Badge in Azure

Chapter 1335: Safilos (Part 1)

Angels were capable of resurrection, but the ones who lost their gods would have found it difficult to resurrect as there was nowhere for them to be resurrected to if their divine kingdom crumbled.

The Winged Skull summoned his six jade skeletons nonchalantly. When the jade skeletons touched the stains left by the abominations on the walls, their crystal-like bones were quickly dirtied and became rotten. Green light shot from the Winged Skull's eyes and cleaned up the jade skeletons. The jade skeletons had very high spirit levels, so it would have taken much more time than that for them to be fully abominated. The Winged Skull's cleaning was meant only for their exterior bodies. After the six jade skeletons were quickly cleaned, the Winged Skull sent them back to their spirit space.

The cleaned skeletons had now become resistant to staining by the evil aura. The experiment had been a success. The Winged Skull followed the party into the rear of the vast space, scanning the place with the Eye of the Dea. The hole was several hundred yards deep. Rafel was the first to land inside the hole. Her red spear stabbed one of the soldiers who was the source of the abomination. The soldier's garb described him as once a member of Holy Rock City's regular army, instead of a member of the royal swordsmen.

Nailisi and Saleen quickly descended to the second level. Saleen pointed at the floating starlight around and said to Rafel, "Follow the starlight."

Rafel did not question him. She simply nodded in acknowledgment. She took the lead and thrust her spear around, killing all the abominations who pounced from the dark. There did not seem to be anything peculiar about her spear, but any abomination that was attacked, regardless of the part of the body stabbed, would end up dead right there and then.

Saleen thought for a bit and then conjured a blob of Restorative Water in his hand. The amount that he was able to create in one go was a bucketful. He did not wait for the magic of the Restorative Water in his hand to settle, before turning the water into an Ice Blade. It was a spell that he rarely used. Ice Blades were more powerful than Wind Blades, but they were slower. He threw the three-yard-long, full-moon-shaped Ice Blade. The Blade was so huge that it ended up annihilating any abominations that it met, flying for several hundred yards before disappearing into the dark. The abominations that were hit by the Ice Blade did not have any liquids flowing out of their wounds, as they were frozen. There were layers of dust underneath the wounds, because, when the dead body hit the ground and the layer of ice shattered, the dust billowed out. However, no evil aura could be felt from it.

One Ice Blade was more than enough for purification to kick in. While the cleaning was not thorough, it gave the abominations no chance of resurrection. It pleased Saleen that a level-one Restorative Water had been able to do so much damage to the abominations. However, such conversion abilities could have only been mastered by a sorcerer. It would have proven difficult for common mages to do the same thing. Connecting two different types of magic required repeated practice, unless the one performing the connection was a level-ten mage, who had come to master manipulation of the elements so well that it had almost become instinctual. Saleen had been able to learn things from this experience, enabling him to create powerful alchemical equipment that would prove very lethal to abominations. It would suffice to coat alchemical arrows with magic liquid to deal devastating damage to high-level abominations. Things with healing properties would also have acted like poison to the abominations.

A starline paper appeared in his hand at that thought. He drew an alchemy schematic on it using magic and only stopped after drawing about 100 copies.

"Rafel."

"Yes?"

"Select 100 metal angels and send these schematics back. Have the Floating City experiment with every single one of them and choose the cheapest solution available. After that, craft the weapons for dealing with the abominations."

Rafel obeyed immediately and called the metal angels to her side, selecting 100 of them, and then she sent them off to the Floating City with the schematics. After that was all taken care of, Saleen continued to have Rafel lead the way as they moved to the outer reaches of the underground city.

These underground sections of Metatrin City had only very small living spaces, as the area was extremely limited at the very center of the city. All underground facilities surrounding the temple and the outer reaches of the city were warehouses or drainage systems. No places for prolonged residential purposes were available in such areas.

The underground sections of Holy Rock City looked like a huge cave, with tall buildings all around and a dome that was nearly 100 yards high embedded with glittering gems, which made the place look extravagant. The underground sections had originally been sealed. When the city was built all those years ago, Holy Rock City was threatened by the Holy See. Because of this, the underground sections had been made enormous, enough to accommodate about 1 million troops and enable long-term concealment.

The starlight seemed to be hovering about aimlessly, looking very eye-catching in the dark. Rafel was rather intrigued. Saleen's skills were truly complex, unlike the oracles, whose skills were set in stone. Advancing in levels allowed for discovery of new skills, yet they were incapable of creating new skills themselves.

