Saleen very regretful.

He shouted at them to move before unleashing yet another thick lightning bolt from his family badge.

The fire dragon, no longer intelligent, breathed a long stream of flames in retaliation, intending to block Saleen’s attacks. It had good instincts: despite Saleen being the first to attack, the dragon was the first to breathe fire.

The power of lightning, however, was not something the dragon was capable of stopping. The bolt blew off the dragon’s head right away, leaving only a pristine-looking divine persona hovering about.

Saleen had never had such an easy time killing a magic beast. He thought it would be much tougher and even came prepared with several scrolls and was prepared for a prolonged fight, even sustaining injuries. He never expected to see the fire dragon’s divine persona floating with just one lightning bolt.

Among his three weapon spirits, the spirit of the magic amplifier was the most down to earth—and the speediest. It latched onto the divine persona right away, flying back to its master and handing him the prize.

The God of Magic Net, by contrast, was the kind who bullied the weak yet feared the strong. That’s why it kept its mouth shut. It simply crept up to the dragon and cut up its body with its elemental blade.

Unexpectedly, the fire dragon’s head regenerated. And what was the first thing it did? It chomped down on the God of Magic Net angrily. In response, the God of Magic Net’s elemental blade swept and cut down the dragon’s red fangs. Then it made a fast getaway after nearly being swallowed by that dragon.

At this point, Saleen realized that the fire dragon’s vital area was its heart: This is where its magic nucleus rested. The head had already been taken by the divine persona, preventing a magic nucleus from developing there.

After being severely injured in one of Selene’s previous attacks, the fire dragon went berserk. All three weapon spirits were capable of different attacks. Saleen was bored to tears during the fight and on the verge of dozing off. He thought the dragon was a formidable opponent. He didn’t expect it to rely solely on instinct after being stripped of its intelligence.

Those instincts had not been honed on the battlefield. Essentially, the head warden had disabled the fire dragon in order to gain power from it.

It didn’t take long for the enormous beast to be killed by the three weapon spirits. Its corpse was then scooped up and dumped into the Lightning Constellation for preservation. Under stimulation from electrical pulses within, its body would be kept fresh to prevent its elements from dissipating.

Saleen, nevertheless, was still vexed. He sent hundreds of lightning warriors into the magma to see if the head warden had left anything behind. The search was disappointing, for everything below had been destroyed.

The lightning warriors went all the way down until they reached the tunnel where the fire dragon went in and out before more than 100 of them were sucked inside. Saleen didn’t want to see further losses, so he recalled all remaining lightning warriors.

And what did Saleen gain after raising an army and using up two level-18 scrolls? One divine persona and one fire dragon. Of course, there was still plenty of wealth to be had on Black Dungeon Island. Except for the head warden’s lair, Saleen was hardly interested in that.

There was no doubt that the divine persona was the best reward to be had. Suppressing his disappointment, Saleen left with his weapon spirits. The island continued to crumble and when Saleen reached the outskirts, the ruins of a temple emerged from the cracks on the land.

Saleen knew that the Black Dungeon Island had once acquired ancient ruins. The ruins he was looking at now were probably the same ones. It’s too bad they had pretty much been picked clean. The gushing lava rendered them unworthy of further exploration.

Saleen came to possess a plane map that made searching for ruins comparatively easy. As such, he commanded the army at the edge of the island to get into Baldur’s Gate without looking back. This prevented them from encountering any nasty surprises the island might still be able to pull off.

If the entire island suddenly sank, Saleen would never be able to save all his troops.

He figured he didn’t have to worry about the hidden powers of the Holy See any more since the head warden was done for. The Holy See’s forces had vanished from the plane map.

Saleen gained a lot from the battle that time. thanks Because he managed to win thanks to his level-18 scrolls, he considered the victory rather disappointing. He had been keeping a close eye on the head warden for a long time while collecting and analyzing intelligence only for him to be easily killed by level-18 scrolls.

