Badge in Azure

Chapter 1454: Target, Black Dungeon (Part 2)

Saleen had no intention of leaving any bit of dignity to the Tanggulasi royal family. The reason he didn't attack was to make sure the conquest of Nature Faith lacked the final bit of legality to it.

When the four empires signed the treaty all those years ago, it was stipulated that they were to not attack each other. With the Tanggulasi royalty staying intact, it served as proof of the empire's continued existence. If the other three empires showed up or picked up anything left in the empire, Saleen would have been allowed to destroy them.

While such reasoning was of negligible use to powerful beings, it was truth to the tens of millions of common folk out there.

Saleen had little idea of what it would have entailed maintaining such notions of so-called justice. But from the perspective of fate, it was reasonable to do so. Having thousands of worshipers would have allowed him to gain power. In contrast, having thousands of detractors would have been damaging one way or another.

There had been tyrants in the history of the Tanggulasi Empire, and every single one of them suffered a gruesome end. Furthermore, every single one of those tyrants died baffling deaths. Some went insane and did self-harm; others had gotten their souls split when they were training. There were even emperors who were set up by their sons.

Saleen had no intention of being played by fate. He maintained balance at all times, which is what mages were supposed to do.

It wasn't until spring that Saleen and Rafel both stepped onto the golden dragon form taken by the Violet Angel and headed to the Black Dungeon Island. The island had always been an independent place within the empire's vicinity. Saleen did not mobilize his navy, as he did not want to see his fleet be sunk without a good reason. There were many difficult obstacles incapable of being crossed naturally around the Black Dungeon Island, and changes occurred often.

Saleen had no intention of observing slowly. He came to possess the Baldur's Gate and it would have sufficed if he were able to fly past those obstacles.

Meanwhile, the Violet Angel gained an irritating flaw at present—it became chatty. Of course, it didn't dare bother Rafel, so it turned its attention on Saleen. Yak, yak, yak. Nothing else mattered to it, so long as it could hear Rafel's voice.

The Violet Angel, however, did not know that Rafel was steeped in training and unable to pay any attention to what it was saying. The angel armor was something the gods had crafted for their angels. Saleen's modifications caused a slight drop in its attributes, but Rafel liked the end product very much.

All the armor's many externally attached weapons were capable of ranged attacks and packed a devastating punch. Angels had always been combat weapons; they used their armor when charging into battlefields.

Not even gods would have been able to easily penetrate such armor.

Jola's and Sul's getup was simple and straightforward. They both used weapons Saleen had crafted for them long ago. Their armor, however, was completely changed. Level-12 true mights were of the highest levels and did not need armor. However, there were simply too many holy masters on Black Dungeon Island, especially those from the Tribunal, who were better versed in prophecy spells than anything else.

The prophecy spells of the Tribunal leaned toward curses. Regardless of the power of the sword aura of a true might, it would have been affected just the same.

Even the likes of the Lord of Glory's double had been unlucky enough to be hit by a lesser prophecy spell, losing the best chance to get at Saleen, let alone true mights.

Both sets of armor had been crafted by Saleen specifically for two of his followers. In preparation for the work, Saleen spent nearly half a month observing the two true mights with the Eye of Souls just to be able to craft a customized fit. He had detailed knowledge of his followers' bone structure, sword auras, habits and so on. Thanks to Saleen's superior design, neither follower felt weighed down by the armor. On the contrary, they felt as if they were wearing normal clothing, and their movements were unhindered in the slightest.

Those were the perks of working with mages. A purchased set of magic armor would never have provided such ease of movement or comfort. Some warriors were even forced to change certain habits just to conform to their armor's powerful attributes. The pros and cons were known only to those warriors themselves.

Some warriors even had their rate of advancement delayed because of having to change certain habits. It had always been harder for warriors to advance compared to mages. The downside of magic armors was easily seen in such cases.

Saleen observed both his followers using the Eye of Souls for over a dozen days continuously. It was not something conventional mages would have been capable of doing. His Eye of Soul skill had reached the pinnacle state of level-15. Additional changes would have resulted in the skill's advancement to the next stage.

And what stage was that? The All-seeing Eye, an ability above level-16.

The Violet Angel babbled away throughout the journey, boring Saleen to tears and setting his teeth on edge. They finally reached the shore at a leisurely pace. Everything across the sea was pitch black, so stifling.

Saleen and his people didn't bother concealing their presence. The people at the shore had long seen a golden dragon flying their way. Four were standing on the back of that dragon. One wore thick, huge armor and was over five meters tall while the other three were a mage and two swordsmen.

Precious few people knew it was the Violet Angel who had taken a golden dragon's form. The wardens of the Tribunal were terrified seeing a golden dragon heading their way. Such high-level beings were practically immune to curses and prophecy spells, as well as to divine spells and physical attacks. That was why the dragon plane was the one place the gods were most reluctant to visit.

It would be frustrating and vexing if an enemy could nullify over half one's skills and reduce the remaining ones' powers by half. Everyone knew about such reasoning, so when they wardens saw the golden dragon approaching, they hid in the fortresses.

