Badge in Azure

Chapter 1337: Rafel's Naivety (Part 1)

The Winged Skull looked at Safilos in shock. The power exuding from this human was even more peculiar than that of the spirits. While the power of death emanated from the spirits, as indeed per its namesake, their power nonetheless had a tinge of resurrection in it. Spirits were another form of being of the soul, latching onto bony remains, and caught between life and death.

Safilos's power, on the contrary, was purely that of death.

Safilos launched himself high in the air. Saleen's Water Shield was still intact, but there were already powerful abominations forcing their way through it. One abomination had two horns that were about half a yard in length and were covered by silver armor. A fiendish face wiggled on that armor, resisting corrosion from the Water Shield.

Pfft!…

Safilos's purple blade stabbed into the abdominal area of that abomination. It had thrown a punch at Safilos, who responded by pulling out his blade. The abomination's life force was drained away as the blade was being pulled from it. That was not the end of it. Safilos charged inside the Water Shield, his purple blade becoming wrapped in a layer of sword aura that prevented the deathly aura from the blade from clashing with the energies of the Water Shield.

Safilos went up to one level above where he had been in the underground city after forcing his way through the Water Shield. Everyone below was watching with mouths agape. The Water Shield insulated the sound from the other side. It was not until nearly 15 minutes later that Safilos emerged from the other side of the bubble, looking calm and composed. His blade had been returned to its scabbard, which was hanging on his back. However, the four mage trainers who served Safilos knew that Safilos had almost gone out of control earlier. The secret art he trained in cost him in a most dire way.

…..

On the other side of the door, Dumont elaborated on the fighting at the underground city for Saleen. Despite the underground city having been overrun, the abominations were still unable to traverse the different regions as they pleased. Every time the abominations entered a region, they were confronted with a stiff resistance and had to pay a hefty toll. Nonetheless, their spies had already given them very clear plans of the layout of the place. The abominations had nevertheless chosen to attack using sheer brute force—excavating tunnels at the floor of the city. The ground where the underground city of Holy Rock City was constructed had a hardness surpassing that of Alchemy City. It was literally suicide for the abominations to think they were going to be able to bore holes in this ground. One abomination after another had their heads cut off, their blood seeping into the ground and corroding it bit by bit.

Although there were indeed several layers of magical defenses laid out in the underground city, there was no means of defending against such attacks. The last line of defense was that magic door that Saleen had come in through. They were then at the very core of the underground city. The place was only about a mile in radius, and getting inside required getting through the magic door. Anyone could have attacked from any direction or angle, and things would have remained as such.

Safilos stood guard outside while the royal mages assembled the large-scale combat puppet inside. This puppet differed from any other puppetry that had come before. The large-scale puppet was something summoned from the puppet plane, which was then modified to give it formidable combat prowess. When the assembly was completed, the mages would then be able to enter the puppet's body, effectively making it a moving magic tower. The puppet was powered using magic nuclei. The royal mages of Holy Rock City had moved huge amounts of magic nuclei from the warehouse there, enabling the puppet limitless capacity for casting magic. As soon as the assembly of the puppet was completed, Holy Rock City would no longer need to be afraid of the abomination attacks.

"Why didn't you people put this thing together sooner?" Nailisi was unable to help but ask.

Dumont dared not underestimate the woman before him. He was perceptive enough to see that Nailisi was of a caliber on a par with his own.

"The puppet is too dangerous. The equipment for controlling it has always been in his majesty's hand, but his majesty…"

Saleen understood. Such a powerful puppet was definitely something beyond level ten. However, Ojarvis was of the common folk, and he was near death as they spoke. There was no way he could have controlled the puppet. The mages have assembled the puppet, and Lex would probably be the one to activate it. Lex had ample mental powers for such a task, but there was no telling if she would have been able to control the thing.

It was no wonder that the puppet had a magic array for casting instant death magic. That was not a product of the mages' research, but an innate skill of its being. The puppet lived by eating magic nuclei, making it resemble mechanical souls, which meant that it was not a good thing to keep around.

Saleen thought for a bit and took out a level-13 magic nucleus and handed it to Dumont. "Take this and feed it to the puppet. It should last for quite some time."

Dumont took the magic nucleus without hesitation and handed it to a mage behind him. That magic nucleus had a narrow space within it, housing a turtle shell that Saleen had crafted, which in turn carried a powerful secret skill for controlling souls. Saleen had originally prepared that for dealing with dragons. He had already planned on purchasing a set of coordinates leading to the dragon plane for hunting dragons himself at a later date. Only dragon crystals would have been of help for his magic perpetual-motion engine. The army of puppets acquired at Alchemy City enabled Saleen's research to progress rather well. Saleen crafted quite a lot of things like that. Dragons loved eating magic nuclei, but they had no interest in low-level ones. That magic nucleus, which was above level 12, would prove irresistible for dragons.

