Badge in Azure

Chapter 1484: Broken Head (Part 2)

Van Gogh smiled. "Indeed, Saleen. The people are not actually really wanting to be at your side. You're not going to misunderstand anything with me doing that, right?"

"Of course I'm not." Saleen shook his head. Van Gogh knew that Saleen was reminding Arbola. However, he had gone to painstaking lengths to get to Jalin in the first place, and he was not going to just give up then.

The peach flower mask on Jalin's face was so red that it felt as it was going to start dripping blood.

"Madam…"

"Hmph!" Arbola snorted and tens of huge pythons shot from the magic book. The snakes seemed to have behaved like magic beasts of summoners, as they were of flesh and blood, but Saleen knew that it was but an illusion created by magic that reached sufficient levels.

His Thundering Phantasm was able to do that as well, but the constructs lacked the frightening offensive capacities of the snakes.

The pythons charged at Van Gogh and Arbola seemed to have forgotten about Saleen altogether.

Van Gogh's lips twitched, finding that Saleen had no intentions of joining hands with him and felt rather frustrated.

Pride of the mages then? Like I'm going to buy this. He knew that Saleen was hostile towards him, but he was unable to figure out why.

There was no way he could know, that Saleen was able to see how he went on to rob all remaining temples of the Goddess of Nature, through that plane map that Saleen owned. It was obvious that there was a contract between Van Gogh and the Goddess of Nature as well, and the contract was a new one. The goddess would not let him run around like that otherwise, and she would have Saleen deal with him instead.

The luck that the goddess had distributed did not get taken back; they were given to Van Gogh instead.

It was entirely normal for the goddess to feel insecure about Saleen and she was right to do so. The one who was wrong was Van Gogh, who thought Saleen knew nothing and chose to approach him.

It would be a good choice to kill Van Gogh first if possible. It was a pity that Van Gogh's skill looked rather troublesome, and it would be very difficult to kill him.

Saleen tried to lock onto Van Gogh and found that it was not working, so he let Van Gogh fight Arbola for a bit instead.

"Lady Arbola, I've just taken a student of yours. Is there a need to go that far? From what I've heard, Lord Saleen was about to crush Golden Plains."

Van Gogh's words pissed Arbola a lot. She began to regret threatening Saleen.

Saleen was the kind of person who would fight anyone who dared to act against his subordinates. Anyone who threatened his family, he would see to it that they were thoroughly dealt with.

The Holy See tried to abduct Saleen's children a while ago, and Saleen eventually erased the Holy See's existence from the plane gradually.

She too was a level 14 mage and she was unable to fathom why she said something like that in the first place.

Arbola was oblivious to the fact that she was under Saleen's influence through his Thundering Sound skill, which made her anxious, restless and definitely leaning towards violence.

Saleen, without doubt, was not afraid of Arbola's threats. Ever since his magic amplifier gained the magic cube, the safest and most stable of spaces was established within. Sika and her children were all in that space and did not emerge.

Sika was also one who had no further concerns. All Caucasian elites were inside her weapon—the metal totem pole. She had no need to protect any lands as she followed Saleen around. So long as she remained alive, she could go anywhere with that pole of hers.

Saleen had also moved his two closest bonded creatures to the spirit plane. The most important thing of all, however, was that he had a level 15 weapon spirit, a true lesser god, at his disposal.

If Saleen was not concerned about having it seen by the goddess, Saleen would unleash that thing against Arbola.

"Saleen, do you have to really make a move against Golden Plains?" Arbola turned around and asked when the pythons shot at Van Gogh.

Saleen smirked. "Lady Arbola, this is Lex's royal palace and just how many Golden Plains mages are outside right now? Am I the one who wants to do anything against Golden Plains, or is Golden Plains the one that is trying to do something against me?"

"I'm a Grukos."

"I'm sorry, my surname's Metatrin," Saleen answered with a cold smirk.

Arbola looked at the magic tower. "Master Merlin once said that Lex would destroy the empire, and it seemed that he was right after all."

Saleen raised his eyebrows. "The way I see it, it's the empire trying to destroy Lex instead."

Lex watched everything that was happening outside from within the tower as she frowned hard. She was still unable to bring any cold, hard evidence saying that it was Golden Plains that set her father up and causing his death. However, every single piece of testimony and evidence seemed to be pointing in that direction.

To Saleen, that was more than enough for him to act against Golden Plains.

However, most of Golden Plains had the surname Grukos.

Saleen, on the other hand, was a Metatrin.

Lex was not dumb. No matter what happened, she would remain by Saleen's side. If she could give birth to a child, she would not have wanted the child to succeed the throne. The Qin Empire would not stay in existence for much longer.

The astrologer was right, she would be the one to end the Qin Empire.

The longer she stayed on the throne, the more exhausted she had gotten. The Goddess of Myers was resurrected and the mainland was gradually put under control of Nature Faith. Alchemy City was crushed by Saleen and the remaining mages were but shadows of their former selves. They would be utterly incapable of stopping the faith's propagation in Qin.

What is the point of letting the Qin Empire stay around then? Unless we kill the goddess, the empire is going to become a state that belong to the faith sooner or later.

