Badge in Azure

Chapter 1326: Purification (Part 2)

Saleen's Floating City stayed behind in Nature City. The believers of the Nature Faith were used to it. Lord Saleen was the key to the goddess's resurrection and probably a friend of the goddess.

With the state of affairs on the mainland being a mess, the believers knew that although their city was strong, it was not all that difficult to take down. The Floating City was helping out with defending the headquarters of the faith at such times, preventing others from invading them.

The believers of Nature Faith heard from the abomination plane that Saleen had brought back some evil items for the believers to purify. Those items were in tainted Bug Angel Armors.

Saleen did not waste anything while he was collecting the fragments of the finger bone of the heretic god. The lightning warriors brought everything they with them. The Bug Angel Warriors wearing armor were long dead. Their bodies were brought back for purification, enabling their souls to disperse. They would have probably be resurrected as abominations otherwise.

The adherents of Nature Faith began to throw themselves into the long process of purification. None of them were idling by. Every single one of them had either bodies or armor in front of them waiting to be cleaned. To common people, these processes would be deemed boring and dull. To believers, they were beautiful endeavors.

They were able to provide formidable power of faith to the statue of the goddess during the purification process. Saleen was even able to sense that the power of faith with the central temples began to liquefy, gradually modifying the statue.

It was not that Saleen had never seen anything like that before. He had personally taken down a statue in the Purgatory Desert. The statue in the city was more powerful than the one that Saleen had taken apart before.

He thought, I wonder when the goddess will be able to resurrect?

Saleen was right beside the statue, using the power of faith to heal his own Figure of Fate, which had suffered severe damage. However, the divine powers of the Goddess of Nature were still capable of healing it.

He did not see any reason to refuse using them. There were over a million believers throughout the city, and the power of faith generated every day was massive. Those were powers generated when purifying the aura of the Heretic God.

Through the statue, the power of faith was quickly converted to the divine power of the goddess. Saleen absorbed over half of those divine powers and cleaned them using Armoring Lightning Beads before siphoning them into his body, patching up the Figure of Fate bit by bit.

The speed of recovery far exceeded his expectations. The figure, which had shriveled to the size of little more than an inch, had returned to its normal size. All the damage was fixed within one month.

Within that month, the finger bone of the Heretic God that Saleen passed to Baudelaire and the others was completely purified. However, Saleen had thousands of pieces like that. If they were to be all purified, it would have taken over 100 years, judging by the powers Baudelaire and the others currently had.

Surprisingly, the purified armor was still usable. There were even some weird attributes attached to them. Saleen collected the banged up armor and refurbished over 300 sets out of them. Those were not all that important. The most important thing at hand was that purified finger bone fragment of the Heretic God.

The bone fragment turned pale white after being purified. Saleen handed it to Sika, who reached out to it use her Nature Priest powers

Before throwing it back to Saleen, Sika said, "I have no use for it. I still feel repulsed by it despite it having been purified."

Saleen looked for Nailisi and asked if she would have been able to expand the 12 Notes of First Purgatory with it.

Nailisi took a look at the purified bone fragment and said, "Sh*t. I'd still have some use for it if it was not purified. Now that it's purified, it's just a piece of junk."

Saleen recalled something and asked, "What about your purgatory of purification?"

"It won't do. It can't fit something so evil in it." Nailisi regretfully shook her head.

"Forget about it," Saleen said. "We'll head back to Highland City later and see if you can siphon the evil black mist into the purgatory of purification."

His idea was sound. The power of purgatory of purification was not high enough. If it was to continue to clean up those evil aura, it would have been able to grow more powerful.

Saleen went and asked many others. No one knew what could be done with the piece of purified bone fragment. He recalled someone else and contacted Lex, asking if she was able to lend Bain to him.

Lex was curious. She was busy with construction, which meant that she had no time to spare. As such, she told Saleen to just go look for Bain himself. Bain was in Metatrin City. Saleen called Bain over after acquiring Lex's permission.

Bain had recovered considerably under Nicholas' help. That old assassin quietly waited, not knowing what the mage in front of him wanted.

Saleen looked at the wrinkles of Bain's face and felt pity for him. He said, "Come, I'll teach you some skills."

He took Bain into the Nature Temple and sat at the side of the statue. Saleen began to cast his secret art, sending divine power of the Goddess of Nature into Bain's body.

Bain was shocked. "Your highness, are you telling me to become a believer of the goddess?"

"No, Bain, I'm just healing your body," Saleen said. "Nicholas's powers are limited. I'll restore you to full health. You're still at level nine, right?"

