Badge in Azure

Chapter 1415: Coercion (Part 2)

Safilos never expected the battle to have ended like that. He was ready to die in battle when he came, but Saleen actually managed to raid the headquarters and destroyed the Elemental Hand's core. Without a core to rally around, the mages below were all scattered and all of them surrendered.

"Saleen, mages like that are difficult to control instead!" Safilos quipped exasperatedly.

"You're right, and that's why I intend to reset the rules of the Elemental Hand."

"So you're not going to disband the Elemental Hand then?"

"Of course. I'd keep the Elemental Hand around to manage Alchemy City, while setting up the All-seeing Eye in Metatrin City. Mages of both sides have their own distinct ways to live."

"The art of kings and emperors!"

"I'm unable to come up with better ways of going about things."

Safilos was in no mood to be concerned about Saleen's affairs. However, the empire had always held the mages in high regard. After Alchemy City attacked his territory, Safilos came to understand that if mages were not managed effectively, things would have gotten messed up quickly.

The collection of all equipment would have taken some time to deal with. Saleen took his time to transport the mages. They were first sent to the Floating City and be watched over by the three elders of the Elemental Hand.

The mages of Alchemy City were quickly envious of the magic net as soon as they got to the Floating City. But, most mages came to feel that the magic net was not the future of mages. Magic nets could encourage dependence, robbing the mages of their creativity.

Only a handful of mages expressed the intention to stay behind in the Floating City, which was of course not allowed. However, Saleen stated that there was such a magic net in Daliang City as well, enabling mages to easily cast all manner of skills.

Magic nets were not exclusive to the enchanters. In truth, mages were capable of acquiring power from the magic net as well, but the mages were not exempted from having to provide feedback to the God of Magic Net, in the form of mental powers and power of faith.

The God of Magic Net acquired power every time the magic net was used. Furthermore, the power was incredibly pure. That was because one had to be reverent to the magic net sincerely, without any room for concealment, if one were to acquire magic from the magic net.

There might have been false believers among the believers of other gods, but not the God of Magic Net. Every use of magic within its vicinity was a trade.

Saleen was relieved and happy to find that most mages from Alchemy City were unmoved. The magic net's harm to mages far outweighed the benefits. If the magic net were to truly be made widespread among the mages, magic, as a field of learning, would have stagnated. Despite the weak powers across Myers Mainland at the moment, there were nonetheless creative magic seen, even if there were just those among level four or five ones.

Saleen gradually cleared out the Baldur's Gate and let the Floating City take the prisoners to the other lair of Alchemy City, to take the remaining 30000 or so mages into their fold. There were over 100 thousand enchanters on the Floating City and they possessed absolute advantage at the moment. As such, Saleen did not see to it personally. He left behind in the Baldur's Gate with some of his trusted people, and began to work on the godly item.

It was not difficult to work on godly items with spirits in them. The most important thing however, was that Saleen possessed one advantage that the nine elders of the Elemental Hand lacked—he possessed the power of the soul.

Only one possessing the power of the soul would have been able to subjugate the weapon spirit named Juno. Otherwise, the weapon spirit would have been able to escape from being punished by the rules even if a contract with signed, taking the Baldur's Gate with it.

If he were to not sign a contract with the weapon spirit, opting to kill it instead, things would have been safe for the moment, but it would have been near-impossible to completely revamp the Baldur's Gate.

It was not until mid January of the following year that Saleen had been able to completely finish working on the Baldur's Gate. The army of the Holy See had yet to make it past Kroraina borders at that moment.

Prince Safilos returned to Holy Rock City instead of staying behind in his territory. He was feeling rather vexed about it nonetheless, as Saleen had almost took over his territory. There were two fleets setting up base there, and there was a Nature Temple built in the imperial city.

The good thing was that Saleen had indeed made good on his word, building two fleets for him at half of what it would have cost. He had even sent men to help train Safilos' naval forces.

Qin naval forces had always been mediocre. While Saleen's navy was still unable to compare to that of Cloudflow, but it was at least on par with them in terms of equipment. What Saleen's navy lacked was but combat experience at sea.

The equipment that Saleen had promised Safilos were all delivered. The armors and weapons that Saleen had deemed obsolete had all been given to Safilos like they cost nothing.

Safilos did not keep a private army, but he was nonetheless able to tell how things were in the mainland at the moment. He would not have been able to effectively ensure the stability of Qin, without building an army of his own. Qin forces had been spread out and difficult to gather at the moment. The affairs at Holy Rock City was simply a tug of war.

The mages of the Golden Plains never truly intended to gain control over the empire through Holy Rock City. What the Golden Plains was after was to take control of elite troops of all four military towns behind the scenes.

While the elites troops were forces that Safilos could have easily mobilized when he was a supreme commander. Yet, when he stepped down, cohesion would have been lacking if he were to assume command again. Safilos finally made up his mind by then, that his current status would have allowed him to gather as many elite legions as he fancied.

The only problem was where to get the finances to do so. Buying equipment, food, paying the units and developing training programs. All of that cost a lot and Safilos had never been some corrupt official. He was never able to get that much money on his own. As such, Saleen had been a lifesaver to him indeed.

Saleen's financial prowess was actually inferior to that of the Qin Empire. His wealth came mostly from the hunt at the Oceanic Ice Block at the northern mines. Saleen had only been able to maintain the consumable materials of mages and warriors by seeing to the hunts and mining himself.

He had to rely on the nobles and merchants that joined him to keep maintenance of the Kingdom of Metatrin. Those people were the ones keeping the country running. There was no way Saleen could have become a king in the demon plane. If he were to forge his path in Myers Mainland, Saleen had to rely on those people.