It's better to just let the empire die. Fighting the Nature Faith would result in deaths of countless subjects of Qin. Furthermore, such battles are totally pointless. The only way to solve this is to just kill the goddess.

Saleen saw the Arbola and Van Gogh essentially baring their teeth against each other, and he was thinking about how to get that fight going, when Arbola asked all of a sudden, "What if I tell Golden Plains to pull out of Holy Rock City then?"

"How am I suppose to know if my wife and children will keep staying safe?" Saleen was practically bul**hitting by then. But then again, Arbola did threaten him after all. It was a threat from a level 14 mage after all, and it was totally within reason for Saleen to get so tense about it.

Arbola drew a deep breath. "You two come at me then."

She no longer had any hesitations by that point. Saleen's insistence reminded her of herself when she was young. She had been too careful and concerned about consequences as she was at that moment.

The interests of Golden Plains hardly mattered. If she had not been doing all the things she had done for Golden Plains, and had been dedicating herself to magic studies instead, she would gain more.

What was said was already said and there was no rescinding it. She had to be responsible for her words. If she ran, Saleen would always have her on his hit list. It was either her killing Saleen, or her being killed by Saleen.

As for that fallen holy master, she was not about to let him leave alive. Her only student had been enthralled by that fallen holy master, and things would not end well for her.

Arbola might have taken on Van Gogh first, due to her instincts as a mage.

Tens of huge pythons opened their mouths wide, intending to gobble Van Gogh up. A black book appeared on Van Gogh's hand, creating tens of space fissures before him.

The pythons were cut up by the fissures and blood spilled everywhere.

The spilled blood spread all over the sky in the form of a bloody mist. Van Gogh and Jalin both escaped to a space fissure and went inside. Their robes were corroded by the bloody mist.

Saleen retreated to the magic tower right away. The huge pythons quickly recovered after being cut up. Arbola did not attack him, but he was not about to go soft on Golden Plains regardless.

The ones who set up Emperor Chanake had definitely been from Golden Plains. Even if that had nothing to do with Arbola, Saleen still saw no reason to simply let up. Furthermore, there had been people trying to assassinate Lex and they had to do with the god creatures, but that was not to say that Golden Plains was not involved.

The Holy See was decimated by Saleen and only a tiny fraction of them was left. Saleen did not believe that it was due to incompetence in the part of Lex's subordinates, that some people had been able to orchestrate such high level assassinations and were able to escape from Holy Rock City.

Boom!

A loud rumble reverberated in the air. Van Gogh appeared right behind Arbola. He held a golden staff and knocked on the back of Arbola's head hard.

Blood spurted from her head.

Everyone was aghast. Saleen felt that it was peculiar as Arbola did not evade. Even he had been able to see that space fissure appearing, and Arbola's power of the soul would definitely have been comparable to his, when he took off the Ring of Cosmos. She should have been able to detect what was going on.

What startled Arbola, however, was how nimble Van Gogh was. He looked more like a powerful warrior instead of a holy master.

She had indeed intended to evade and knew where Van Gogh appeared, but Van Gogh's hands were simply too quick, and she had only been able to put up half a magic shield to block the attack.

Van Gogh was even more surprised. That staff had been so heavy that it would be able to crush rocks with extreme ease. He swung that staff with all his might, but Arbola had only bled from it. He was wondering if that woman's head was made of metal.

Such an ambush could only work once, and Van Gogh felt it to be a pity deep down. The staff in his hand disappeared and a black book of the fallen took its place, with which he cast a lesser prophecy spell.

"O' God, please allow me to steal your power once again, please allow me to do evil." Van Gogh's prayers almost made Saleen laugh, but the result was anything but laughable.

Arbola's silhouette disappeared. A huge space fissure appeared right before Van Gogh.

The fissure sucked both Arbola and Van Gogh in. Neither was seen, and Jalin, who had not been around for long, was left staring dazedly.

Saleen took the opportunity to step outside the magic tower. A thunder dragon shrunk and constricted Jalin, before dragging her into Saleen's magic amplifier.

Saleen turned around, and Lex asked, "why are you taking that woman back here?"

"I don't know. I saw Van Gogh enthralled her so I…"

"You want to save her?" Lex looked rather glum.

"I'm just trying to get on Van Gogh's bad side. That man robbed ten of the goddess' temples all by himself. Heh…"

Lex knew about the goddess' luck. She was rather down on her luck as of late, and it was probably due to it being given to someone else, but she did not expect that person to be Van Gogh.

"It's lucky that I recorded the battle earlier. Arbola had her head busted, and I'm going to send this to the mages from Golden Plains. Yup, even if Van Gogh comes back, he will have to deal with Golden Plains first."

"Aren't you going to crush Golden Plains?" Lex asked.

Saleen remembered after being reminded. He smiled. "Alright, get back here, Eleanor, or Lex is going to be angry."

"Alright, I'm back!" Eleanor appeared at the window. Lex wanted to hit Saleen, but she felt rather embarrassed. She really believed that Saleen was going to massacre the entire Golden Plains, so she was irked.