Badge in Azure

Chapter 1530: A Mage's Deception (Part 1)

Saleen had no certainty of being able to acquire the secrets to the chaotic void. He pressured the Heretic God and had no intentions of sparing it. He was already able to learn something regarding the Heretic God's rules by analyzing the bits of its power of the Source, and he found that to be something utterly terrifying.

Common people would not even have had a chance to die when facing off against that Heretic God. It was out to make the entire crystal wall system into his own divine kingdom, before being able to advance to crystal wall systems of higher levels.

The Lord of Glory had been a far more compassionate god in comparison.

The Heretic God was backed to a corner, so it said to Saleen, "you have to guarantee that you will never destroy all of my power of the Source. Only then will I give you the star chart."

"Relax. The words of a mage are akin to an oath. If you're willing, we can sign a contract."

"A contract? Good," the Heretic God agreed, and he stuffed a contract scroll into the Aqua Fulgur.

Saleen never stopped attacking the Heretic God's divine persona while communicating with it. Cracks showed on that divine persona and quickly disappeared, looking like a world was being repeatedly created and then destroyed.

The power of lightning was brought to the extreme in that battle on the divine persona.

The Heretic God was forced by powers of such magnitude to yield and sign the contract. It hated every bit of it. It was unable to say anything about being set up by the Goddess of Myers, as they were both level 18 gods and had both lost their pinnacle powers, giving them the same status. However, the level 15 mage leaned on it again and again. It resented the treatment so badly that it swore that it would have all the friends and family of the mage become pillars in the Heretic God's temple just to let the Heretic God have a good look at them every day.

That would be a place more terrible than the Wall of Pain. The pillars holding up that evil were found at the deepest depths of hell after all.

The Heretic God signed the very unfair contract, which disappeared in the boundless Aqua Fulgur. The contents of the contract said that the Heretic God would give up the divine persona in return for Saleen leaving half of its remaining power of the Source behind.

Losing the divine persona would mean losing its power of rules, but that would be better than having its divine persona broken and its power of the Source all robbed away. The Heretic God dared not go on a match of patience with Saleen. The god felt that Saleen was in a place where many dead bodies of powerful gods were found.

The Heretic God handed the divine persona over. Half of its power of the Source gushed from it, wrapped up by Saleen's Aqua Fulgur.

It was stated clearly in the contract, and Saleen had a responsibility to keep that other half of the Heretic God's power of the Source protected. Saleen had no care for the power of the Source he extracted. He took the divine persona out and embedded it inside the Hall of God's magic array.

Saleen was the only one left in the Hall of Gods that, and he only had two gods for company.

The Heretic God and Dante.

The level 18 divine persona was embedded into the magic array, and the Hall of Gods finally revealed its original form. The divine remains on the walls came alive, as if countless ancient scrolls of pictures were being unraveled, playing epics right before Saleen's eyes.

Furthermore, everything looked insanely real. Time flew and Saleen saw a great many nations rise and fall and many heroes wither with age. He witnessed what happened to all the level 18 powerful ones, as well as the level 18 gods…

He split the remaining power of the Source of the Heretic God into two parts, one of which belonged to Saleen. After Saleen purified the part that belonged to him using the power of lightning, he let Dante take its time to absorb it.

The Heretic God was terrified. The contract that it signed with Saleen had an effective period of 10,000 years. However, it had no idea that 10,000 years in the Hall of Gods only equaled a month outside.

A level 18 divine persona was able to let the Hall of Gods run at its full potential, so much so that Saleen's Ring of Cosmos turned alongside the place, releasing a myriad of rules, playing out the plane's rise and fall thus far.

Saleen never expected all of the changes to happen, but he nonetheless continued doing things methodically and let Dante absorb the power of the Source.

There were few rules left in the Heretic God's power of the Source after he cleaned them using lightning. They were reduced to pure energy, and one thing that Dante lacked most for advancing was energy.

The Heretic God watched the changes unfold and knew right away what was in Saleen's mind.

"You lied to me, mage!"

"I didn't. It's stated in the contract. I'll protect you for 100 years and within those 100 years, I would never let Dante touch you. But if you were to attack me, the contract would be voided," Saleen smirked as he answered.

Duping a god was indeed fun, and the deception was successful, only because the Heretic God had given up its divine persona. With the divine persona, the magic array in the Hall of Gods was activated, and the Heretic God eventually ended up destroyed by its own hands.

If the two parties had clashed head on, the Heretic God might not have been a match for the frost dragon. If they dragged things out, he would have needed tens of thousands of years before being able to finish off the Heretic God, and that would have only been possible if he were to be able to advance quickly enough. If he were to remain at level 15, he would have needed to slog along until his death, and still he would not have been able to do anything against that level 18 divine persona.

The army was switched often within the line of defense. Tens of thousands of mages joined the line of defense and participated in the construction of the magic net. The entire line of defense had a magic net of a greater coverage installed. So long as there were ample enchanters on the job, the army that emerged from the gates of the divine kingdom would have suffered considerable losses.

