Badge in Azure

Chapter 1309: Apotheosis (Part 1)

Raphael wrote her name on the scroll and a binding power appeared deep within her soul. The contract scroll crumbled as soon as Rafel was done writing down her name, reduced to bits of starlight and scattered in the air.

That was the first time Saleen used constellation contracts. As long as the stars stayed intact, the contract would be forever binding. When Saleen wrote that contract, not only did he use the blood of the dragon as a catalyst, but he also imbued the contract with constellation power, drawing hundreds of star charts.

Unless the constellation regions of those charts had all been destroyed, there was no way to destroy the contract.

"Sir, would you mind letting the angels come up?" A lot of information flowed into Rafel's mind as soon as she signed the contract, all of which was hidden in the contract by Saleen. Rafel would not have been able to know this information if she were to refuse to sign the contract.

Saleen introduced Myers Mainland to her. There were many level ten beings appearing on the mainland, and if the metal angels were to take on those beings one-on-one, there was no way they would come out on top.

Powerful professionals among humans possess powerful equipment, while metal angels relied solely on their instincts to battle.

The god of the Metal Divine Kingdom had perished, making it difficult for those angels to use divine arts, as they were now utterly incapable of borrowing powers from their god.

Only skills like sacrifice remained intact, but using them would cause the metal angels to thoroughly crumble instead of being resurrected in the divine kingdom.

What Saleen needed to do was to convert the metal angels' faiths.

But then again, Saleen had no intentions of letting the metal angels take up faith in the Goddess of Nature, as doing so would hasten the goddess' resurrection. When the Goddess had been resurrected, her powers would exceed her own expectations.

The metal angels were of the gods, and created to serve the gods after all.

Saleen's current plan was to create a god in the Floating City. Of course, he had no idea if such a plan would work. Well…black magicians had tried to do so at least.

The god that Saleen intended to create was a God of Magic Net. Saleen had read many renowned works regarding relations between the gods and humans recently, all of which were left behind by ancient mages. The wealth of the astrology tower was more than just alchemical materials and energy.

Large quantities of notes written by astrologers, mages, and warriors of ancient times were left behind in the astrology tower. These had all once been national resources. When the nation itself no longer existed, all of them became Gaine's private collections.

Ancient humans attempted to create gods as well and they succeeded. However, the created gods eventually betrayed the humans as well. Gods were gods, not tools of humans. If one were to intend to make a tool out of a god, they would have to kill said god first.

Even Myers' ascension to godhood felt somewhat experimental. Deep inside Myers' mind, she was very curious to know if a human's thoughts would stay the same when they became a god.

No one knew what happened after that. The humans powers went into decline and the connection between planes severed. There were only a few planes that remained communicable around Myers Mainland and mages had a hard time traversing these planes. They were only able to use magic arrays to do summoning.

When the Goddess of Myers perished, humans who studied the gods basically vanished altogether. Three dynasties crumbled one after another and it was not until present day that humans were able to see hope again.

However, before that hope came to be, they had to deal with the sudden reconnection of planes. There were terrifying things in some of those severed planes. If the humans of Myers Mainland were to fail to make it pass that ordeal, the civilizations of the mainland would see an absolute final end.

"It is done." Saleen said. Saleen casted a Lightning Constellation and hundreds of thousands of lightning puppets flew out to the ground. Those lightning puppets formed a passage under Saleen's territory, and blocked the lightning bolts in the storm.

The metal angels had been waiting for Rafel throughout the time. She called to them from above. While the metal angels feared lightning, they nonetheless flew up to the Floating City through the passage.

"All of you, come and meet Master Saleen!" Rafel said in the language of the gods.

Saleen smiled. Those metal angels then bowed to Saleen in an orderly fashion under Rafel's instructions. It was a custom performed by the god creatures to gods. The metal angels understood that their leader had submitted to the human.

While it felt surreal none of the metal angels, beings who lacked intelligence, objected.

Saleen counted and found that there were over 400 of them. Those god creatures all had formidable combat capacity. At the very least, they were powerful enough for now. However, having lost the blessings of their god, these god creatures would no longer be able to be resurrected if they died. Without their divine kingdom, those angels could only wander about. Once they were coincidentally summoned, their fates as slaves were sealed.

The time was September and Saleen found that he was still able to make it. He delivered the schematics that Grand Duke Iron Blood gave him back to Metatrin City, and asked his teacher to help the Grand Duke craft Dragon Knight Armors.

He delivered his own designs back to the city while he was at it. Nailisi went to the field to transport the supplies that Saleen prepared back to the city as well. Saleen remained behind in the Floating City, beginning to work on his apotheosis plans.

