Badge in Azure

Due to not having established any teleportation portals at the nations of the East Sea just yet, Saleen planned to take a demon army made up of a million soldiers with him on the trip. He would send them home after conquering those nations.

The battles near the gates of the divine kingdom were still of utmost importance, after all. He was unable to just put his trust in anyone else, and it was not certain that the goddess would have helped him out.

Saleen had changed a lot. The most noticeable difference was his attempts at not pinning his hopes on anyone else for whatever he intended to do if he was able to help it.

While Saleen believed that his teacher would have definitely been able to emerge victorious in the battle with the Lord of Glory, he saw fit to keep himself in the loop instead of letting his teacher handle everything. It was not right to make Jason do everything.

Saleen brought Rafel and no one else. Both of them came to the temple at the center of Purgatory Dessert.

The Mountain without End seemed to have gotten even higher, and the myriad of magic beasts within the temple's space seemed to have gotten a lot more powerful as well. The goddess was managing her divine kingdom, and it was difficult for her to do so without using the power of the Source of Myers Mainland.

A god who was familiar with level 18 rules would have been able to expand their divine kingdom hundreds of times over.

It was due precisely to Saleen having felt that the temple's space was beginning to take the form of a divine kingdom that he did not rush his efforts to take on the goddess. If she had become capable of making the place her divine kingdom, then she would no longer have to absorb any power of the Source of the mainland.

So long as she was able to keep her divine kingdom stable, the creatures born within the divine kingdom would grant her eternal life.

But then again, Saleen had no idea where the creatures came from. She had killed a massive amount of god creatures back then, and it was due to her collection of such creatures that she was able to create the space.

The goddess' combat capacity within that space was several times better than when she was outside. That was why she had been capable of stopping Saleen's lightning attack easily, but had to resort to borrowing Saleen's Lightning Moon when doing battle outside.

"Why are we seeing Myers, my lord?" Rafel was unable to fathom why Saleen kept doing so. From her perspective, the goddess was Saleen's enemy, not his ally.

"The goddess stays true to the principle of fairness," Saleen answered.

"Well said, Saleen. Come over." Saleen stopped at the shore of a river, and a dazzling, multi-colored bridge appeared before him. Saleen stepped onto it without hesitation.

Rafel followed exasperatedly.

The rainbow bridge quickly receded, carrying Saleen and Rafel back to the temple in the Mountain without End. Saleen felt as if time stopped. The speed at which the bridge moved exceeded his Comet Flash.

What exasperated Saleen further was that the skill that he had wanted to learn for a long time—Rainbow—took him less than a second to pick up while in the temple.

Rainbow was a difficult spell to learn due to the massive stress it put on one's body. No mage below level 13 was able to survive a successful cast of the spell without special equipment. Their bodies would disintegrate, and there was no way to reconstruct them.

As such, despite the spell being one that he could have picked up a long time ago, he never had the courage to actually do it.

At the moment, however, the goddess forced the skill onto Saleen, but that was not a good thing for him. A goddess like her would ask him to work after giving him a reward of some kind.

Saleen believed that the goddess was capable of taking back the skill at any moment if he refused the goddess' request.

But the goddess' version of Rainbow was totally different from what Saleen knew. His intuition told him that it was capable of being fused with his Comet Flash. If the two skills were combined, then his speed at atmospheric flight would be enhanced several times over.

That meant that if Saleen were to cast Comet Flash, he would probably end up tens of kilometers away in an instant, and he would crush himself if he were to run into anything.

It went without saying that anyone unlucky enough to be standing in his way would suffer the same fate as well.

Better save such a skill for after getting over level 16 then.

The goddess gifted him with a skill that allowed him to achieve evolution as soon as he showed up, and it was a gift he found difficult to refuse. Well then, Myers sure as hell was going to ask for something in return, no?

A huge, hovering ball of light in the center of the temple displayed a projection of the entire plane.

Saleen took one look at the ball of light and knew that the table that he had last taken was a defective product. The ball of light was constantly being updated with the latest happenings throughout the mainland—a feat which was unachievable with the table that he had taken away. It would take years for the table to switch to a new map.

"O' Revered Goddess of Myers, may I ask how could I be of service?" Saleen asked preemptively, to prevent himself from being put on the defensive.

"Well, I'm not actually going to ask anything of you. I see what you are doing, Saleen. Great idea founding the Fifth Dynasty, but the divine kingdom's assault is getting worse. Are you trying to get me to do something by putting the entire Myers Mainland at stake?" The goddess sounded rather irked, but Saleen relaxed instead.

"No. I'm fully capable of stopping the divine kingdom's advances."

"You are fully capable of doing so? Don't you know what the Lord of Glory is?"

"Something you could easily kill at a whim," Saleen answered.

"That is me, not you!"

"Goddess, even if the Lord of Glory plans to advent personally, I'm still confident of being able to take him out."

