Badge in Azure

Chapter 1365: Not Giving In (Part 2)

What Saleen intended to do was crazy and seemed dangerous. Rafel was powerless to persuade him otherwise, so she just let him do his thing.

The Floating City continued flying toward Nature City. News from all sides came flooding to him: The Holy See army had reached Qin's borders.

Since Lex had just ascended the throne, morale was high. There were also many northern nobles who relied on Saleen's Nature Faith. The mages were ready, and the holy masters from Nature Faith were on hot stand by.

Healing powers of holy masters of the Nature Faith surpassed even those of the Holy See. Border fighting was about the begin. Saleen gave an immediate order for the army to back away as much as possible.

He did this because the Holy See came with the objective of destroying his nation.

Saleen had a hunch that the Holy See was better prepared than all their previous expeditions.

Those who were about to attack the borders were mere vanguards. If they couldn't break through, more holy masters would have been sent as reinforcements until they pulverized the most elite enemy troops stationed there.

Believing that such sacrifices were irrational, Saleen moved the elite troops back to where Nature City could cover them instead of having them fight the Holy See forces head-on.

After issuing the order to retreat, Saleen prepared to send supplies to the frontlines, which consisted mostly of one-time-use consumables, such as poor-quality alchemy bolts and low-level magic scrolls.

Both would have inflicted substantial damage on the Holy See forces nonetheless and kept expenditures low. In truth, if there were no powerful professionals on the other side, those one-time-use consumables would have played a pivotal role in shaping a battle's outcome.

After putting part of his demon army down from the Floating City halfway to Nature City, Saleen headed toward the borders to support the retreating armies. The Floating City stopped about 800 kilometers from the border.

About 80,000 Qin forces were already retreating. The army consisted mostly of veterans. With the north in shamble and many nobles disbanded, Saleen took those forces in and assigned them to Nature Temple's knight's corp.

They were treated as auxiliary forces instead of actual knights.

Saleen took about 300,000 such forces at the north. Because the nobles they originally served had either died in battle or deserted, Saleen got to pick those professional soldiers up cheap.

They were capable of doing little but fight, however. They made poor farmers, poor merchants, and even poorer mercenaries: Their only use was to serve on the frontlines and kill his enemies.

In addition, none of those Qin people would have surrendered. If the armies they served in crumbled and there was no one else to take them in, those soldiers would have simply gone off to become robbers and bandits in enemy territory, doing their utmost to inflict maximum damage.

Also tagging along were also holy masters of Nature Faith; this is what made it easy for Saleen to contact them. He summoned them up to the Floating City and asked how things were going down there, finding the fighting to be lukewarm.

The Qin border was originally drawn according to terrain. A few places were open to attack and all the fortresses, which were very strong, were built after the Tanggulasians last attacked.

There were fewer than 30,000 vanguards in the Holy See's forces and more than 100,000 Blood Knights. If they entered the plains of Qin, they would done a lot of damage.

For the time being, though, there were no such concerns. Those Blood Knights wouldn't have been capable of fending off attacks from the Floating City in the plains.

What a relief! Saleen had the holy masters return to the army. The Holy See's main forces were still gathering at God Grace Duchy. It would have taken them more than half a month to pass through Kroraina.

That wouldn't have been a problem for the army he had taken in. Not even the scattered soldiers would have been in much of a threat.

The Holy See forces were being extremely cautious with their advance. Saleen's forces would have been safe as long as they retreated. Saleen pondered the situation and found that the west side of Qin, which he had taken, would have definitely clashed with the Holy See.

Now that Lex was probably on bad terms with Golden Plains, he didn't know whether to advance or retreat.

Had he stopped there, the vanguards would have only advanced into Qin territory after the main forces of the Holy See had arrived. It would have been a very long wait and if he were to actually do this, he might as well have declared that he was taking over the responsibility of fighting that battle.

On the other hand, if he retreated, the Golden Plains would have been required to deploy their forces.

Whatever. I'll keep Nature City safe before addressing the problem with the kids. We'll think of how to deal with Golden Plains later. Saleen stopped the Floating City from advancing further at that thought, commanding the army below to move closer to Nature City.

Saleen decided not to fight the Holy See for the time being until he found his children.

That's not to say he was completely unprepared, however. There were still several wide passes leading to the northern plains. Although it would have been impossible to choke the enemy's advances there, he was could lay traps.

Saleen left 30,000 bug angel units at three places. All those Bug Angel Warriors were imps who had fallen asleep within their Bug Angel Armors and were buried in the mountains. Demons barely emitted any signs of life while sleeping.

That, coupled with the fact that Saleen had added golden granules, which were acquired from purifying the black vortexes and were attribute-less materials, the aura emitted from the armors were blocked outright.

