Badge in Azure

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Saleen was completely puzzled as to what was happening. The only thing he was sure of was that his Magical Element Tower was unable to take off and was sinking with the ground beneath it.

The magic arrays in the Magical Element Tower were not high level ones to begin with, and they appeared especially cheap in the predicament Saleen caught himself in. The magic power furnaces in the tower were powered by low level magic nuclei. They would be rather powerful magic equipment under level nine, but the space-time continuum outside the tower was in chaos.

The elemental storm was cut apart by all types of energy. The tower was unable to even draw any power from its surroundings.

The ground outside the city sank right after the mercenaries retreated back into the city.

If Saleen had been observing the terrain around those parts, he would not have done something so dangerous that day. The astrological knowledge he had learned, when used in conjunction with Figaro's formula, would have enabled him to calculate the rough results of the actions.

Daliang City was less than 100 square meters. The irregular city was built on very solid ground. Qin people had a habit of selecting safer areas to build cities, employing mages to figure out the specifics. As such, there would have never been an earthquake in Qin.

Yet, at the edge of the city, horizontal cracks began appearing beneath the city walls.

The cracks stuck close to the walls and did not cause any damage to the walls themselves. However, the cracks continued spreading and the land outside the city was only tens of meters wide. The cracks were spreading right outside the city.

Despite the fact that the magic catastrophe that Saleen created lay at the edge of the mountains, its influence spread into the Tanggulasian and Cloudflow garrisons.

The mages at Daliang City had dread all written all over their faces. They felt the raging elements that could not be brought under control by magic chords anymore. If anyone were to attack Daliang City, they would end up needing to fight with their powers at their lowest points.

The fear felt by the mages was shared by the holy masters right outside the city. The magic catastrophe that Saleen created disabled the holy masters within a hundred meter radius from being able to sense the blessings of their god, as well as prayers of believers on the plane.

With the ground sinking and the space reduced to chaos, Daliang City became the only safe place around. Body counts in the camps outside the city continued to climb.

It was not that those inside Daliang City were not afraid. The soldiers found that the city they were in continued to climb slowly. It was an illusion, as the ground outside continued to sink.

The Qin mages chose a very special place to build the city. Like Metatrin City, it was built on very solid rock formations. The difference was that Metatrin CIty was built right on top of rocks, while Daliang City was built on a several-hundred-meters thick layer of dirt on the rocks.

Lex was unable to stay airborne. She came to the city and looked at where Saleen was. The huge ball of light had extinguished. The night turned to its usual black, with specks of fire in the sky.

Lex was unable to do anything but watch the storm outside the city grow increasingly violent. If she had been able to fly, she would have rushed to Saleen's side and see what was happening for herself. However, flying outside the city would be an insanely risky move, as she would have to use her own magic chords, without being able to wield any of the elements in the air.

No one inside the tower was able to say anything. They all looked at Saleen, who was dazed. Saleen had no idea what to do. The magic arrays on the surface of the tower were scrubbed clean. The tower had become little more than dead weight, unable to take flight. It would have been fortunate if that was only the problem, but it was not. The tower sank alongside the ground beneath it.

A huge crevasse spread right at the tower, which toppled it and sent it downwards.

The tower had a diameter of more than a dozen meters, yet the crevasse was big enough to drop the tower more than 30 meters, before getting stuck somewhere comparatively narrow.

Going outside of the tower would risk getting killed, but staying in the tower would probably mean getting blasted by lava.

The lava within the crevasse gushed before Saleen was able to say anything about their current predicament, blasting the tower. Human power was miniscule compared to the force of nature they experienced. The Magical Element Tower, which was as heavy as a small mountain, was thrown high into the air, landing hard in the lava.

It was fortunate that elementite was not capable of being melted by lava. There was not any change in the temperature within the tower.

"My liege, should we leave?" Jola asked Saleen.

Sika felt relieved that both her children were nearby. She held one of them while Eleanor held the other. "We're not going out. It's a chain reaction caused by magic and will eventually subside. The tower might be heavy, but it won't be submerged in lava."

Saleen nodded. "Indeed. We'll just wait it out. The is the safest place there is. If we were to go out now, someone would get hurt."

"My liege, I seem to…be near my breakthrough," Nicholas said the line out of nowhere.

"Oh?" Everyone turned their eyes at Nicholas.

Nicholas shook his head. "This is not an illusion. Under such circumstances, the Lord of Glory wouldn't even be able to sense my presence. While I'm a fallen holy master, I'm still under his influence. My liege, I need a separate room, so I can go clear myself of the brandings the Lord of Glory put on me."

