Badge in Azure

Chapter 1429: Eye of Souls (Part 2)

Saleen's Elemental Eye advanced to become the Eye of Souls before he realized it, enabling him to see more and giving him a big boost in battle. Since that was a passive ability that evolved on its own, consumption would have been over 100 times less than what usual Eye of Souls would have entailed.

When common mages used the Eye of Souls, they did their best to shorten its usage to prevent them from exhausting the power of the soul.

It was more difficult for power of the soul to recover compared to mental powers. Having the former exhausted in battle was extremely dangerous.

While Saleen was busy destroying Cologne City, Rafel was doing a great job killing the Heaven Knights. Since the Floating City had already destroyed the elite parts of the Heaven Knights and caused half to die or be injured, the Bug Angel Warriors and metal angels led by Rafel made short work of what was left with them.

Those Heaven Knights were all formidable warriors but because they were inexperienced, they quickly scattered after being attacked.

Their retaliation was ineffective, which enabled Rafel to destroy the 10,000-strong group of knights with little collateral damage. Roughly 1,000 demons and little more than 300 Bug Angel Warriors died fighting them.

Rafel left the scene without harming the 3,000 believers, which they found puzzling. The red-robed bishops hiding in their midst had no choice but to lead the believers on an arduous journey. With all the steeds dead and the corpses carted away, it took them three or four days to travel 200 kilometers to reach their destination.

Those people, who were basically children, were incapable of using divine spells. There were fewer than 100 holy masters in the lot, making it impossible to hurry the group along.

Bug Angel Warriors kept a watchful eye from above. The holy masters knew about that as well. They figured if any of them used any divine spells, it would have drawn a second round of attacks.

While none of them understood why the enemy left the 3,000 believers alive, the holy masters had no choice but to proceed as planned by sending the young believers to Cologne City in hope of summoning their god's double.

The young believers witnessed firsthand the horror and brutality of battles, causing them to shake with intense fear. They had no idea why they had been gathered; the only thing they knew was that they needed to go to the holy land and pray.

They wondered, why would a bunch of demons attack us? Is doomsday upon us already?

Moving at a snail's pace, the group scaled a ridge on their third night out in the wild. Suddenly, the highest-level red-robed bishop spotted Cologne City in the distance.

It lay in ruins. Only the walls were left standing. Everything inside was demolished.

The Floating City flew to extremely high altitudes but all that could be seen from the ground was a large shadow in the sky. What in the world was that?

"Believers of the Lord of Glory, you have been gathered here to give up your lives in exchange for your god's advent. Please enter the city." Saleen's voice bellowed from high above.

Most of the young believers were at a loss of what to do. Frightened, a handful of them ran off.

They had all heard about Holy Sacrifices. It was said that some would be decapitated and others dismembered.

When the older children ran, the younger ones realized what was happening, but they did not dare to run. Instead, they sat on the ground and cried.

Saleen descended slowly from the Floating City and looked at the children from an altitude little over 100 meters away.

He then said to a red-robed bishop in the group, "Are you in charge of performing the sacrificial rituals?"

That bishop was very young. He had changed his garb but there was no escaping Saleen's Eye of Souls. Saleen asked imposingly as his territory spread out. The bishop was unable to utter a single word in response.

The level difference was equivalent to someone who had just made it to level-8 but was now totally helpless against territorial powers from someone at level-11. The power differential was simply too great.

The reason Saleen's territory hadn't been useful in the past was that he'd been fighting dominant enemies. Now, facing a level-8 holy master, he felt as if he could make life-or-death decisions against his enemies with the blink of an eye or a flick of his wrist.

Upon seeing that the holy master had been left speechless, he shouted, "I'm here to send you people into the city. I'd like to see what the advent of your god is like. As a mage, that's something I find intriguing."

The red-robed bishop took in Saleen's words and steeled his mind before, retorting, "When our god advents, it shall be your death. Are you sure you want to let us enter the city?"

"Save your breath. I'm a mage and I always keep my word. Be my guest." Saleen then hovered to Cologne City, moving at very slow speeds, making it seem as if he was really leading the way. He was disappointed to find through observation of his Eye of Souls that, excluding the ones who'd run off, the young believers left behind were not considered pure enough to wear the title of saint.

In contrast, the little girl he'd let onto the Floating City seemed to have met the standards of a saint better.

Saleen frowned. He wouldn't have minded if that little turned out to be a saint. After all, the only thing he wanted to do now was to see how powerful the Lord of Glory's double was. But how was it that astrology unable to calculate any of this? Was the little girl's appearance a coincidence or ordained by fate?

It wouldn't have mattered if it turned out to be a coincidence. On the other hand, if someone had indeed meddled with the trajectories of fate in the dark, causing him to leave the little girl alone, things would no doubt take a turn for the worse.

Saleen notified Nailisi secretly, "Nailisi, move every important thing and person in Metatrin City to the Floating City. We might be running into trouble this time."

