Badge in Azure

Chapter 1353: Birth of the Thunder God (Part 1)

The oracle flung its hand about and said with a frustrated tone, "This thing was actually created by a god. Is this god out of its damn mind!? Why would it create something that would harm other gods!?"

Saleen pursed his lips. He could tell that among the 24 chains of the Shackles of the Fallen, the one that had been grabbed by the Evil Oracle looked lifeless. The Evil Oracle had actually gained something from that attack.

Saleen was truly at his wit's end. With all four of his figures in sealed states, they were no match for the Evil Oracle. Saleen had already used up most of his lightning abilities. His Eye of Lightning, like the Crystal Finger, had an incredibly short range, but its lethality paled in comparison to the Crystal Finger. After all, The Eye of Lightning was meant for control.

He could have taken a shot with his Crystal Finger. The problem was that he wasn't sure if he could kill the oracle with that skill: that oracle was just a specter; its true body was still in the abomination plane.

It was impossible for such a powerful being to fool the rules of the plane. If it burst into Myers Mainland by force, it would cost them and take some time.

That Evil Oracle had sent its specter there merely to keep Saleen occupied.

Damn, I've really underestimated the Heretic God!

Saleen could only have hoped Lex would arrive soon. All of them would have been able to enter the 12 Notes of First Purgatory while the equipment was brought away by Lex.

Her God's Ring was capable of withstanding Divine Punishment from the Oracle of Glory, which had been cast using the power of the Lord of Glory himself.

If only we could get up to the Floating City, he thought. The weapon spirit there was already a god, and the hundreds of metal angels could have been resurrected after perishing in battle. It was entirely possible for the 100,000 enchanters there to scramble elemental space.

The magic net of the Floating City could also prevent, and create, elemental storms.

When the space was thrown into chaos, the Evil Oracle would have been unable to catch up to him.

Saleen was doing calculations in his mind when that Evil Oracle simply sat down nearby and began chanting. It was apparent it knew it was incapable of dealing with the beings wrapped in the Shackles of the Fallen.

The Evil Oracle needed to bring its true body there before the Shackles of the Fallen's defense could be taken down.

The Evil Oracle didn't expect the gods to have created something so unique.

The Shackles of the Fallen were made specifically for dealing with divine beings. Whether gods, believers, oracles, angels, god beings or anything related to the gods, they would have been attacked according to the rules contained within the chains.

Moreover, those chains were of very high levels. If the power of the one wielding it was strong enough, the Evil Oracle might have ended up being dragged into purgatory and purified by those chains right away when they grabbed a being for testing.

Had the Shackles of the Fallen not been created by the Goddess of Myers, it would not have had been so powerful: As a level-18 god, the Goddess of Myers knew the rules of the gods very well.

The equipment she created, when wielded by someone with sufficient power, could have even sealed herself.

This is why the Evil Oracle was feeling so frustrated. It sat on the ground chanting while the Lightning Constellation, which had been forced to stay high up, continued casting lightning powers below.

The Evil Oracle wanted to fly up there and take that annoying thing down; however, the stout, eerie-looking weapon spirit within the Lightning Constellation was spurting electricity.

That thing wouldn't have been able to attack the Evil Oracle, but if the Evil Oracle attacked that weapon spirit, it would have ended up being tangled by the electricity.

Like Saleen, the Lightning Constellation's weapon spirit was protected by electricity but was incapable of attacking the Evil Oracle.

The Evil Oracle was moving too fast. Unless its true body showed up, a professional of even greater power would have been required to attack it.

Evil chants resounded throughout the hall. Over 100,000 abominations knelt on the ground and chanted as well. That allowed the Evil Oracle's true body to show up even faster.

A thought formed in the weapon spirit of the Lightning Constellation's mind. It took the Lightning Constellation and charged at the abominations kneeling on the ground. The eight Armoring Lightning Beads were moving very slowly.

But given how the abominations simply knelt and didn't dare to budge even an inch, they couldn't do anything when the beads punched through their bodies and purified them.

The Evil Oracle saw all of that and looked even more frustrated. The chanting affected the abominations, and the weapon spirit took advantage of them. Although the weapon spirit was indeed powerful, it did not seem to be all that intelligent.

The weapon spirit's mind somehow opened up, probably because of the stress of battle, and as a human, it began to think about tactics.

That weapon spirit quickly attacked the abominations in the hall without Saleen giving orders. It was naturally capable of controlling all eight beads. That thing was part of the territory after all.

Saleen's territory was also a weird one. It fused with Lightning Constellation, which enabled the weapon spirit to become a part of the territory.

The Evil Oracle didn't care about the well-being of those abominations; however, when they died, the advent speed of the oracle's true body slowed considerably.

Myers Mainland was a main plane, and despite the weakening of the mainland's powers, its rules remained the most frightening of all. If they were to simply force themselves there, they would have needed to pay the price by having one whole level stripped away.