The Baldur's Gate was 66 meters tall and there were 730 parts used to construct it. There were four spaces within, and the one that Saleen took was the smallest of the four.

Juno originally had control of all four spaces, but the weapon spirit had a hard time opening the other three due to having suffered a drop in levels. However, Saleen was not in a hurry. He wanted the Baldur's Gate mainly to mobilize his army for expeditions. While the Floating City was an excellent piece of equipment, but it was also a big fat target and warning sign, robbing him of any element of surprise.

Saleen did not contact Safilos immediately after he was done working on the Baldur's Gate. Under Safilos' workings in secret, the Nature Faith had spread deep into southern Qin and began propagating the faith.

The Holy See was being peculiar with how they fought, as they were unable to make any clear progress despite only fighting a ragtag band of Qin forces at the border. Things looked rather contradictory to how the assault began. Not even the traps that Saleen had prepared ended up used.

Saleen cared little for the reasons behind all of that. He had subjugated the mages from Alchemy City and he had to nonetheless find them a place to settle in. The Kingdom of Metatrin had no intentions of taking them in after all. Those mages and the ones in his own kingdom were two distinct types of people. Only a place that had a strict hierarchy like Alchemy City was deemed suitable for those mages.

The difference between people was just as distinct as that between man and beast.

Alchemy City was still being at the best location within the southeastern regions of Qin. There were plains for producing food and natural harbors, as well as seaborne lines of defense and all manner of islands. Saleen still had a small number of people occupying the Devil's Horn. Those people were tasked to keep a close eye on the skeletal dragon. The order he gave those people, once the dragon began to attack the islands, was to run.

It was an extremely risky mission, as the skeletal dragon was capable of doing far more damage than Rafel, who had been sealed before, would have been capable of.

Saleen's target was the skeletal dragon itself.

After taking Alchemy City and rebuilding the Elemental Hand, the organization was made to be at odds with Saleen's All-seeing Eye on the surface, but those two organizations were in fact driving each other to progress. It was difficult for mages to play nice with each other, so Saleen took to setting the rules of the game himself instead.

The weather at the south at January remained rather nasty. The forces that Saleen had gathered for offense numbered at only 30000, and the forces consisted of cavalries that Safilos built.

There were hardly any humans within the other legions.

The soldiers serving Saleen consisted mainly of demons. With the passage between planes loosening up at present, spirits were able to be summoned en masse, and the Winged Skull built another legion of spirits.

Every soldier in that 30000-strong force that Safilos gathered was assigned with three enchanters. That was something hardly ever seen in the history of battles.

It was the first time that the number of elemental manipulation professionals surpassed that of warriors in the battlefield, and such ratios were made possible only by one like Saleen. The Floating City brought over 100 thousand enchanters to Alchemy City. Saleen's army brought along inside the Baldur's Gate, which he carried personally, heading for the skeletal dragon's lair.

Saleen did not send scouting parties and chose to have the Floating City stay airborne 30000 meters above instead, observing how things were from that height. Anyone who had gotten close to Alchemy City would have been detected by the skeletal dragon. Saleen knew the implications of level differences after he acquired the power of the soul.

Even if he were to ambush his quarry using the Baldur's Gate, there would not have been any element of surprise in play still. Nothing could have been kept secret within the entire Alchemy City from the skeletal dragon after all.

Saleen intended to launch a frontal assault instead that time.

The Floating City had gathered enough power to take on the skeletal dragon. Other than the magic turrets at the bottom of the city, there were also huge amount of Thunder Dragon Blasters installed at the edge of the city.

The power of those blasters were marginally lower than that of Saleen's own equipment, yet as far as actual battles were concerned, they were considered large scale equipment nonetheless. Every lightning icicle fired was thicker that the largest wheel of any vehicle.

Anti-spell, freezing, blocking and other additional effects were the forte of the large scale blasters.

Those Thunder Dragon Blasters were all crafted from attribute-less crystalline materials and every single blaster, was handcrafted by Saleen personally. With those weapons installed, Saleen had no need to worry about the skeletal dragon taking flight and destroying the Floating City outright, for the time being.

Hundreds of lightning icicles would have been shot as soon as the skeletal dragon takes flight. If the dragon were to dare take flight, the enchanters, number over 100 thousand, were still capable of calculating flight trajectories of the skeletal dragon after all.

The greatest weakness to the large scale Thunder Dragon Blasters on the Floating City was their short range of attack.

While Saleen's personally Thunder Dragon Blaster was capable of attacking targets tens of kilometers away, the large scale blasters had the highest effective range of a meager 15 kilometers, which made them inferior to magic cannons in terms of range. If Saleen were to use those things, which came with a hefty cost to use, to attack the Alchemy City right off the bat, the Floating City would have needed to lower its altitude to below 15000 meters.

Saleen had no certainty that would have worked, as he had little idea of what the skeletal dragon was truly capable of. He had to ensure the safety of his own Floating City before anything else.

The Floating City shrouded the entire Alchemy City again. The sun in the sky was blocked off and the entire city below turned pitch black. The half-dead loitering about in Alchemy City were unable to help but look up. A golden halo surrounded the Floating City around the edge over a dozen kilometers away as the sky darkened, which seemed to have been tainted with faint bloody colors.

The skeletal dragon was still coiled at the core of Alchemy City. Large buildings over 100 meters tall were all toppled, and a nest housing the dragon consisting of bones was constructed. The skeletal dragon looked up and the viridian fires dancing in the dragon's eye sockets flashed about.

"They're here…"