"Yes, your highness," Bain said in a rather saddened manner.

"You'll become a level 10 assassin soon enough," Saleen said as he looked at Bain and recalled Nicholas's words.

Bain had suffered extremely grievous injuries during his younger days and never properly headed. As such, Nicholas patched him up. When Bain got to level ten, his injuries relapsed. It forced him back to level nine. Nicholas deemed Bain was done for.

Saleen recalled how he felt when he first met Bain. The assassin was a strong man. Despite being old, he was charismatic. Lex was able to survive due to having been protected by the old assassin, making it through one ordeal after another.

Lex was already a level 10 mage trainer, and Bain was still suffering the aftereffects of his injuries. Fallen divine arts were unable to do anything about it.

Saleen recalled that the Goddess of Nature claimed to have mastered the secrets of all life, which meant that her nature divine powers would be able to restore Bain. As soon as his injuries were completely healed, he would be able to make it to level 10. There was no doubt about it.

The believers of Nature City did not know that the power of faith they devoted to the goddess was being stolen by Saleen. With the goddess not around, there was nobody giving them divine orders.

The pope, the leader of the knights, and the oracle were all Saleen's men. Even if they knew what he was up to, they would not have stopped him. The Nature Faith was akin to Saleen's own organization.

With the knowledge learned from healing the Figure of Fate, Saleen stayed another month. It was early March before healing Bain was healed enough to have his silver hair turn black again.

Bain saw himself in the mirror and found his reflection unbelievable. "Your highness!"

"Bain, I remember the time when I first went to Holy Rock City with Lex and you taught me things about mental powers," Saleen sincerely said. "While it was quite a challenge back then, I still have you to thank for being where I am today."

Bain sighed. Saleen's relationship with Lex was not what it was back then. He had felt pity for the little mage. He thought Saleen would not be able to live long, so he gave the mage some pointers. He never expected to have been able to be reborn due to that.

It seemed that the mage had been right. What one gave was equal to what one earned in return.

"But your highness, we're stealing from a god!" Bain's face might have turned youthful, but he retained the bearing of an old man.

That feeling was an amicable one to Saleen. While he was close to his teacher, Jason was more like some sort of backing for Saleen. With Bain, it was simply more like that of a senior.

"Bain, Lex knew about all that," Saleen said with a sheepish smile. "I intend to resurrect the goddess, but I have no intentions of letting her take control of the faith. Before she is resurrected, all of that would belong to me anyway."

Bain now realized what was actually going on. "Are you summoning me just to heal me, your highness?"

"Of course not. Bain, take a look at this thing," Saleen said and took out the Heretic God's finger bone fragment, which had been purified. Saleen would not have dared touch it if it wasn't, not even when he was wearing the gloves the grandmaster gave him.

"A terrifying piece indeed!" Bain took the bone fragment. He was first startled but soon looked pleased.

"It looks like you'd be able to make good use of it!" Saleen knew he had guessed right, judging from Bain's expression.

"I'd indeed be able to put it to good use," Bain confidently said. "If I were to make a dagger out of this, there is no one below level 10 that I wouldn't be able to kill."

"How so?" Saleen asked.

"The secret arts of the assassin require special weapons to pull," Bain said as he held onto the fragment. "This piece of material has all the aura I need. Furthermore, this thing has been purified using divine arts and has very weird properties. Wait, it can even restore mental powers?"

"I still have some 12-dimensional metal with me," Saleen said. "You can have it. I'll forge an exceptional dagger for you. Right, Lex told you to help me out as well, didn't she?"

Bain sighed and replied, "Your Highness, that is between you and the viscount."

"Very well then," Saleen said. "It seems like not even 12-dimensional metals are able to buy you over. In that case…"

Bain coughed heavily, interrupting Saleen's words, and said, "I have a daughter, and I've always taken the viscount to be like a daughter to me. In the eyes of the nobles, such thoughts would have been very rude. You're a mage, Saleen, don't you think this is normal? I've put too much on the viscount."

Saleen nodded and replied, "I understand. The more you invest, the more impossible it is to pull yourself out. That is how sentiment works, isn't it?"

Bain was stunned but quickly understood that Saleen was trying to make him understand. He was not trying to make use of Bain as an assassin. What Bain expressed to the viscount was more than just loyalty, and Saleen was not trying to use him either.

Saleen's efforts in buying him over would have been way too great. Besides, he had stolen divine powers for him and gave him 12-dimensional metals.

"Alright, Saleen, what do you need from me?" Bain resorted to calling Saleen by name.