If there was no one to awaken the 30000 Bug Angel Warriors, they would have stayed in hibernation for the year. They were used as decoys during an ambush. Those were the most elite troops Saleen had been able to deploy.

The 30,000 sets of Bug Angel Armors were also his latest products, as well as the last batch.

He decided to devote crafting resources to designing the Tainted Blood Armor from then on out, made specifically for human warriors and demons.

Saleen felt there was still more to be done after getting all those settled, sending men to pack up the changed equipment of his own forces and have them sent to the Qin forces fighting at the borders.

It was not that the old equipment was bad but that Saleen had crafted new models and needed to begin streamlining his armies' gear. All messed up weapons used in the past had to be recalled in order to strengthen his armies' combat capacity.

The forces fighting at Qin borders would have been considerably heightened with the equipment delivered, letting them cause more damage to Holy See forces—something that worked in Saleen's favor. The equipment Saleen gave up was actually of great value.

Saleen lacked no such supplies, however. Dismantling the old equipment to recover materials would have been very time-consuming, so he was very generous with that equipment instead.

He didn't anticipate his name becoming more renowned because of one such act. All those soldiers knew that their highness Lex's husband had given them large quantities of high-level equipment for free.

He even allowed the soldiers to write their name on the equipment when the war ended so they could pass it down as heirlooms to their respective families.

Although magic equipment was commonplace in Qin, what Saleen produced was too expensive for the soldiers. If they bought something with their earnings, it would have been impossible for them to assemble a full set of armor consisting of seven standard pieces.

In order to bring up casualty count in the Holy See forces, he had even delivered large numbers of level-one scrolls.

All of them had been left behind by magic apprentices when they advanced to become true mages. Saleen had too many level-three to level-four scrolls with him. Those level-ones piled up from disuse in battle. Saleen delivered over 50,000 scrolls in one go.

All were scrolls that even magic apprentices could use; as such, this made them available for more than just the mages in the Qin forces.

Level magic spells did more damage than bolts and arrows at close ranges. Saleen had been able to punch a deep hole in a hard stone wall with just a level-one Icicle. When forces were pitted against each other on the battlefield, being hit by level-one magic spells was devastating.

If someone not wearing magic armor were hit, death would have been almost certain. Even if some did wear magic armors, conventional ones available for common troops were hardly enveloping ones. If they were hit in their weak spots, they would have died just the same.

On the battlefield, even light injuries could be fatal. That's why the addition of level-one scrolls was very much welcomed.

Saleen was oblivious to the fact that what he did had won him the hearts of the people. The enchanters were already done with the calculations of the portal when Saleen was finished with all of that. They were testing the portal out.

The testing processes were complex and akin to mimicking a space portal. Saleen had to verify every single completed piece of data with it while trying to figure out if he would have been broken down to elemental particles after entering that portal.

If the result was positive, they would have needed to reconfigure the data and even calculate a new portal altogether.

That was the tensest part of the processes. All enchanters stopped everything they were doing just to help Saleen with the calculations. He participated too but used astrology instead.

The result of astrological calculations was still vague. Saleen was unable to peer into fate.

Even so, he was still determined to head to the interdimensional space, as the outcome was identical to the calculations he had done for his two kids.

If that outcome meant death, Saleen would have gone anyway.

Data in tens of millions coursed through the simulated images. One of Saleen's specters passed through the portal, causing its image to shudder slightly when the specter left and disappeared.

"How about it?" A supreme demon was in charge of managing the calculations. There was only a handful of them among the enchanters. Achieving the pinnacle of their mental powers had made them immune from any ill effects of casting even level-ten magic spells.

Saleen looked at the dissipated image and said, "I'd be able to pass, but the portal would be on the brink of collapse once I made it through."

That supreme demon, who had pitted all his wealth and life onto Saleen, asked cautiously, "Would you be in any danger, your highness?"

"I wouldn't end up dead. But I wouldn't make it back for a while."

The supreme demon was speechless. Saleen clapped Nailisi, who was waiting for results beside him and said, "I'd head to the interdimensional space and take Rafel with me. Only two could pass at a given moment and the metal angels would have to be on their guard, too. You…you'd soon know if I made it through. If I end up dead, you'll have everything in the Floating City. Take your demons with you and you'll stand a chance of returning to the demon plane and becoming the devil you always wanted to be. If I'm not dead…"

Nailisi was already in tears before Saleen finish talking. Her tears splashed to the ground.

Saleen laughed and wiped her tears away, continuing, "As I was saying…if I don't end up dead but can't come back right away, don't go to Holy Rock City on your own. Send one of your trusted demons and look for Lex. Ask her if she's willing to put everything aside to save me and Sika."