Badge in Azure

Chapter 1359: Lightning Armament (Part 2)

There was nothing Saleen could have done about Raphael's Crystal Ring. He went to work on the Thunder Dragon Blaster. The weapon was of far better quality than the Thunder Dragon Bangle. After all, the bangle was created using fully intact bones of the most powerful thunder dragons.

The difference was that the bones lacked flesh and blood. To complete the weapon, Saleen merged the golden liquid into the Thunder Dragon Blaster.

His mental powers expanded again after he had merged his soul with his body. The extent of the expansion was beyond his comprehension. At the very least, he was now able to see everything within a 100-kilometer radius without having to use the Elemental Eye.

That was not due to his mental powers but to the power of his soul.

It was said that mages were only able to access the powers of their soul when they reached level-13. Saleen had already gained such powerful abilities before he had even gotten to level- 11. His speed at learning magic would have no longer been a slog that it used to be.

He would have only needed to master the rules of the magic to be learned, looking them over just once to get a roughcasting. Practicing this magic hundreds of times would have resulted in near mastery.

The power of the soul was thousands of times more condensed than mental powers. Saleen found it over a thousand times easier to work on the Thunder Dragon Blaster. Because he no longer had to worry about errors, his speed at re-crafting the Thunder Dragon Blaster was considerably quicker than it used to be.

After absorbing ample amounts of golden liquid, the weapon gained some size and weight but was still just slightly longer than his forearm. He embedded the weapon with the divine persona of the water elemental god.

That was the most precious item in his possession. Without it, the weapon would have been substantially slower at conjuring lightning icicles: its ability to fire continuously would have been limited.

The weapon's appearance hardly changed even after absorbing the liquid. While it looked somewhat larger, the internal changes were enormous and now were like those of true thunder dragons.

The place where the magic nucleus was embedded was relocated inside the weapon—the stomach of thunder dragons.

To put it more accurately, that was no longer embedding. Saleen only needed to throw a magic nucleus into the mouth of the Thunder Dragon Blaster and it would have swallowed it on its own. As for the divine persona of the water elemental god, it was wrapped in golden granules, becoming the heart of the weapon.

The Thunder Dragon Blaster became a miniaturized version of a real, living thunder dragon. Such crafting techniques were, however, found only in the secret arts. Saleen probed with his power of the soul after finishing the modifications.

The number of lightning icicles capable of being fired by the weapon increased to 12 at a time while recharging time was halved.

The weapon thus allowed him to fire 12 lightning icicles within half an hour. The Thunder Dragon Blaster became Saleen's main assault weapon from then on: no other equipment was able to recharge as quickly.

Saleen was very, very pleased with himself. He never had high expectations of the changes to the Thunder Dragon Blaster, to begin with, as he had not added much to its design in the first place. Most of it was done by replicating Hogina's Gun.

The genius girl at alchemy was unable to craft something exceeding limitations, despite her designs being exceedingly wondrous.

Saleen then moved to the main target of the crafting session at that time—the magic amplifier.

He used too many secret arts from another crystal wall system for crafting it. He poured a huge quantity of the golden liquid into it and then threw in the dagger made from the purified bones of the Heretic God.

The black necklace transformed into a ring, hovering behind Saleen. The black ring had 24 sections to it that used to house the thunder dragons. With them no longer inside, he added the golden liquid and had the sections coalesce into something resembling lightning beads.

The golden beads, however, were not something that could have been replenished on their own when used. Saleen had no intention of using them in battle. He was too low a level and unable to bring the original powers of the beads to bear.

As such, he was only storing the golden granules using such a method that let them be continuously tempered with lightning, thereby upgrading their quality.

The golden dagger remained resistant to the workings of the Water Flame. A layer of thin golden colors were coated onto the black ring. The dagger zipped in and out of the faint golden ring, intending to escape.

Saleen began chanting Thundering Explosions at the dagger. Despite not having a weapon spirit, the weapon nonetheless seemed to possess a will of its own. It began to tremble as Saleen continuously attacked it using a thundering sound within the ring.

But the rules of the plane simply didn't allow something like that to become a weapon spirit. Even if the bone of the Heretic God had been purified, it was still being rejected by Myers Mainland. If that thing were to be made into a weapon spirit, the Heretic God would have had to do it personally.

The faint will on it was gradually scraped away by Saleen's thundering sound. It quieted down only after being bombarded by tens of thousands of thundering chants, hovering in the middle of the ring without making a sound. Saleen pointed his finger and sent forth a bloody mist that fused with the golden dagger.

Lightning magic patterns filled the internal parts of the golden dagger, developing 64 ancient, plain characters.

Saleen felt as if his soul had developed a link with the magic amplifier and the metal dagger. That was one of his secret arts used for crafting. He had no idea why such an outcome was yielded, but he nonetheless deemed it a satisfying one. He tried to take control of the golden dagger and make it fly.