The effects of the lowering level would have been permanent, and they would not have been able to stay back in the plane for long. If they didn't finish their task, their Lord Heretic God would not have restored their powers. By then, they would have been nothing special compared to many other oracles.

If the Evil Oracle had known the mage was this difficult, it would never have volunteered to take him on.

That damned lightning power. Lord Heretic God had perished once because of this, spending eons in slumber in a parallel space. No one knew how many divine kingdoms had been wrecked to bring back the lord.

No wonder Lord Heretic God had gotten so pissed. So this plane has another one who's mastered the power of lightning. If this guy were allowed to grow, he would definitely pose a great threat to the lord.

Humans grew too quickly, and the gods recovered too slowly. If they couldn't get rid of the mage right before them, it would be a problem for the Heretic God to survive, let alone rebuild his divine kingdom.

The Evil Oracle was unable to stop, however, because its true body was waiting to get into action in the abomination plane. If it were to stop and redo the whole thing, the process would have taken even longer.

If the Heretic God were to find it too much of a hassle, he would have just killed the Evil Oracle's true body instead of hearing it out.

The weapon spirit of the Lightning Constellation was quickly hunting for the abominations while absorbing purified golden granules. Even though Saleen liked the golden granules a lot, he dared not emerge to take anything for himself.

Saleen was being trapped, but the weapon spirit was helping him nonetheless. Letting his equipment get something out of the whole deal was excusable, under the circumstances.

That thought of his was actually something Nailisi rubbed off on him.

As a bonded creature, Nailisi came to hoard great amounts of wealth for herself, and the Winged Skull wasn't too far behind. Nevertheless, the Winged Skull was the one manning his fleet, so Saleen permitted him to do so.

At the very least, Saleen had no need to worry about the fleet's upkeep because it was all taken care of by the Winged Skull.

Those golden granules were absorbed into the weapon spirit of the Lightning Constellation's body, swapping out the matter that its body originally consisted of. The weapon spirit was incapable of forging equipment but was capable of tempering its body.

That was an innate ability of the giants. A weapon spirit's birth was due to the bone crystals of the giant after all, so it was only natural that it inherited some of that giant's abilities.

Those golden granules of lightning began to tweak the weapon spirit's original structure after they entered its body. Its body consisted mainly of the body of the Big Guy it consumed originally, limiting the power of lightning it was capable of storing.

When the golden granule's being fused within its body, the lightning powers it was able to store became tens of thousands of times greater.

Saleen never knew such changes were possible. If he had known about them, he would have fed those golden granules to Dante.

There were too many abominations in the hall, but Dante was being unnervingly speedy with its hunt. It soon stopped fusing the golden granules into its body and began sharing the loot with the entire Lightning Constellation.

Dante's level of intelligence allowed it to know conservation after all, and it refrained from simply sharing the granules with all the lightning warriors. It knew that the golden granules had their use, due to having made its master collect them in a frenzy.

As such, it selected eight lightning warriors of the highest level and began to swap parts of their bodies with the golden granules.

Even if Dante didn't do all that, the lightning bolts that were shooting about randomly above began to get thicker. As more and more golden granules were infused within Dante's body, the lightning it shot to the ground became thicker as well.

Some bolts were even strong enough to kill some low-level abominations.

Although it still needed hundreds of bolts just to kill one abomination, the Lightning Constellation was still different from other equipment. It created lightning on the spot and immediately shot it instead of firing what was already created and stored.

The lightning bolts that were created on the fly didn't consume much energy. The key to their power was the weapon spirit. With Dante in charge of their creation, hardly any energy was wasted.

Those lightning warriors no longer crackled with electricity, as all electrical powers were siphoned to Dante.

There were 500,000 lightning warriors in the Lightning Constellation after all.

The electrical powers Dante controlled began to take the shape of trees, branching out the energy collected within the Lightning Constellation, which was then gathered and dispersed in the air. The power of those electrical bolts increased when they struck something.

At such speeds, no one would have been able to evade the shots from instantaneous conversions of energy. Furthermore, living beings were always paralyzed when hit by electricity; not even powerful beings could withstand these shots.

The Evil Oracle hadn't yet noticed the changes on Dante. If it had, it would have given up on killing Saleen and reported back to the abomination plane instead.

That was because the weapon spirit was meant to follow the footsteps of its double—the weapon spirit of the Floating City—and become the second one to be lit with divine fire.

If that weapon spirit had become a god and advanced to a higher level, it would have become a demigod with a fragmented divine persona. Even a demigod could have mastered lightning rules, and this demigod was entirely capable of killing low-level gods.

In addition, that god would have been born on Myers Mainland, enabling it to bring the highest power allowed by the plane. While it lacked the great potential of humans, it would have nonetheless proven lethal to the Heretic God's plans.

Once a god with lightning powers appeared, the divine kingdoms surrounding it would have been rendered restless.