There were few fortresses to protect a harbor, a passage linking the Black Dungeon and the Tribunal. There was also a sea route several hundred meters wide allowing safe access for ships. It was an effect from divine-rune charm arrays set up by holy masters several generations ago.

Saleen looked down on those fortresses and found all of them to be unnervingly sturdy. They appeared to have been around for over a thousand years. He was in no mood to deal with small fries. Instead, he told the Violet Angel to fly past the narrow pathway.

The closest distance from where they were to the Black Dungeon Island was nearly 20 kilometers away. Even Jola and the others had already been able to make out the silhouette of the island, let alone Saleen, who possessed the Eye of Souls.

Pitch black—that's how the island was. The Black Dungeon Island was intensely black. The color seemed to absorb light altogether, or something conjured using a dark element.

Saleen's heart skipped a beat at that thought: An island made of a dark element?

That was just a figure of speech. To put it precisely, there was a dark element pathway there, or something was linking it to another plane, maybe even linking it to the legendary dark element space.

But why wasn't that indicated on the plane map?

Saleen had the Violet Angel dive into the water. He had no intention of dropping from the sky onto the island. He planned to proceed according to the traits of the island itself. No, that wouldn't work.

The sea route they took was the safest. Saleen came to an undersea area about 1,000 meters away from the island, finding a flatland and placing the Baldur's Gate. Yellow light burst forth, a result of the Book of Gaia's power.

The front of the gate extended right to the shore, with a flat, smooth pathway laid out.

That had been Saleen's plan. All his troops brought there were capable of flight and underwater battles. There was no safe haven on the Black Dungeon Island. Any flatlands were places where divine-spell attacks could be bombarded from all sides.

Saleen dared not to be reckless anymore. Rafel told him before that the wars among gods were the bloodiest. No restrictions were placed on the divine arts used. With the help of the gods, the angels and common god creatures practically flooded everywhere they went with all manner of divine arts, leaving no angle or corner of the battlefields left out.

Six godly items were found in the Baldur's Gate: the Book of Gaia, the Well of Stars, the Dimensional Staff, the Scorching Candle, the Deathly Night, and the Tears of Light.

Saleen could use all of them, thanks to help from Juno, the weapon spirit of the Baldur's Gate. Even some extra functions gave Saleen a variety of options in laying out his tactics.

At the very least, the vicinity within a kilometer radius from the Baldur's Gate was within the godly item's range of attack, preventing them from being attacked when they were on the run. The only downside was this: Baldur's Gate could be moved when in use and had to be put somewhere safe.

The place where Saleen put the gate was such that if anything went south, that place would be the first one he would have run to. With the help of Juno and the six godly items, Saleen would have been able to resist attacks from the Lord of Glory's double using the Baldur's Gate alone.

That was why Saleen had to use the scroll to execute the head warden. The rate of advancement of the Lord of Glory would have been far slower than that of the head warden. If the head warden were given ample time to train, he would have probably grown even more powerful than the Lord of Glory just little more than a hundred years later.

Human potential exceeded the gods' potential. This meant that Saleen had to take the human out of the picture before dealing with gods. He was not doing so intending to try to snuff out geniuses. The head warden was his arch-enemy. He needed to get rid of his enemies as soon as possible, starting with the strongest ones.

The head warden was the strongest enemy Saleen had on that plane. Taking him out would allow Saleen to advance in peace, to learn the skills in the Book of Lightning, to work on the six godly items, and to upgrade the Thunder Dragon Blaster. By the time he reached level-15, he would be able to take control of the three weapon spirits, and that's when he planned on heading to the cemetery of the giant to take the Lightning Moon for himself.

By the time he had gotten the Lightning Moon in his hands, Saleen believed that even the likes of the Goddess of Myers wouldn't be able to reflect his skills anymore.

He had a lasting impression of the Lightning Moon's effects. All those gods more powerful than the Lord of Glory were imprisoned by the moon for over 10,000 years; not a one had been able to escape.

Saleen gathered his forces after laying everything down, leading them to charge outside the gate and land on the Black Dungeon Island.

The island's strength lay not in its massive number of wardens but the astonishing number of holy masters. Every single prisoner there was also extremely difficult to deal with. Had the place been a common prison, unlocking the cells would have been a decent tactic. On the Black Dungeon Island, however, anyone who succeeded in unlocking the cells would be brutally killed by those locked inside.

It was the first time the demon army landed on the Black Dungeon Island. The demons, which were all over five meters in height, wore Devil Possession Armors forged in the Floating City and held huge battleaxes. Their steps sounded like roars of thunder as they charged at the shores in neat formations.

No enemy was found at the shores. Tens of black-robed holy masters witnessed the scene from a nearby hill. They were shocked. How had such a powerful army succeeded in getting so far their turf?

Every soldier was of level-9 combat prowess. While the soldiers were not as insanely powerful as golden grand swordmasters, the dreadful news was that they were just foot soldiers.