Saleen would have liked to control that peculiar puppet if possible. If he could unlock the secrets of the instant death magic patterns and magic array schematics of the puppet, he would be able to create powerful traps. Even if he were to not use something like that for traps, he could have nonetheless added much magic to the magic net. The magic net had originally been a tool for casting elemental magic. If he was able to create a magic array out of it and incorporate the magic array into the magic net, the enchanters would have then only needed to activate the magic array to cast the Death Ray. That spell was not a very high level one and could have been used at level seven. There was no way a target could have resisted being bombarded by up to 10,000 beams, regardless of how lucky the target was. Furthermore, Saleen's Floating City could eventually house 3 million and 600,000 enchanters. Saleen did not think for one second that there could have been anyone who would have been able to escape bombardment from 3 million and 600,000 beams of the Death Ray. There were some powerful beings that proved nearly impossible to take on using elemental magic. That instant death magic spell was something that resembled divine arts and witchcraft—a skill developed by mages through learning the arts of other professionals.

After laying a trap, Saleen followed Dumont and left the plaza that was used to assemble the puppet. The core of the underground lay right behind the plaza, which was a huge cube-like building. The building had 18 floors. A window was found every six yards.

"The magic cube. Something built over 1,000 years ago."

A magic cube! Saleen looked at the building and realized that he had thought too highly of himself. The construction of this magic cube would not have been any easier than the Floating City. Only in an environment where the elements were in balance, enabling multiple magic arrays to be laid out all around, could there have been a slight chance for such a peculiar building to be built. The mages could have appeared in any of the windows within the magic cube to attack anything outside, yet no one outside would have been able to attack the mages inside the cube. Saleen saw the tightly packed windows on that huge building and thought it would have been difficult to locate the mages in such a setup. It would have been something possible only due to sheer luck. To the mages, being in the cube alone almost meant that they were undefeatable.

The only weakness to the magic cube was that as soon as it was in operation, there was almost no stopping it. The theory of the magic cube was never truly completed. It was a concept proposed by a genius mage many years ago and worked on by countless mages who came after. The craft had run through countless trial-and-error runs for more than 10,000 years, and it was something that never truly got past the development stage.

While Saleen's Floating City was indeed powerful, the Sky Cities in ancient times had been over 100, 1,000, or even 10,000 times more powerful.

"Lex is here?" Saleen asked Dumont.

"Indeed, both her highness and his majesty are here. The royal mages are protecting them."

"Protecting them? Is Lex injured?!" Saleen got tense.

"No, your highness. There is no way her highness could have been injured. She is the most powerful level-ten mage after all," Dumont replied in a rather irked manner.

Saleen smirked. The most powerful level-ten mage, eh? Then you've never seen Joey. Even my teacher would have been more powerful than Lex.

But then again, Lex had the God's Ring and his teacher was already a level-11 mage. Comparing him to Lex would have been like bullying her. But, nonetheless, having one royal mage who held Lex in such a high regard worked in Saleen's favor. Lex had been able to rally a huge number of royal mages to her side using some unknown means. One very huge factor in getting the mages to be willing to support Lex to become empress was probably how she had treated the mages.

Emperor Chanake treated his mages well, and all of them enjoyed great benefits. However, Emperor Chanake was not a mage, and neither was Safilos. As such, the royal mages' support leaned toward Lex instead. The founding emperor of the Qin Empire had been a powerful mage himself. Only by having a mage at the helm of Qin Empire could the empire be restored to its former glory.

Despite the fact that Holy Rock City had been taken, the royal mages were absolutely confident in the magic cube. Even if the Lord of Glory himself were to come at them personally, he would not have been able to take on the magic cube, much less attacks from the abomination plane.

"Get me inside." Saleen hesitated for a bit but decided to take the risk and head inside. There was no way the magic cube could have been set up to deal with him, and it was impossible that Safilos would have risked destroying the entire Holy Rock City just to capture him.

The surface of Holy Rock City had been turned into a living hell. Even if Safilos were to take all of that, there was no way he could have reversed losses at such a scale. Safilos was not a black magician. He was a true might, and if he wanted to be emperor, then he would have needed to protect every single common folk resident of Holy Rock City.

"I shall wait for you outside, your highness." Rafel did not enter the magic cube with Saleen, choosing to stay outside instead.

Saleen frowned at Rafel yet again.

"It is too dangerous inside, and I wouldn't be able to do anything to protect you, your highness. If you were to not emerge within three days, I'd just kill everyone outside to avenge you," Rafel said to Saleen in a serious tone.

Saleen understood Rafel's motives then, but her words made Dumont look incredibly awkward.

"Rafel, I'm going inside to check on my wife. She is the heiress of the empire and all of those mages are her supporters. Without their help, she could never become the empress." Dumont's expression looked considerably better when Saleen was done saying that.

"It has nothing to do with me, your highness. I'm here only to protect you. If I couldn't do that, then there is nothing else I'd be able to do on Myers Mainland. I know that shifting blame is not a virtue, but if you were to die, then who is going to look after my angels?"