Badge in Azure

Chapter 1327: Struggle (Part 1)

Saleen looked at Bain. Even if the old assassin were to wear makeup, no one would be able to recognize him.

"Well, obviously I'll need you to kill someone, and this someone might be very important to Fycro," Saleen said. "I'm not all too sure of that though."

"Who would that be?" Bain asked.

"His name is Sharjah, the previous pope's chief of affairs of the Pivotal Council," Saleen said. "He was brought to the Oracle Corps by Fycro. He has been in hiding since. It was intel from the ones in Nature Faith. No one would have guessed that someone who was once the pope's chief of affairs had been bought over by Fycro. My people also heard that there was a holy item in this Sharjah's hand, the Ring of Many Gods."

"Are you after that piece of equipment?" Bain asked.

"No. Kill Sharjah and destroy the ring." Saleen rubbed his brow and said, "Fycro set me up this time, and he definitely wasn't doing it out on a whim. This might have been planned for a long time. I must ruin his plans if I am to remain one step ahead of him."

That was a theory of the astrologers, which Saleen did not explain to Bain, but Bain would not have been interested anyway.

"Acknowledged," Bain said. "I shall kill Sharjah and destroy the Ring of Many Gods."

"The Ring of Many Gods was something that rivaled the three holy items of the pope," Saleen said. "Depart only when I have finished crafting the dagger for you."

Bain rose, bowed, and left. Saleen began to work on the Evil Dagger.

The finger bone of the Heretic God was not the most resilient of materials, but it contained all manner of properties within it. Saleen found them to be of the most complex and ferocious he had ever seen. Even though the fragment had been purified, he remained wary of it.

It was the end of March, and Saleen was only able to finish crafting Bain's weapon. There were countless believers advancing in Nature City. Having three months doing purification work, all the dead bodies and armor Saleen had brought with him were purified.

The believers gained huge rewards from the deed. Saleen was able to acquire greater amounts of divine powers of the Goddess of Nature, which he used to purify the Heretic God's finger bone fragments.

Even so, he was still short on the amount of bone fragments required. At that time, there was news from Holy Rock City that the Emperor of Qin, Lex's brother, was severely ill. Saleen needed to see Lex.

Lex only told Saleen that she needed to check on her brother, regardless of the possible danger in Holy Rock City.

Saleen did not think much of it. The palace mages in Holy Rock City backed Lex. Furthermore, the large-scale magic amplifier was still manned by the palace mages. Safilos only held command of the city's armies.

It was impossible to take down Lex with armies. Lex, who possessed a God's Ring, could only be brought down using powers of magic amplifiers. Furthermore, there was no way Saleen would have let her go alone.

Jola, Sul, Nicholas, and the other four level 10 mage trainers were assigned to Lex. They were the more reliable powers by Saleen's side and had sufficient strength.

The group headed to Daliang City through the Floating City's teleportation portal. They were to head to Holy Rock City from Daliang City.

Gusion's Dragonslayer Army was also heading there with them. Lex's most trusted swordsmen stayed behind. There were four mage trainers from the Golden Plains and Jalin, a young mage, from her side following her.

As Saleen predicted, Jalin had advanced to level 10. She was being sent by her teacher to aid Lex in securing the throne.

If the Emperor of Qin were to die, Lex might not be able to sit on the throne as planned. By then, she would need to wrestle it from Prince Safilos. Everyone was able to see that much.

It was the first time in over a thousand years to see merchants withdrawing from Holy Rock City. Since the emperor was still alive, Prince Safilos would not be able to keep Lex from entering the city. Lex might have fought him right away as soon as she entered the city.

The merchants did not like the prospects of that happening. They did not know if Holy Rock City would be able to continue with its days of peace this time.

Crafting the dagger was immensely troublesome since the material requirements were too demanding. The fragment did not seem to fuse with any other materials and had rejected quite a number when tried. Materials able to fuse with it were not up to the standards required for crafting weapons.

Bain spent considerable divine powers of the Goddess of Nature to regain his health. As long as he did not end up getting killed, living for the next several hundred years would be a piece of cake. Advancement was almost guaranteed.

Saleen needed to weigh his options to create a weapon that would last Bain for a long time. Assassins were different from other professions in that a good weapon could last them until their deaths. To them, their attachment to their weapons outweighed that of any other equipment.

Saleen had to wait for quite some time to gather more than 30 pieces of the Heretic God's finger bones fragments before he was able to start crafting the odd weapon for Bain. The fragments were thrown into the Water Flame and left to simmer. He cast his territory and had the Armoring Lightning Beads repeatedly work on the fragments. Under the very low temperatures of Water Flame, the bone fragments gradually changed shape.

He threw a piece of dragon horn into it, which was from a fallen dragon. None of the other dragon horns had been able to fuse with the dagger to be. Generally speaking, dragon horns were often used to make the sharpest part of the blades. This time, the piece of dragon horn was used to make the dagger's hilt.