Despite this order, he had no intention of preventing believers from entering the city.

Having come so far with his training, it was extremely difficult to advance quickly. His talents were lacking compared to his teacher's. While his soul was somewhat more distinct, the growth of his magic chords was not much faster than common mages. That was due to his having access to the power of the soul and hardly running into any obstacles in advancement before level-5.

A person's talents were decided at birth. As a child, Saleen suffered a lot and was in poor physical condition, which only improved after he became a mage and met Joey, who helped him to craft a body of water element.

The point was, his body of water element was unbalanced, to begin with, and Joey's power did not allow Saleen to achieve much.

If it hadn't been for his family badge absorbing power and impurities from his body, Saleen's qualities would have meant it was nearly impossible to even reach level-7.

The holy masters, under pressure from Saleen, didn't chase the children who ran away. They simply brought whoever remained of the 3,000 over the hill and followed the mage who, feeling dazed, headed to the saint's stone house to summon their god.

Everything about this expedition was very odd. The powerful people escorting the group had all been killed. When the survivors were still undecided if they should proceed, Saleen showed up and hurried them along.

But what choice did they have? Angering the mage might have invoked dire consequences. They were in a terrible dilemma.

Then the people laid eyes on the dilapidated state of Cologne City. None of them thought that the young mage was a nice guy who was easy to talk with.

The 3,000 believers walked dejectedly under the Floating City's shadow.

The holy masters didn't want to anger Saleen, so none of them used divine spells to light the way: They chose to walk slowly in the shadows. Saleen perceived that the children's life force was nearly exhausted. For the final leg of the trip, the holy masters invoked their life force to enable them to surpass that of healthy grown-ups.

They were all about to die anyway, so why worry about restrictions or whatever?

The city gates of Cologne City lay in rubble. The believers trembled as they stepped through the gates. Oh, what they saw: damage of epic proportions. Ominous chills ran up and down their spine.

Nothing remained, nothing! The wreckage was widespread, sickening and appalling. Except for the crumbling, hollowed-out buildings, there was little else to be found in this once beautiful, charming city.

The streets, formerly been lively and bustling, were gone. The church spires had snapped. The tall spires crashed to the ground while mages ran around writing insulting words to the gods.

But then again, that was what the holy masters saw. In truth, those were just tricks conjured by the enchanters.

The demonic spirits, imps, and demons had no reverence for the gods at all. With no restrictions imposed by Saleen, they had free reign to do whatever they wanted. Many took pleasure in plastering graffiti everywhere using low-level magic.

Such blasphemous words would have infuriated believers and incited them to go on a revengeful rampage.

There were probably even enchanters who were wondered if the believers could read their complex words. What if they couldn't? To make sure they did, they started drawing graphic images on the ground and broken walls. The Lord of Glory was depicted being stomped on by the demons and made into their plaything.

Misery was etched on the face of the level-8 red-robed bishop. None of those imageries were directed at him; they were directed at his god. He was wondering if god's fury would be so ignited that he would destroy the world if he were to advent and see what was happening now.

What a paradise for blasphemers.

Saleen led the people to the saint's stone house. They hadn't eaten a morsel of food for the past three days but Saleen had no intention of treating them to a grain of rice. All of them had their life force potentials invoked, which meant they would be able to survive for over a dozen years if they could just stay alive. It wouldn't have mattered if they had eaten anything at that point.

It was said that the purest of believers would fast for over three days before praying.

The plaza near the entrance had been flattened again and ravaged by forbidden curses that spared the stone house. This made Saleen think of dismissing the idea altogether. The stone house was protected by the Lord of Glory's divine spell and was capable of holding just one person. The place hadn't had any divine spells cast in 1,000 years.

With a divine spell cast so long ago and still working well enough to resist forbidden curses, he wondered if the powers of the Lord of Glory's double would exceed his control.

That thought lasted little more than a second before Saleen dismissed it entirely.

Regardless of how powerful the Lord of Glory might be, the best he would be able to advent with was a double at level-12. Level-12-not much of a problem. whatsoever.

Saleen looked up and saw the Floating City lowering its altitude gradually. Nailisi's voice was heard in his mind.

"Master, we have begun the transfer. Should we bring the temple guards as well?"

"Send them to the interdimensional space," Saleen said.

The temple guards were a force he had built personally. Few humans were among them, and most of the units were demons. The temple guards, however, were the most loyal of Saleen's armies. He had plans to make them the seeds of his kingdom, which would be vital in procreating future generations.

Excellent soldiers bred stronger children. Saleen had no plans of sending them to the battlefield. Those humans and demons would serve as ancestors of the army of the Kingdom of Metatrin in the future.

"Master, what should we do about the defense of Metatrin City?"

"Mobilize 12 demon legions there and leave them in charge," Saleen said while ambling to the saint's stone house.