"You're confident? The Lord of Glory has 126 doubles!"

The Goddess of Myers was apparently rather irked. While she was indeed fully capable of killing the Lord of Glory, the last time she left the temple, it affected the progress of resurrecting her people. If she were to leave again, all of them would have had to stay asleep for good.

She was unable to be at two places at a time, forbidding her from taking out the Lord of Glory, and Saleen was going about founding the Fifth Dynasty. The forces throughout Myers Mainland would be spread too thin as a result.

"I have 120 legions of demons at my disposal, and every single one of them consists of 64,000 units. All of them are ready to fight to the death at any given moment, and every single one of them has combat prowess comparable to a level nine angel."

"The Lord of Glory's true army of angels is an army of level ten angels, led by a level 13 captain!"

"I have the Lightning Moon, which is capable of unleashing hours of lightning attacks."

"But you're about to leave."

"Didn't you give me Rainbow so that I could return as soon as possible?"

The goddess took a good look at the young mage's face. In truth, Saleen was anything but young. If his age were to be calculated chronologically, he was actually over 4,000 years old. He had used over 4,000 years to get to level 15, and that was an indication of extremely terrible talent, when judged by ancient standards.

"If the Lord of Glory takes the plane, I'll kill you before anything else."

The goddess threw a green fruit to Saleen and said, "feed this to your angel and get out of my face."

That was the first time her mood had truly been sullied. It was only a matter of time before Saleen became her enemy, but he was the only one she had for protecting Myers Mainland.

If she had killed Saleen right there and then, Jason would have done everything in his power to destroy Myers Mainland.

The goddess knew the likes of Jason very well. He was the kind of man who would easily disregard the lives of innocents in his pursuit of revenge.

There was no way Jason could defeat her, but he had the power to make sure that nothing would ever grow on Myers Mainland ever again. A level 16 mage was someone who had exceeded what it meant to be a human; such a mage had become something resembling gods.

Furthermore, Jason was not a heroic spirit. There was no way she could deal with him like how he had dealt with the grandmaster.

Saleen took the fruit and asked, "what is this thing?"

"Something that will strip a being of divinity altogether, but retain their levels and combat capacity."

"Thanks a lot. I'll return to the mainland before the Lord of Glory enters." Saleen laughed as he turned around and left.

He found the goddess to be utterly terrifying, as she surprisingly knew what he was after.

Rafel was indeed very formidable in combat, but she had only been able to get to level 14 even after training for over 2,000 years, and that had only happened because she had level 14 powers to begin with.

Saleen was actually there to see if there was any chance he could fix Rafel's problem. Her skill at combat was simply spectacular. If she were to be able to advance further, she would be the one being of greatest help to Saleen.

Both Jola and Sul had their new roles as managers, becoming a part of the Metatrin family. Rafel was, on the other hand, would be able to command large scale battles as a supreme commander.

If one such supreme commander's level was unable to be advanced further, it would drastically affect his future plans.

In the eyes of others, a level 14 angel would be more than powerful enough, but Saleen did not think so. It was only a matter of time before Myers Mainland returned to the glorious times of its ancient past. However, his enemies would be just as troublesome as those faced during ancient times.

"Heh, you think you could just leave like that? You'll need to face at least one ordeal before you're allowed to leave this time."

The goddess cast a ball of green light, shrouding both Saleen and Rafel in it.

Saleen was unfazed. He and Rafel were both transported to an independent space in an instant. The terrain was made up of swamps and wetlands. A thick mist covered the place, and many dangerous beings lurked within the mist.

"My lord!" Rafel was frightened.

"It's fine. About time I see what I'm made of." Saleen threw the green fruit to Rafel and said, "Eat this."

The goddess' voice was heard. "There are 24 powerful magic beasts in this space, Saleen. You will be allowed to leave if you are able to kill them all. If not, you'll be forever lost in this space."

"Any limitations I should know of?" Saleen asked.

"There is none. However, a month within the space equals a day outside. If you spend too much time there…"

"Understood." Saleen cut the goddess off. If he spent too much time in that space, then he would no longer be able to participate in whatever events that would have happened back in the mainland.

If he were to be unable to pass the goddess' ordeal, then the goddess would deem him incapable of taking on the Lord of Glory.

If he were unable to get this done in time, he would lose everything. Saleen decided he had underestimated just how temperamental a god could be. The goddess was angry, and she was in no mood to reason with Saleen.

There was no way he could have used such a space to train. If he were to really spend months there, the probability of the Lord of Glory coming to the mainland personally would be very high. He needed to defeat the 24 magic beasts and return to the mainland.

The goddess seemed to be waiting for Rafel to eat that fruit, and so she did not do anything to attack them yet. Rafel took one look at Saleen, who nodded, before she pressed that green fruit to her belly.

Saleen was startled, but quickly realized that the fruit was but a construct of energy. It was Rafel's instinct as an angel to absorb such energies with the quickest way possible.