Badge in Azure

Rafel absorbed the fruit given to her by the goddess and felt all of her divinity dissipate. It had been the Source of her power, but the dissipated divinity was quickly replaced by another form of power—the power of nature, also known as the power of life on some planes.

The Goddess of Myers had no interest in helping Rafel advance. She had only used a bit of her power to kill off Rafel's divinity, making her into a living being that was part of nature.

It was a form of experimentation. As an angel who was stripped of her divinity but retained her power and levels, she was probably the first of her kind in history.

Rafel lowered her head in silence for a bit, before lifting her head again. "My lord, my wings…"

"Disappeared?"

"No." Rafel spread her wings and found every single feather was green. She flapped her wings for a bit and felt the power of nature permeate her wings and course through her body at a frightening rate.

"That is the power of a human priest. Of course, believers of the Goddess of Myers are capable of something similar," Saleen said to Rafel.

"I do not need such believers." The goddess's voice was quickly cut off. She seemed to no longer be able to observe what was happening in that space.

"My lord, I can no longer use my former skills, but I do retain my close quarter combat abilities."

"Good enough." Saleen hardly minded. After Rafel ceased being an angel, her rate of advancement would skyrocket. He had never needed her ranged attack abilities anyway. Rafel would be even more useful to Saleen devoid of divinity.

At the very least, pressure the gods could exert on Rafel would be considerably reduced. Rafel would initially suffer a sharp drop in powers when meeting the Lord of Glory. At present, she was no longer an angel, which would make her like a human— capable of facing off against the gods and bringing all of their combat prowess to bear.

Rafel was no longer an angel who lost her god. Her greatest shortcoming was resolved.

"My lord, it seems that our ordeal is about to begin."

Rafel brandished her spear and stood in front of Saleen. It was a very natural move on her part. Saleen was a mage. When small battles were carried out, warriors always stood in front of the mages to keep them from harm.

Saleen chuckled and said to Rafel, "Rafel if I had a sword right now, my combat prowess would still be comparable to a level ten true might."

"It is a habit of mine to protect you," Rafel answered. She was calm, but many thoughts ran through her head. If it had not been for her deciding to follow Saleen, she and her angels probably would have met their end a long time ago. Myers Mainland was rather weak when she first arrived, but there were some very difficult beings to deal with.

Saleen was the only one who had never thought of dismantling her angels. To any powerful being, she and the metal angels were little more than the best alchemical materials there were.

Thousands of tiny bugs shot out of a puddle not far away from them. Every single bug had a bluish metallic sheen. They were unnoticeable in the green puddle.

Saleen cast an area-of-effect spell right after the bugs shot out—Frost.

Frost had a low offensive capacity. Even if the spell was upgraded to a level comparable to a territory, it still would have a hard time killing enemies. However, when the spell reached territory-like levels, it gained a very powerful attribute—Slow.

Within the territory of Frost, the attribute Slow took top priority. Even if the spell was countered with fire-type forbidden curses, the Slow status was difficult to repel.

There were many similar skills within the family of water magic spells, but they were of greater lethality. Saleen, who had only been able to learn water magic in his early days, just honed a spell that was deemed a waste of time by many elemental mages, to utter mastery, due specifically to his handicap.

The Slow effect of Frost showed immediately. It was not until both Saleen and Rafel were covered by a layer of Water Shield, that the tiny Wind Blades in the thousands hit them.

The Water Shield and Frost were cast at the same time. Saleen instantly cast two magic spells. It was an ability that he had only acquired after getting to level 15.

If it had not been for Frost, the Wind Blades would have hit them both first.

While they could have easily averted death due to defensive equipment they carried, they would have been severely injured if the attacks landed. Saleen had never seen Wind Blades capable of traveling at such speeds. The Wind Blades were not of high levels, but if laid bare while being hit by thousands of Wind Blades, one would end up being cut to pieces.

Saleen broke out in a cold sweat, thinking that the Goddess of Myers was going a little too far with her ordeal.

It was only then that Saleen was able to take a good look at the bugs, which rendered him speechless. The bugs were almost identical to the Bug Angel Armors that he created. The ability of casting Wind Blades in flight was similar as well.

If he had not been careful enough to cast Frost first, he probably would have had to use his Figure of Fate.

Saleen had long realized that the Figure of Fate could not be used indefinitely. If it was hit by attacks that were too powerful, it would take a considerable amount of time to repair it. Furthermore, restoring it to its original state would be very difficult as well. All of that was because his proficiency at astrology was only at level ten. He was not advanced enough to be able to quickly repair the Figure of Fate with all the materials he needed.

"Damn you, Gaine. So this is how you bait me to keep learning astrology?" Saleen thought to himself.

Saleen shook his head, casting any thoughts of continuing to train in astrology away.

Saleen found the notion of giving up magic just because one's life was in threat ridiculous. No mage had been known to make such choices during ancient times, even though astrologers were of considerably high status as well back then.