Thirty-six fragments merged and shaped into the form of a dagger. Dark silver 12-dimensional metal filled the cracks. It was as if they were embedded into the blade. It was like the dagger had been constructed of bone and mended with metal after it was broken. The dagger looked like a piece of artwork instead of a weapon. The 12-dimensional metal was thin as hair, making it look as if the dagger would fall apart at any given moment.

The key to the dagger was the dragon horn. Dragon horns of fallen dragons were extremely difficult to acquire. No one knew dragons had faiths too. The dragon gods were rather peculiar beings among the gods, similar to the strongest priests to be found among humans.

They might have embraced the faith of the dragons, yet no divine persona was coalesced. When dragons betrayed their gods, they would show signs of falling.

Fallen dragons were very rare. A fallen dragon might not be powerful, but their rarity surpassed even the dragon gods among dragons. Dragon horns of fallen dragon gods were the only pure parts of their bodies. The horns would not fall apart. Salvation required understanding and forgiveness from the dragon gods. The horns served as the key.

None of that held any meaning to Saleen. The most important thing to him was to fuse the Heretic God's bone fragment with the dragon horn. The dragon horn was able to resist being corroded by the bone fragments. It was even able to isolate the fragments' effects from the wielder.

One piece of dragon horn was made into four parts including the hilt of the dagger, scabbard, mask for the assassin, and bracers. All of it was meant to protect Bain's soul from being tainted by the bone fragments.

Even with all that done, Saleen did not feel safe enough. Bain's assassin's skills needed all those things. If he were to be injured, he might not be able to contain his emotions. As such, he wrapped thunder dragon hide at the hilt.

The piece of hide was crafted specifically for Bain. It was narrow and several feet long. It was thinner than paper and wrapped on the dagger according to assassin's methods. The hide had innate lightning magic patterns. Saleen re-crafted them in a way that would have shocked him with weak electrical charge if he were to lose emotional control.

When electrical charges were not strong enough to cripple or kill, they were good for saving people. For example, tourmaline was capable of generating electricity, which was useful for stimulating people at the brink of death and making their heart beat again.

The lightning magic patterns on the hide had somewhat greater strength, making it capable of dispelling evil powers to a certain extent.

Bain looked at the dagger as he held it in his hand. He found its hilt to be of good fit with his hand. He performed many assassination moves with it and still felt no discomfort from the hilt.

Bain, at the level of his training, was able to kill people with just a twig. If he were to deal with truly powerful targets, weapons would still be a necessity. The tool needed to be something very lethal to both the enemy and the assassin wielding it.

It was not surprising for the dagger to be a good fit. Saleen was a mage. It only one look at Bain's hand for him to calculate all the needed details down to the bone. He was even able to calculate what kind of actions those hands would make. However, he was not familiar with Bain's skills.

Bain made some peculiar moves, yet the dagger still stuck to his hand. He was thoroughly impressed and said, "Good stuff indeed, your Highness. Would you mind naming the weapon?"

There were no anomalies with the weapon. It was best suited for assassins. Other than looking rather pretty, it had little to no weaknesses.

"It shall be called Broken World." Saleen knew of the dagger's attributes. One hit was all it would take to tear the soul of its target to pieces.

"What would I need to be cautious of?" Bain inquired before leaving.

Saleen took out a star figure and said, "I'm not done. This is a Figure of Fate, which can block a magic attack up to level 10 once in your stead. I'm only armed with level 10 astrology, so I'm unable to craft a powerful Figure of Fate for you. Still, take this. It will allow you to mask your identity. You could disguise yourself as a believer of Fycro and stain the figure with some power of faith. You won't have to pay anything for a good disguise. Even Fycro will not easily be aware."

Bain was elated.

"I've done such ample preparations for you, specifically to keep you from being distracted," Saleen said. "Lex went to Holy Rock City. If anything happens, I will bring the Floating City there personally to assist her. Just stay hidden at Fycro's side. Even if I end up dead, don't come back unless the job is finished. This matter is very important to Lex too."

"Understood." Bain let Saleen push the figure into his body using astrology before disappearing.

Saleen saw flickers of peculiar energies as Bain vanished from the Magical Element Tower. He assembled his followers after sending Bain off. He needed to head to Highland City and see what was going on there. He was not taking the Floating City with him that time. He brought a patchwork teleportation portal with him, allowing him to retreat in a heartbeat.

Nailisi and the Winged Skull came with him. Sika remained to man the Floating City.

The three of them flew at extremely high speeds. Highland City was thousands of miles away from Nature City, yet it only took a day for them to cover the distance. Saleen saw the evil aura shooting high into the skies from several hundreds of miles away.

The black mist was everywhere in Highland City. It exceeded 16 miles and was expanding at a slow rate. However, that was not to say it was a good thing. If there were to be no one else to stop it, the evil black mist would grow in size and eventually taken over Myers Mainland.