Badge in Azure

Chapter 1502: Baiting and Killing the Heretic God (Part 1)

If Nailisi were to be able to create a Purgatory of Shadows in the 12 Notes of First Purgatory, the rules that she would have eventually extracted would have been more powerful than what was mastered by Agares.

Nailisi did not bring the subject up anymore after throwing that shadow warrior into the collection of purgatories, instead turning her attention to fight the god creatures in earnest.

The god creatures were not weak; they were actually hard to kill. That was because the Lord of Glory would have required several days to arrive. Amassing an army in the millions was but a test assault.

That provided an excellent chance for Nailisi. Her collection of purgatories required god creatures to fill it. Every single inch of the spaces required fortification, and some powers needed to be worked on. The god creatures possessed the power of the Source as well. While their levels were not high, they had the advantage of having higher purity and a greater abundance of such powers.

Things would not have actually turned that dire. It was all thanks to information fed back to him by his double a while ago. The Lord of Glory knew his double had chased the mage over 10000 kilometers and was eventually lost in a space that did not belong to Myers Mainland.

There was no way the powerful beings found within that place would have been able to emerge.

However, the Lord of Glory was overly cautious and decided to launch the assault methodically. He had first sent a scouting party to test things out, among them being people specifically tasked with investigating matters regarding the Imperial City of the Abyss.

The Lord of Glory did not expect Myers Mainland to have reacted so quickly.

He had no way of knowing that, in order to take on his divine kingdom, Saleen had long prepped his army in the Baldur's Gate, and that they were ready to be deployed in any battlefield.

If it had been entirely up to the nations found on the mainland, amassing such a large army and of levels so high would have been utterly impossible.

The massacre within the divine kingdom went on for quite a while. To the gods, losing armies in the millions was hardly even worth mentioning. Resurrecting them within the divine kingdom was far easier to do than it would have been if they had been elsewhere.

Gods usually would have waited until the fighting was over to resurrect their armies. However, things were different this time. Whether it was by Nailisi, Van Gogh, or Agares, the bodies of god creatures that were killed were being absorbed, preventing those god creatures from being resurrected.

Even the Winged Skull had taken to stuffing the dead bodies of the god creatures into the spirit space. God creatures of the Lord of Glory were capable of suppressing spirits to a certain extent. However, if those dead bodies were to be converted into spirits, they would have been even more powerful instead.

At that moment, the general and the others in the Imperial City of the Abyss were gradually gaining solid ground, allowing them to shake off the shackles of the graves. While their graves had indeed allowed them to survive, they had also robbed the heroic spirits of their freedom.

"What now, Myers? Are we doing this now?" the general asked.

"It would be better to do it outside. If we were to fight here, we'd end up wrecking the entire cemetery," the goddess answered plainly before turning around, leaving the Cemetery of Heroes. It was as if she had not just personally destroyed a large number of graves back there.

The general did not bother getting petty with her. He then followed the goddess and Saleen out of the cemetery.

Saleen hauled the sealed youth in his arms, following directly beside the goddess, who made her way straight to the royal palace. The general's expression turned glum—the goddess was about to take the entire palace apart.

But then again, the royal palace would have been the best battlefield there was. Regardless of the level of the god who advents, they would have lost some power at the royal palace. Only a peculiar god like the goddess was able to continue using her original level of powers.

Saleen knew that his weapon spirit worked the same way as well. Inheriting the abilities of the God of Magic Net meant that Dante was capable of using elemental magic in any environment. Saleen thought that perhaps such a peculiar breed of gods would have been made a target by the other gods.

If they were to look into and unlock the secrets to Dante's rules, all of them would have probably been able to shake free of the weaknesses of being gods, and they would have no longer needed to be over-reliant on the powers of their believers.

One-hundred heroic spirits crossed the imperial city and came to the royal palace. The general was rather angry upon seeing the broken gates, but he quickly calmed himself and remained silent.

Even if the goddess were to not destroy the palace herself, it would have only been a matter of time before the place was turned into rubble.

It was simply impossible to return everything to how it once was. Most of their comrades back then had made their way to crystal wall systems of higher levels, and none of them would have ever returned. That palace was but a place for mourning, and there was hardly anything special about it.

The general finally laughed at that thought.

The goddess then said, "Congratulations. I see that you've finally made peace with things."

"Indeed, I have. Let's just kill the Heretic God and get on with it." A weapon then materialized behind the general. It was a flail.

The flail was a weapon that he had been using from the time he began learning martial arts right until he reached level 18. The very first form of that weapon was one of very common equipment. The general then worked on the weapon meticulously every time he advanced, and he had finally made it into a godly item.

The grandmaster saw that the general had decided to first kill the Heretic God before taking on the goddess, so he conjured a flowing magic robe upon his body.

That magic robe was all white and had been given to him by his teacher back when he first learned magic. He had worked on it and modified it since, and it had stayed with him until he reached level 17.

He was one step away from becoming a level 18 mage, but his physical death had caused his level to drop to 16. He would have only recovered his powers at level 17 by using his magic robe's powers.