Since Myers had left leads regarding apotheosis behind, as long as believers exist a god could be created out of nothing. The power of the faith of believers not only worked on existing gods, but it also allowed the creation of a god from literally nothing.

Saleen began to organize the enchanters, imagining various details of the God of Magic Net he was about to create, and created an image of the god using magic.

Rafel was participating throughout the process, as Rafel knew far more about gods than Saleenl.

Rafel showed extreme interests in Saleen's plan. As a god creature, Saleen's idea of apotheosis should have infuriated her. Yet, for some unknown reasons, she was not against the idea at all, she even contributed ideas to the plan. Rafel provided many useful opinions and suggestions regarding the details and attributes of the God of Magic Net.

The god that she used to serve had been a mid-level god at level 16, so the ideas that Rafel provided would at least allow Saleen to create a god of the same level.

Saleen had a better understanding of the rules of the magic net. The God of Magic Net was shaped in Rafel's image but lacked wings. That was because converting the metal angels, who took faith in Rafel, to believers of another god would prove difficult. The similarity in appearance was only meant to lower said difficulty, not make Rafel a god herself.

Gods materialized out of the void and with the sparking of their divine fire a world would be born as well.

Saleen read the descriptions in the notes and found that among the materials in his possession, only the broken jade fragments he had gotten from the three kings would be able to carry a god's power.

He was already in possession of the jade fragments, but he had no way of assembling the three pieces of jade together again. The resilience of the jade's material far exceeded what he could imagine, so much so that Saleen went as far as to attempt destroying the broken jade pieces. Water Flame Alchemy, metallic poisons, and even lightning icicles were all used, and none yielded any results.

If the three broken pieces were to be reunited again, it would become extremely powerful.

Such matters were not to be rushed. Saleen assessed his options and finally decided to use one of the pieces to finish the job. The creation of the God of Magic Net was not to make the god perfect anyway, but just to allow the metal angels be resurrected indefinitely.

As long as the God of Magic Net existed, the metal angels would be able to gain eternal life in Saleen's Floating City.

Saleen's talents prevented him from becoming the strongest mage in existence, yet his thoughts and ideas astonished countless genius mages nonetheless. Nicholas and the others listened to Saleen's descriptions and, for the first time in their lives, found that their master might have been an insane mage.

Saleen usually looked calm and collected, but when he set his mind to get something done, he turned turned dangerous and manic. Gods, if created ones, were not things that would be easily controlled.

If controlling them had been so easy, ancient humans would not have resorted to destroying one divine kingdom after another, just to get one step closer to render the gods extinct.

But then again, that did not mean that gods were absolute beings that were unable to be controlled, as it was entirely possible to do between the gods themselves.

Some powerful gods did not slaughter lower level gods, but subjugated them and made those gods their servants. By doing so, those gods gained more helpers and it made taking on other kingdoms of gods easier.

The gods were capable of subjugating one another, so from a theoretical standpoint, it would be entirely possible for humans to subjugate gods.

What Saleen wanted to do was something that the ancient humans have never done before.

Over 400 metal angels signed contracts with Saleen and constellation contracts were used to bind the god creatures' faith. It was something that had never been attempted before, and not even Saleen knew if it could even be done in the first place. 24,000 imps and demonic spirits signed contracts with Saleen as well. There were over 20,000 believers available before their object of worship—the God of Magic Net—was even born. Furthermore, all of those believers possessed immense mental powers.

Gods have had no souls and that proved troubling for Saleen. So how do I go about binding a god after it is created?

The best way would be to infuse the divine persona into the broken jade at the very moment of the god's birth. Saleen would become the highest being within the jade's functions.

The plan was not limited only to the Floating City. Saleen planned to spread the faith throughout all places where he placed magic nets. So long as one took faith in the God of Magic Net, the god would then bestow them powers of magic, enabling them to avoid the painstaking training processes.

Of course, such notions had no enticing qualities to speak of to true mages. The power gained by all believers within the magic net came from the gods. The more resolute one's faith was, the greater the power of provided by the magic net, but it would not do anything to deepen one's understanding of magical knowledge.

Everything that such a believer would know was forced into their minds. That was the difference between enchanters and mages. Mages were capable of enhancing their own powers limitlessly, yet enchanters are completely reliant on the blessing of their god.

Mages were capable of creation, yet enchanters were bound to the old ways without any way forward.

However, none of that mattered to many. It was a very, very enticing offer for people with average, limited talents to become enchanters. Most people never had much choice throughout their lives to begin with, and they would be indifferent to becoming slaves of gods.

Selling their souls eh? Give them a good price and they would gladly hand their souls over on a silver platter.