The edge of the magic net was near the gates of the divine kingdom. Hundreds of thousands of enchanters cast magic spells at the same time. Their range of attacks was already extended into the divine kingdom itself.

Within the temple of the Goddess of Nature in the Purgatory Dessert, the divine beast patiently guarded over the goddess.

The goddess' body had become a forbidden tree. The tree was filled with fruits, and all of them looked jade green. As time blitzed past, the green fruits quickly matured. One by one, they cracked and dropped onto the temple's altar.

All of the fruits shriveled before even hitting the ground, all energies in them sucked out.

Among the thousands of fruits, only one managed to drop onto the altar in one piece.

The divine beast went up carefully and spit out a divine persona, putting it before the fruit. The fruit cracked and a figure the size of a thumb emerged.

That figure was none other than the goddess herself. She had to re-sculpt her body before being able to purge all of the effects of the Heretic God's power of the Source completely.

After taking the Heretic God's body and gaining most of its power of the Source, the goddess had what it would take to become the most powerful being in the world. The power of Myers Mainland had been completely restored, and no one would be able to pose a threat to her any longer.

The goddess smiled as her body gradually grew taller, returning to her original size within mere moments. She stretched for a bit. Her naked body was blown by the wind, and a pleased expression was seen on her face.

The forbidden tree wilted, but she did not care about it. She picked up the divine persona and gulped it down.

That was not how a piece of divine persona worked, but after returning to her powers at level 18, how it was done no longer mattered. The important thing was that she had regained mastery of the highest rules of the crystal wall system.

"I wonder how our puny mage is doing?" There is nothing she had to be worried about at present. She took out her plane map and opened it. Despite the fact that her power of the Source was capable of enveloping the entire Myers Mainland, enabling her to check out any given place at any given time, doing so would cause quite a drain in her powers of the Source.

She had yet to plan to leave that crystal wall system, so if she were to keep using such powers, Myers Mainland would quickly fall into decline, returning to how it had once been.

"Hmm?" She looked for Saleen, but she was unable to find him on the plane map. She had also lost track of the level 18 scroll.

So that guy was probably afraid of her.

The goddess chuckled and said to the divine beast, "alright, I'm going to resurrect our brothers and sisters. Stay here and be on the lookout for the mage called Saleen. Tell me as soon as he emerges."

The divine beast yelped reluctantly, but the goddess paid no heed to it, heading right outside the temple.

The tablet contained her followers, angels, oracles and powerful apostles of the Nature Faith. After consuming over half of the Heretic God's powers and the divine persona that she had hidden before, she became confident of being able to resurrect all of the people.

Brilliant light lit up on the Mountain without End. All the powerful magic beasts in the area looked at the top of the Mountain without End in fright. That power was supreme and every single intelligent being was unable to help but step forward, heading towards the mountain to worship the god within.

The magic beasts in the Purgatory Dessert sensed something as well. However, given how the temple's aura was sealed, the magic beasts were only able to discover the emergence of the great power instinctively, and it had shaken their souls.

The accidental burst of power, the one time where the goddess simply did as she pleased, rattled all the powerful beings throughout the dessert.

The divine beast stayed inside the temple and watched. After spending over a month waiting in boredom, it roared suddenly.

It looked at Saleen, finding that damned mage seemed to have advanced yet again. It was unable to fathom how it had been possible. The divine beast had seen him as a piece of trash, given how his talents were nowhere near extraordinary, so much so that even calling him 'average' would have been an overstatement.

Saleen had indeed advanced, but the advancement was rather incomplete. He had been training in the Hall of Gods for over 10,000 years, and still he had not been able to fulfill his wish. He had barely gotten to level 17, yet unlike the past, he was unable to gain the most powerful combat prowess of the level.

The only thing that evolved was his magic chords. He still knew little about rules.

That was very peculiar. It was usually impossible to get to level 16 without mastering complete rules, but Saleen had actually skipped level 16 and had gotten to level 17 instead.

The contract he signed with the Heretic God had long expired. Saleen went on to purify the other half of the Heretic God's power of the Source and absorbed it himself, which was what resulted in his advancement. If a god were to do so, they would have been able to completely absorb such powers of the Source, and would have definitely become a level 18 god, albeit only becoming the weakest of level 18 gods by doing so.

It was fortunate that Dante had gotten to level 17 as well, meaning that they would have enough to kill the Lord of Glory.

Saleen was surprised to find, when he emerged, that his teacher had gotten to the pinnacle state of level 16. While he was already at level 17, he still felt rather helpless before his teacher.

The most surprised of them all was Guffen the frost dragon. It was shocked to find that Saleen had been able to jump two levels after only training in isolation for a month. It of course had no idea that once a level 18 divine persona was embedded into the Hall of Gods, all kinds of possibilities could have happened.

The greatest use that served was to aid the one who was training inside.

Entering the Hall of Gods meant that one would gain multiple powerful lineages, so long as you were able to pay ample price, which was the divine persona.