The heroic spirits all switched to the equipment that they were the most comfortable with, as they were getting ready to fight.

There was a platform north of the royal palace that was initially meant for the king's amusement. Materials reinforced by magic allowed the platform to stay sturdy even in the present day. That platform was flat. The sealed youth finally said something.

"Everyone, if you intend to bait the Heretic God, it'd be best if I were allowed to cooperate with you," they said.

The goddess shot a glance at the youth, saying, "I don't need what is best in any way. I only need the Heretic God to show up."

"I know the Heretic God's weaknesses," the youth continued.

"So do I," the goddess retorted.

The youth had been very confident of themselves earlier. They thought that given how the goddess had captured them just to bait the Heretic God, they would have been able to move the goddess and get themselves free.

It seemed, however, that the goddess was not joking at all. That youth then simply said, "What if I were to tell you weaknesses of the Heretic God without asking for anything in return, and then work with you to bait the Heretic God? How about that?"

"Heh." The goddess snickered and began to lay a new magic array on the ground.

"That is the goddess not willing to dupe you. Even if the goddess were to set you free, I'd kill you all the same," Saleen said to the youth.

"What the h*ll are you!?" the youth yelled.

"I'm sorry, I'm a person and you - you are just a tool to be used," Saleen said as he pressed an Eternal Control Shard into the youth's head.

The shard had been made by Saleen using broken divine personas, which was the most resilient type of material that he was able to use.

Saleen had only just realized how powerful those pieces of broken jade that he had acquired back then were. When seen using his soul sensory, he was able to make out the rules of the Eternal Control Shard very clearly, and that had not even been one percent as strong as that of the broken jade.

The youth was dumbfounded by what Saleen had done, but they quickly found that their soul was being placed under his control.

"Hahaha. You dumb mage. What's the use of putting my soul under control, eh? Don't you know that my soul is incomplete, and Lord Heretic will just resurrect me?" The youth saw how the goddess and those around her were impervious to any machinations and no longer bothered with deception. They dropped the act altogether and began to ridicule everyone instead.

The goddess snickered and said to Saleen, "Do whatever you want to do with that thing. Just leave me the soul. I have use for it."

Saleen nodded and took out a chair. He sat beside the youth. The general looked on from afar with interest, wondering what Saleen would have done with the believer of the Heretic God.

Saleen looked into the youth's eyes, finding them very determined. It occurred to him that breaking the youth's mind would have taken quite some time.

"Myers, how much time do we have?" Saleen asked.

"An hour. I will activate the magic an hour from now and summon the Heretic God," the goddess replied.

Summon, eh…?

Saleen did not know if he should have been impressed by what she said, or if he simply found her insane for doing so. If the Heretic God were to be summoned, there was no way they would be able to send it back. Gods of such levels, when successfully summoned, only stopped when they were done wrecking the entire plane.

"Are you thinking that not being able to die is a good thing? I know someone who lived for hundreds of thousands of years, but that someone was in constant pain. If he were to have continued on like that, he might have ended up killing himself. Well then, let me ask you. What are the Heretic God's weaknesses?" Saleen lowered his head while he spoke to the youth. The chair he sat on made it seem as though he was looking down on the youth, who simply smirked coldly and said nothing.

A blue electrical bolt appeared in Saleen's hand. He then touched the forehead of the youth gently. Their body jerked violently as if they were a fish out of water.

However, the youth laughed and glared at Saleen ferociously, saying, "Is that all you've got?"

"Of course not. I was never able to find suitable targets for practicing these skills, so I don't know what use they actually serve. Good thing I met you since nothing is able to kill you. Do you know that the thing I just placed inside your brain is something that will protect your soul? If you end up dead, I'd be suffering a huge loss," Saleen said.

Saleen's finger weaved around the youth's forehead and continued to probe.

It was only then that the youth's expression changed drastically. They realized that the goddess had no need for their secrets, and so the mage was allowed to do what he pleased.

"By the way, the lie detection used by mages is not as accurate as what I just placed into your brain. I'll know when you're lying to me. Now, let me ask again. What are the weaknesses of the Heretic God?" Saleen asked.

"Didn't you say that you don't want to know?" The youth huffed and puffed. Their expression looked twisted. They did not fear common pain, but the electrical discharge in their brain felt like it was burning their very soul.

"You're right; I don't want to know. But I also know that you have no intention of telling me the answer. So, I was just asking for fun," Saleen said as he turned the electrical bolt in his hand into a tiny snake. The snake wriggled around on the youth's face before heading for their nostril.

The youth was utterly terrified. That was the first time they had heard someone speak the way Saleen just had. Because he had been trying to find out if the youth had any intention of cooperating, Saleen went on to ask things that the youth would definitely not have wanted to answer.

That meant that Saleen was hoping that they would have refused to answer anything.

That tiny snake conjured from electricity was only about as long as a pinky, and it was about as thick as the floaters used for finishing. The electric snake was unusually nimble. It also had scales and eyes, and the patterns on its body were both mysterious and beautiful. That was the first time Saleen had created a perfect living being using only his own powers.

The electric snake was a level 15 lightning type magic beast.