At the same time, Saleen came to understand what it meant to be truly powerful.

Be it the grandmaster or the general, he would have easily made short work of them with the scrolls. He had initially thought the powers of the Lord of Glory were the pinnacle of powers he was able to come into contact with. He never expected to see those scrolls or to be incapable of figuring out how they worked.

The earthquake on the Black Dungeon Island caused massive tsunamis. Humongous waves were soon crashing on the shore of that piece of land on Myers Mainland, crushing all buildings there and drowning more than half the people on the Tribunal.

Saleen contacted the Floating City after he finished destroying Black Dungeon Island, sending it over to deal with any remaining forces of the Tribunal.

He no longer needed to launch the attack himself. What he needed was to advance. The first step was to head to the Hall of Gods and speed up the passage of time to enable him to rise to level-13. It was also time for his three weapon spirits to advance as well; otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to do battle with an infuriated Lord of Glory.

Just one level-18 scroll was in Saleen’s possession. Only by getting to level-14 would he stand a chance of targeting the Lord of Glory and killing him. His most vexing worry was the Lord of Glory many doubles. Saleen decided to reserve the level-18 scroll for taking out the god’s main body.

He was no longer in the dark about gods. He realized that a god’s double armed with a divine-persona fragment wielded enormous power. The Lord of Glory’s double was at the pinnacle of level-14. Unless Saleen advanced, he’d never be able to take on that god.

After arranging the order of battle, Saleen took out divine tree seeds. He would never hand them to the goddesses, so he decided to give them to the general instead. Such a trade, however, wouldn’t be enough for him to access the Hall of Gods again just yet. Saleen prepared another segment of the Heretic God’s bone and many divine crystals that he collected. He was getting ready to use them as his ticket into the Hall of Gods.

He then flew to the Oceanic Ice Block. The treasury and warehouses of the Kingdom of Metatrin seemed empty. While the supply of magic nuclei was still ample, there were not many left in the warehouses.

A huge force like Saleen’s would have been the most demanding on low-level magic nuclei. He still had ample high-level magic nuclei with him, meaning that those of higher levels in his kingdom had little to worry about. What he lacked were the ones between level-3 and level-6. Mages used such magic nuclei the most.

Saleen remained uncomfortable about summoning Nailisi and the Winged Skull. The Goddess of Myers was putting him on edge, especially when he had no idea when the goddess would monitor his actions again.

He intended to take Sika to the Hall of Gods, but not Lex. The secret art Lex practiced required powers of his billions of subjects. Dealing with such a huge nation would actually benefit Lex’s advancement.

The ones Saleen had taken to the Imperial City of the Abyss were still the ones who had been there before. Saleen first stayed with Rafel and hunted the magic beasts at the Oceanic Ice Block for one month, killing untold numbers and almost filling up one whole slot of his Ring of Cosmos.

The power of his magic amplifier was on full display: Any single spell he cast would be ten times more potent than normal. He was gradually getting used to the equipment. After all, it would have to last until he got to the pinnacle of his profession.

If Saleen were to run into schools of red krill again, one area-of-effect magic spell would have easily killed tens of thousands of them.

Arriving at the Imperial City of the Abyss again, he no longer dared to enter the royal palace himself anymore. He had Rafel hide in the magic amplifier before walking into the Cemetery of the Heroes.

How desolate the cemetery appeared. The level-14 demigod Saleen had brought before filled the heroic spirits up to keep their lives intact for a while.

But none of the heroes came out to welcome him. To the heroes, Saleen was the only visitor. He wasn’t in a hurry to run away, so it was possible that he didn’t bring anything with him.

Saleen walked in front of the general’s grave and said, “General, I need to speak with you.”

A passage did not appear on the grave as it had before. The general’s voice was heard from within, “What brings you here, Saleen?”

Although he felt dejected, Saleen quickly answered, “I’m here to trade, and I have news.”