The thousands of bugs did not cease attacking. The effect of Frost did not hold on for that long. It was still an instant-cast spell instead of a true territorial power. Saleen had only cast that spell due to speed. Being able to even hold the Wind Blades at bay was already considered a miracle.

The thousands of bugs continued to venture outside of Frost's area-of-effect, but Saleen would not simply sit by and do nothing. His second spell was already prepped, and it was still elemental magic.

He did not use the Lightning Moon just to stretch out his fighting duration. The goddess said that there were 24 powerful magic beasts found within that space.

He would have to fight 24 times, and the bugs were simply the appetizer. The true battle had yet to begin, and he deemed it best to conserve his lightning magic chords for the time being.

Saleen's expenditure of magic chords when casting elemental magic was almost negligible. He was advanced enough that it hardly strained him. It was only when casting lightning magic that the expenditure of magic chords fit his level.

Ice Storm!

The spell was a compound magic spell derived from both wind and water type magic. The spell felt eerie when Saleen cast it. Countless hard shards of ice shattered into pieces with extremely sharp edges, which then danced in the gale without any order to speak of.

The bugs were hit by the ice and easily cut up. Juice from their bodies spilled everywhere, splattering the ground with little dots. Saleen wrinkled his nose.

However, the bugs did not die and continued to cast Wind Blades instead. The Wind Blades became erratic in the Ice Storm, hitting all over the place.

Saleen took control of the situation and cast his final attack.

Scorching flames burst before the Ice Storm's duration was completely over, enveloping all the bugs within. Rafel had to back away for a bit to prevent her eyebrows from being singed.

"Looks like you never lost touch, my lord!" Rafel was impressed. She meant his proficiency at using elemental magic when she said 'lost touch'. Saleen's offensive capacity skyrocketed when he gained access to lightning magic, as well as having equipment as powerful as the Thunder Dragon Blaster at his disposal. He hardly used elemental magic spells to deal with his enemies anymore.

However, Saleen had never stopped training in elemental magic. He had instead taken time to look into magic notes left behind by his predecessors.

If he had used Dance of Electric Snakes, he would have dealt with the bugs in one go. However, doing so would have cost him 100 times more magic chords than what he used. Rafel had been worried that Saleen would let power go to his head and mess up his judgment. From the looks of things at the moment, however, it seemed that she never had to worry.

"Relax, you'll be having quite a hard time in future battles." Blue currents burst from Rafel's body before Saleen was able to finish. She took flight and charged at the flames.

A huge bug was charging at Saleen from the flames. There were three pairs of wings on the bug's back. When all three pairs of wings flapped, three pairs of terrifying magic spells were cast.

Dimensional Blade.

The lethality of wind attack spells had always been scoffed at, and they were lower than even water type magic in terms of offensive capacity. However, Dimensional Blade made it clear that wind magic was still very capable of doing great damage.

At the very least, if Saleen had only had one layer of Water Shield on, it would have been very difficult for him to block the attacks from the Wind Blades. The blades did seem to resemble true space magic.

Saleen braced himself for the impact, but before he could cast any spell to reinforce his Water Shield, Rafel cast Metal Cutting from her spear and put it right before her. Her fly-and-halt movement was textbook accurate for warriors. All six Dimensional Blades collided with the Metal Cutting spell.

The spell was destroyed by the Dimensional Blades, but they continued flying at Saleen without even veering off-course.

Rafel climbed several meters in the air, dodging attacks from the Dimensional Blades, before doing a somersault midair and landing right onto the huge bug's back. Rafel did not care if Saleen was able to evade the incoming attacks. She thrust her spear downward, but she aimed for the bug's tail—at the slit on the organ used for intercourse.

The huge bug crashed to the ground immediately. Rafel dislodged her spear and a short sword appeared on her left hand, which she plunged into the bug's carapace.

The short sword was a renowned weapon. It served as a beacon for divine spells. When she was still an angel with a god, she had worked seamlessly with her god in battle. That weapon, when lodged on the enemy, allowed her god to easily target said enemy and kill it if she could not. It was a lock-on function that was incapable of being negated, even with godly item-level equipment.

Rafel informed Saleen of the attribute of the weapon, and he created magic-marking weapons in response.

Saleen might have been average in terms of creativity, but it was still easy for him to add some imagination to his imitations. After Rafel's magic-marking short sword was lodged into the back of the bug, she charged forward. There were still enemies behind the huge bug.

There was a smaller bug, too. It was a little more than a meter long and was right behind that huge bug. The smaller bug had 12 pairs of wings, and they were conjuring 24 Dimensional Blades.

Rafel took a deep breath and cast 24 pests in an instant, lunging at the smaller bug.

All 24 of them were, no doubt, summoned from the War Drum of Fear. The bugs were of insignificant levels, but they were more than enough to trigger the Dimensional Blades.

A magic staff appeared in Saleen's hand. He knew the upcoming battles would be difficult, and the staff allowed him to conserve his magic chords further. Saleen had never needed to do anything like that in the past. If this was the first magic beast, what would the later ones be like?