"And the thing with advancement?" Saleen understood what Nicholas meant. If Nicholas had used the time to clear himself of those brandings, he would have wasted the opportunity to advance.

Nicholas smiled gleefully. "I'll settle with being able to feel that feeling nearing advancement. If I get another chance like this again, I'd have 100 percent chance of succeeding. But if I don't get the divine brandings off completely, I'll have a hard time eating and sleeping."

Saleen was able to relate to Nicholas' words, as he had a contract with the goddess himself, and that had always been a weight on his shoulders. It was a looming nightmare until the contract was fulfilled.

Nicholas' situation was worse than his, because as long as the brandings stayed, he would run the risk of being set up and assassinated if a clone of the Lord of Glory were to descend into this plane, even if Nicholas have grown to be more powerful than the Lord of Glory.

"Go to the 18th floor then," Saleen let Nicholas leave, then gestured for Jola to tag along.

Lava continued to ooze out of the crevasse. However, even without the lava, there would not have been many survivors left within the allied forces' camp. Following the elemental storm and space cracks, all manners of eerie energies zipped about in the air. The surroundings outside Daliang City were literally hell.

Daliang City was almost a hundred meters taller than the ground outside the city and it seemed to still be climbing. Many of the weaker buildings had toppled. It was fortunate that the place was militarized, with a large portion of the buildings having mages involved in their designs. Or else, having the water reservoirs crumbling would have given Lex a massive headache.

The space within her God's Ring was near infinite, but there was no way she could have carried so much water to supply her troops. Regardless of how long the catastrophe would last, there would be a day where the underground reservoirs ran dry. The city had become an ancient city, hanging high above.

A huge chasm appeared within 240 meters of Daliang City. Only Daliang City remained standing tall, as there was not even a single piece of land around that remained intact.

The lava that spewed from the cracks of the earth carried potent poisons. Black smoke rose and killed all the survivors outside.

Everyone within the tower felt another violent tremor. The speed at which the lava was spewing dwindled. It was only then that Saleen activated magic arrays within the tower to see what was happening outside.

The Magical Element Tower was floating at an angle in the lava, with the topmost floors sticking out. All floors below the 15th floor were submerged in the scorching hot lava. The temperature of the lava gradually cooled. When it finally solidified, the tower would be completely stuck.

However, Saleen was not worried. Elementite and lava were completely different levels. When the lava cooled and contracted, Saleen would cast water magic, allowing the tower to wiggle free from the solidifying rock around it, which would allow him to store it using a dimension stone.

What proved to be troublesome was the chaotic flow of energy and space cracks outside, which prevented them from going out.

Saleen came to the topmost floor of the tower without saying anything. On the 24th floor, he was able to look at Daliang City through magic arrays. Using his Elemental Eye, Saleen was able to see that the part rising beneath the city appeared to be a large statue.

Or rather, something shaped like a human's head, with only eyes sticking out. Furthermore, it was not one statue, but more than a dozen carvings of human heads.

The heads had a diameter of more than a mile, which would make the height of the entire body more than eight miles.

Giants! Those are carvings of giants under Daliang City!

Saleen never thought that there would be an ancient ruins that he had mages looking for all over the place right beneath the city. Furthermore, the size of the ruins exceeded anyone's imagination. The catastrophe he had created was simply a flashpoint. There had always been unstable elements beneath the ground under Daliang City.

There were about 18 statues sticking out. The 18 giants were probably surrounding y an ancient ruin. Saleen recalled the Imperial City of the Abyss. In ancient times, humans were capable of constructing buildings the size of mountains and were even capable of enlisting help from giants. What he saw right there could have hardly be a miracle.

It was a pure accident that the 18 statues of giants ended up protecting Daliang City from the magic catastrophe.

Qin mages had only been designing outline of the city according to terrain and energy reactions from within the earth. It was by pure chance that they end building the city right on top of the ruins. The coincidence saved more than a million lives in Daliang City.

However, the magic catastrophe that Saleen created ended up killing almost everyone in the allied forces between the Holy See and Cloudflow.

Only powerful ones would have been able to escape when it happened, and there were a few who were unlucky enough to be met with space cracks while they were at it, and ended up being torn to shreds. However, there were still chances that professionals above level seven escaped the catastrophe.

The dust only truly settled over half a day later. Saleen found that the elements around the entire Daliang City were still very difficult to control. If he wanted to use magic, he needed to rely entirely on the power of his magic chords.

Any surviving holy masters of the Holy See would find that as well. There were no signs of the presence of their god to be found even more than a hundred miles away from Daliang City.