The starlight continued to hover in the dark. Rafel stabbed any abomination that showed up before her without missing a single one. Nailisi saw that and lashed out with her spear as well. However, her thrust resulted in all six eyes of Grey Memory opening at the same time, which in turn resulted in a powerful suction force. One of the abominations before her was stabbed and all the evil energies in it was sucked dry, leaving behind a dried husk. Nailisi was elated. The six eyes of Grey Memory had never been able to be enhanced. Every single use cost her energy. As such, despite the spear's power, Nailisi never liked using the special skills imbued with it. At present, the six eyes of Grey Memory was able to absorb the energies of the abominations, and, furthermore, the weapon was lethal to them. Nailisi was almost able to hear the six eyes squeal in joy.

"Rafel, let Nailisi take the lead," Saleen said.

Rafel pouted. That was a very human-like action, and even she did not realize that she was doing it. As an oracle, it was possible that it was her first time doing something like that.

Nailisi happily walked up in front of Rafel and began to thrust at the abominations emerging from the dark with the Grey Memory. The number of abominations were low. The path chosen by the hovering starlight never had much danger in it. To Saleen and the others, the abomination troops were simply too weak.

They continued moving forward for more than three miles, passing through tens of passages and several huge spaces, before hearing fighting noises ahead of them. Things were no longer dark, and there was light from fires shining before them. The temperature rose abruptly. Saleen cast Water Flame without a care. The Water Flame's temperature was frighteningly low. If it happened to touch a human's body, it would have immediately frozen it and reduced that part to dust. The surrounding temperatures normalized immediately after the Water Flame was cast. The proficiency with which Saleen was keeping the temperature steady made him one of the best to be found on Myers Mainland.

There was a space of about 600 cubic yards ahead of them. There were abominations dropping from above ceaselessly, attacking a platform. There were more than 1,000 human soldiers on that platform and hundreds of mages holding the line there. There was a pillar reaching the dome built on the platform, yet the abominations dropping from above were still unable to land on the platform. There were layers of magic light on the platform. The abominations jumped on them and slid down instead.

Saleen was able to see it clearly. It was not that the abominations were unable to penetrate the barrier of light, but that there was a powerful magic array set within the light, causing the abominations to hallucinate and change course. That formidable mental power magic, when used in tandem with illusions, created the first layer of protection. There were some powerful abominations penetrating into the barrier of light at times, and they were quickly met with high-level magic attacks.

Saleen was perceptive enough to see that at a narrow part of that platform, there was a figure swinging his sword and cutting down an abomination who was over a dozen yards tall. That figure was none other than Safilos. Safilos held a curved, long sword. He stood at about six feet tall, yet his sword was over nine feet long. The sword coursed with purple light, which looked as gentle as a water element yet was filled with power. Four level-ten mage trainers were at Safilos's side, fighting in sync with him.

A huge door was behind Safilos, which led to the third level below ground. Saleen's Elemental Eye allowed him to see the stains on the ground. Safilos had probably killed a good number of abominations on his way to retreat there.

Safilos saw Saleen from afar as well. He was stunned for a bit before shouting, "Saleen, get over here!"

Saleen smiled. Safilos's powers were indeed terrifying. That level-nine abomination was utterly incapable of defending against his sword attacks. If Saleen were to kill level-nine abominations, it would have definitely been an easy job as well, but that had only been possible after finding out the right way to do it. He needed to use Ice Blades using magic liquid. Level-nine abominations would have had utterly no way of restoring the damage sustained as soon as they were hit by Saleen's Ice Blade.

The abominations heard Safilos and several hundred abominations rushed at Saleen. Nailisi and Rafel rushed to the forefront and took on the abominations, leaving only a narrow passage behind. Nailisi and Rafel then stabbed the abominations dead without a care.

A huge rumble continued to be heard. Those were the sounds of the abominations clashing with the metal angels head on. The metal angels looked battered and bruised in no time. However, like the abominations, the metal angels' bodies quickly recovered when they were hit by the weapons. The weapon spirit at the Floating City provided the metal angels with power. Despite a level-13 god only being a pseudo-god, he was nonetheless able to make the hundreds of metal angels into indestructible monsters.

Rafel sighed and did not charge forth to help the metal angels. A power of faith emanated from the metal angels' bodies. That was the sign of them praying to the god at the Floating City, in order to acquire greater combat capacity. They were level- ten creatures themselves and were one level higher than the abominations. Those metal angels were only injured, and they were unable to be killed. Rafel had no problem letting Saleen take charge of the metal angels, so long as he was able to keep them alive. They were converted to the faith of another god after all.

Rafel's heart ached a bit at that thought. Since when did I get so indifferent about faith? Despite the fact that the god she embraced was dead, she should have still had some bit of sadness in her.

"Prince Safilos, no need to hurry. I'm here to help after all," Saleen said and conjured a huge water bubble in his hand. That was the Water Shield that had not been modified much. However, there were three layers to it, with one being imbued with lightning patterns, one layer infused with Restorative Water, and yet another layer infused with magic liquid. The water bubble shot into the air and plugged the hole at the second level dome.