Badge in Azure

The floor inside the metal tower was not made of stone nor of metal but was still incredibly resilient. Grand swordmasters and sorcerers alike could have fought battles on it at full force, and it would not have collapsed. A huge mouth all of a sudden appeared and began chomping away. Luckily, Saleen was alerted in time and did not get bitten.

Seeing dirt-yellow earth elements sprayed everywhere from inside that mouth left Saleen seething in anger.

It was yet another form of Fossilization. Saleen dared not expand his lightning territory too much, restricting it to an area within a 100-meter radius to protect everyone around him.

Had he been able to open up his lightning territory, he would have searched every detail of that floor in no time.

Rafel said to Saleen, "No worries, my lord. I'll fix it."

She immediately pulled out the War Drum of Fear. It was something she had acquired from the Violet Angel, and there was no way she would have misplaced it. Once unleashed, the pests inside the drum spread everywhere, searching for signs of the enemy.

Saleen was at a wide corridor that resembled the underground city. Huge gaping mouths also appeared on the walls at their flanks once the pests spread out, their teeth bared menacingly while chomping down on the pests.

Cracking noises were heard nonstop. Crack, snap, pop. Those pests, which had a dust-like structure, were fossilized as soon as the jaws bore down on them. They crumbled right away.

Attacks of earth-elemental magic came with high physical damage. If it was difficult defending against earth-elemental magic, imagine how hard it was defending against attacks of warriors.

While earth-elemental magic attacks at low levels were notable for being slow, such attacks above level-10 would not have been slow at all even when compared with wind-elemental magic.

Even with the likes of pests, which were eerie and odd beings, to begin with, being "bitten" to death by them was a horrifying thought. Saleen had no intention of risking his neck by getting near them. His Quickcloud was still at work, enveloping his followers and Safilos, yet he activated earth-elemental magic and shot yellow light from his feet that were sprinting toward the end of the corridor.

Although mouths kept emerging from the wall, none had been able to hurt Saleen. The speed at which Saleen ran was so high not even the fastest magic beasts could keep up with him. The power he used all came from earth elements. Saleen's power of the soul allowed him to use the other five major elements.

It was an ability above level-13 that would have been possible to pull off with powerful power of the soul.

Saleen's movements surprised Rafel. Gods also possessed these abilities, but the speed at which the Metal God moved was far higher than Saleen's, and its workings were more profound.

Divine arts of the gods seemed to share certain connections with magic.

The gods mastered rules and bestowed their believers with the power of divine arts, which…which seemed to work like the magic net. While Rafel no longer had any plans of believing in any other god, the discovery turned her knowledge of the world upside down.

Saleen's movement skill grew to become considerably different from Jalin's. If he continued to continue to upgrade it, it would have been as if Saleen had created new skills.

Saleen sensed the vibration frequencies of the earth element trying to locate the source of the attacks.

It was impossible for godly items to hide while launching attacks. If Saleen had hidden his magic amplifier behind him, he would not have been able to attack anyone with it. It worked the same as having the weapon spirit concealed. Even that golden dagger would have had to show itself once it began attacking.

Saleen kept running midair. He borrowed powers from the attacks unleashed by the Book of Gaia. The golden flashes beneath his feet glimmered as his speed reached over 600 kilometers an hour. The internal space of that metal tower was unlike that of the temple of the goddess, and it paled in comparison to the 12 Notes of First Purgatory.

The space, narrow and tight, made Saleen feel as if he was zipping through the cracks between the teeth appearing on the walls. The mouths on the walls and the floor continued to bite, and every bite almost grazed Saleen, causing elemental quakes. None of them was able to hit Saleen, however.

Everyone watched, their hearts pounding, as they moved alongside Saleen. If it hadn't been for his lightning protection, no one would have withstood the attacks from the Book of Gaia. That godly item seemed to have assimilated the entire metal tower. Each corner of the metal tower continued behaving like the book itself or one that could be used by all ranks.

The nine major mages of the Elemental Hand didn't need to do anything but sit still at the core and invoke the Book of Gaia. It was due to the workings of the Book of Gaia that the metal tower was able to self-repair.

The hole blasted by Saleen's family badge began to close gradually. The wound on the tower continued to crackle with electrical sparks.

It was a testament to the Book of Gaia's power, as it was even able to heal the damage caused by lightning.

It was said that at the end of the Goddess of Myers' training, she acquired her divine persona from the power of the earth itself. None of the Goddess of Myers' healing arts was derived from the water element. All healing was done using the power of earth element.

Saleen moved as he traced the elemental vibrations, like someone following the ripples to search for the stone dropped into the water. Saleen had gotten increasingly adept at using elements at will, and supreme confidence Jason's was beginning to rub off on him as well.

Nailisi and the Winged Skull were the two who were most sensitive to such changes. Both bonded creatures were happy to see their master mature. It was only a matter of time before they, too, achieved great things for following Saleen for so long.

Saleen wasn't a god, so he would not have asked them to give up their souls. If he were to continue doing what he did and survived, their respective achievements would have eventually eclipsed Saleen's.