That golden dagger developed limbs, and Saleen could make it move any way he wished simply by directing it with nothing more than a single thought.

The golden dagger circled around Saleen's body as it flew, while the ring hovered behind him. Its flight became increasingly quick and gradually turned into a beam of golden light, zipping in and out of the Water Flame.

Saleen was finally able to craft the golden dagger using Water Flame. Its colors began to dim until they became transparent. The lightning magic patterns within were no longer around.

"Rafel!" Saleen gestured for Rafel to make a move. She knew what he wanted of her and brandished a blade that he had crafted from heavy crystals. Its outer layer was made of gorilla metal, which was known for its hardness.

The magic blade was swung at Saleen. The wind whipped up by the blade cut like Wind Blades.

The wind produced a vacuum in front of Saleen before the blade had even reached him.

The cutting wind from the blade disappeared without a trace. A golden dagger came right before Rafel and flashed before appearing on the other side of the tower. Such speed of movement would have been possible to withstand by the constitution of a level-13 angel like her.

Still, she was startled.

The magic blade in her hand had nothing but the hilt left, an outcome resulting from being hit over 1000 times by that golden dagger and reduced to dust.

"It's finally done!" Saleen felt pleased with the weapon he had just crafted. There was no need to say much about the range of its attack because it exceeded even that of the Thunder Dragon Blaster.

More important, the dagger's unparalleled sharpness would have only become evident when attacking.

It was a dagger capable of turning invisible. It was as if Saleen had crafted something using secret arts in the realm of assassins so that he could sneak up on his enemies.

It was a given, however, that such an enemy could not be too powerful: If its power of the soul exceeded Saleen's, the dagger's invisibility effect would have been broken.

On the other hand, the dagger's range of attack was frighteningly long. Anywhere that Saleen's territory could have reached, that dagger would have had no problem traveling to.

Even after compression, the radius of Saleen's territory could have still reached over 60 kilometers, a distance the dagger could easily fly.

Mages also had similar control abilities, but the weapons they were able to control were usually thin and very fragile. That golden dagger's weight surpassed that of any weapon Saleen had ever seen.

In addition, it was unusually sharp. It would have been able to pierce a mage's shield right away even if it was merely tossed.

The most important thing was that Saleen was then using the power of the soul to control the dagger, which was of a higher grade than mental powers and cost even less. It was also easier to replenish.

Saleen's expression was calm as he said to Rafel, "Continue!"

Rafel switched to a huge shield over four meters high originally meant to be used by supreme demons. The one Saleen gave her was the best he had at that time. Rafel's body grew in size and charged at Saleen with the shield.

With nine pointy spikes, the shield was intended to be used in formations. If such huge shields were meant to be used by demons in a formation and pushed forward, no unit types could have punched through them, be they infantry or cavalry.

The sword in Rafel's hand was about six meters long and definitely not meant for humans. Rafel had been attacked by the golden dagger once.

She focused her mental powers and was more or less capable of telling where the invisible dagger would appear. Saleen's dagger flew about in the air and attacked repeatedly. All those blows were repelled by Rafel and her huge shield.

It was not that the shield was so durable but rather that Rafel was repelling it with unusual finesse. The dagger never actually clashed with the shield head-on.

A warrior's experience was usually measured by the number of battles fought; that number was typically in the hundreds. Rafel had fought over 10,000 battles throughout her lifetime. In every single battle, she would have needed to repel over 100 enemies at a time.

Millions would have died: Rafel's combat skills were honed to perfection through repeated life-and-death battles. Combat weapons required tempering in the battlefield, and Rafel was as tempered and polished as a living weapon could be.

The golden dagger eventually punched through the shield with the sound of a foot stepping in mud. Rafel's sword was also right on top of Saleen's head, and it was met with the magic amplifier getting in the way.

Rafel halted her blade. She was afraid of damaging Saleen's equipment and, at the same time, didn't want her skin to get scratched.

That thing was really creepy. Rafel disappeared yet again. When she returned, that golden dagger had already punched through her shield and came right in front of her face.

Saleen's dagger-manipulating techniques had become increasingly refined. He already knew how to make the dagger go where it wanted it to appear.

Rafel dropped her weapons with a clang and said, "That's it, my lord."

"Why?"

"If I were to defeat you, I'd have needed to come at you with intentions of killing you."

Rafel's words were direct. Unless she was giving her all and attacked Saleen like a target she must kill using all of her powers in the fight, the duel with that golden dagger would have only ended up in a draw despite her best efforts.

Saleen chuckled and took the family badge that Rafel returned to him, saying, "You'd be able to stop the dagger if you used godly items. But then again, even though it's easy for me to repair the dagger, the same couldn't be said with your godly item. I don't actually mind clashing head-on though."

Rafel didn't answer. She had many ways to kill Saleen, but none would have allowed her to come out unscathed. She had seen personally what Saleen's equipment and skills were capable of, especially that finger attack which seemed to be intended specifically for dealing with gods.