The Winged Skull's Ice God Scythe automatically absorbed the power of earth element. The God of Underworld had achieved high mastery of the rules of earth element. Gods did not use magic, but the fundamentals of their powers were nonetheless the same. Some could also have molded the power of elements into divine arts.

Saleen was unable to do anything about Nailisi's Gray Memory in time. The weapon could consume any type of power. The invasion of earth-elemental powers was also absorbed by the Gray Memory.

None of the three of them would have been fossilized.

Saleen was moving at such great speeds yet was still able to take care of Safilos. His Quickcloud dragged everyone in it with him, just like having all of them run alongside Saleen.

There was a huge gate at the forefront. A metal statue looked at Saleen, who was getting close, with cold eyes at the end of the corridor.

Saleen fired a lightning icicle right away without hesitation. He followed the attack by firing a ball of lightning.

That icicle did not manage to fly for 10 meters before being stopped in its flight by earth- elemental powers. Saleen smirked as the ball lightning wobbled about in flight and entered the metal statue.

Ooorrgg…

The weapon spirit inside the metal statue seemed to be severely injured and lost control before being able to retaliate against Saleen.

Saleen stopped all of a sudden and summoned an Elemental Stone Statue Soldier. Most of his elemental creatures were having a good time in his magic amplifier, with the greatest use of them being to provide Saleen with elemental powers.

Saleen had rarely summoned them as of late. That Elemental Stone Statue Soldier held its magic warhammer and looked at Saleen.

Saleen then pointed at a statue. The Elemental Stone Statue Soldier charged and lifted its weapon, pummeling the metal statue into scrap metal.

Elemental shockwaves burst around the metal statue. That was the Sigh of the Earth, and it was something at level-12.

That Elemental Stone Statue Soldier might have been an elemental creature, but it was frozen solid by the Sigh of the Earth right there and then. A rocky layer of several meters thick covered its entire body.

It was fortunate that the attack happened outside Saleen's territory. If he had charged and done it himself, he would have been caught in the attack. While he might have survived unscathed, it would have nonetheless taken a lot of time to repair the Figure of Fate.

The Sigh of the Earth had a very long range of attack and was hardly hampered by environmental factors. Saleen had been attacked by that spell before and knew how terrifying it was.

Saleen recalled the Elemental Stone Statue Soldier, and he summoned another. The second Elemental Stone Statue Soldier went up and moved the scrapped metal statue away.

The gate was at the side of the statue. The reason Saleen had to deal with the statue first was that he needed to get to the gate, and the statue would have attacked him. Retaliation would have invoked the Sigh of the Earth. It was a preset spell that enabled its power to be enhanced to its strongest.

Instant-cast magic of mages would definitely not have been at the strongest state of that spell. Being faster than the enemy in battle, however, often was the key to determining life and death. That was why mages dedicated themselves to train in instant-cast magic.

Regardless of how potent someone's magic was, it would have been useful if the person couldn't keep up with the opponent.

"Saleen, don't you think you've gone too far by coming all the way here?" A brimming voice was heard from within the gate.

"Hah…are you Alchemy City mages actually telling me that you finally know what "going too far" means now? What happens to Prince Safilos's subjects? Did they deserve to be slaughtered by you people then?" Saleen answered as he attempted to expand his territory.

After that, the ever-present earth element would have come at him.

He had no problem with that, but his followers might not have been able to take it.

"What does killing Safilos's people have anything to do with you?"

Saleen knew right away that the mages were stalling for time. He looked at Safilos, who was next to him and said, "Those people don't seem to know you. How about we get inside?"

Safilos shouted, "Let's go!"

He didn't seem to care at all. If that was a place Saleen dared to venture, he would do the same.

Saleen laughed without bothering to explain. He then summoned a water elemental creature—the Blue Ice Maiden. There were 13 of them, and all were hidden in the Quickcloud, protecting everyone within.

Pure-earth elemental attacks were restrictive against water-elemental creatures. Saleen's choice to use water-elemental creatures to defend instead was to waste more of the enemy's power of the godly item.

Restrictive attacks came at a price—it was impossible to stop attacking and to attack first.

That meant that so long as the water elemental creatures survived, the powers of the Book of Gaia would continue attacking the water-elemental creatures, relieving Saleen's pressure.

That gate was really tall. The Blue Ice Maidens were about nine meters high, making it easy for them to pass. Saleen saw a wall after passing through the gate.

It was a wall made purely of crystal. While it was not a whole piece, but it looked marvelous nonetheless.

Dozens of mages from behind that transparent wall saw Saleen walking in, and all of them laughed at the same time.

I'm about to catch you, and here you are, walking right into our trap…"

"Shut up!" Saleen shouted. That level-11 mage's words were cut off mid-sentence by Saleen right there and then. He waved to summon the Winged Skull, which came charging clutching a humongous meteor hammer.

Boom!

The meteor hammer banged on the crystal wall. The center of the weapon exploded, and countless air currents blasted from the tight cracks, forming cutting forces.

"You're really stupid!" The nine mages cackle at how Saleen ordered a skeleton to attack the crystal wall.