Badge in Azure

Chapter 299: Black Bishop (Part 2)

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

This was not the first time Saleen had come across a powerful adversary. The most perilous encounter was when he had met the white deacon. Back then, he had been ignorant, so he had actually negotiated with the white deacon and managed to escape. However, this time was different. The deacons working under the oracles were not killing maniacs. They had clear motives in doing things, and thus, if they received certain benefits in return, their target might survive.

However, the black bishop from the inquisition was entirely different. There was no room for negotiation, and furthermore, Saleen had just killed his son.

At this moment, Saleen did not dare to go airborne because the black bishop could fly faster than him. If he had flew, the situation would be starkly different from what happened earlier on. He would not have the advantage of speed anymore.

Nailisi felt as though she were being targeted by a demon as the two people wielding the double edged blades approached from her left and right. The fully constructed puppets charged at them but were flung dozens of meters away by their kicks.

These two people were too quick. After all, the two puppets were not living things. They could still deal with swordmasters as long as they were under Nailisi's control. However, these two men were potentially bronze grand swordmasters, or even black metal grand swordmasters.

Nailisi was beginning to miss Sika. If Sika had been around, they could have taken on a person each, and Nailisi would have been more confident too. Nailisi's new skill was extremely obscure. As long as the target did not pay attention, they would also be hurt even if they were a silver grand swordmaster. As long as Nailisi could grab onto either one of them, the electric current would be able to paralyze that person.

The problem was that there were two enemies at the moment. If Nailisi grabbed onto one of them, her movement speed would be drastically decreased, and the other man would be able to kill her. Nailisi was not confident she could dodge the attacks. Furthermore, the two men did not care about each other's wellbeing, which made Nailisi very worried.

Woo…

The two men approached from the left and right at the same time, displaying the color of blood, and their blades like two pairs of scissors. The four blades had blocked off Nailisi's route of retreat. Each blade was four feet in length while Nailisi's dagger was only the size of a palm. If Nailisi wanted to retaliate, her speed would need to exceed that of the two men.

All of a sudden, Nailisi made an unexpected move. Her body shrank violently, and she crouched in the snow. There was a thick layer of snow on the ground, and Nailisi managed to hide in the snow.

The four blades fell out of the sky. As the blades burst with surges of the sword aura, the snowy area exploded, forming a vast blanket of whiteness and reducing visibility to zero. After crouching down, Nailisi had become more agile. Even though demons were intelligent creatures, the way they fought was similar to that of magic beasts. With Nailisi's four limbs pasted against the ground, the two men had lost her.

Nailisi crawled through the thick layer of snow and made her way into the depths of the forest. Once again, the two fully constructed puppets lunged at the two men. The heavy weapons in the puppets' hands caused them to be fearful. They could not afford to get into a head-on clash with the puppets, hence they decided to go around the puppets and give them a kick.

Their kicks were infused with the sword aura. The sound of metal breaking came from within the puppets' bodies, then the puppets fell onto the ground. With the dragonshard, the puppets could regenerate their bodies, but the parts which were damaged by the sword aura would need a significant amount of time to be regenerated. At least for now, Nailisi could no longer rely on the two puppets anymore.

Not only were their sword auras astonishing, but their movement speed was also faster than any of the enemies which Nailisi had previously come across.

Saleen had no time to care about Nailisi at the moment. The bishop's perception had locked onto him. He felt as if his body was trapped to the tree by huge shackles, and his feet could not move at all.

"Hmph!" Saleen grunted loudly. The surrounding air trembled furiously, and at the same time, he cast the Quickcloud spell before taking out his clan badge.

At this moment, Saleen only hoped that Nailisi could defeat those two men. If Saleen could not handle the black bishop, he would have to take some risk by using the special attributes of his clan badge to fight. This badge could even absorb the power of a dragon. Furthermore, the black bishop only possessed the power of a grade-7 mage at best, and thus, Saleen was confident that he would be able to absorb all of the bishop's power.

Seeing that Saleen had released some fog behind the tree, the black bishop sneered in response. The shape of his red pupils fluctuated constantly, like flickering flames. His eyes could see right through any type of confusion magic, and the bishop was also well aware of Saleen's position behind the tree.

The black bishop and Saleen stood facing each other, separated only by that large tree. The bishop did not go around the tree. Instead, he began saying a prayer.

"God says, whichever place He is not present in, is hell."

The black bishop's prayer was extremely short. It was the shortest prayer Saleen had ever heard. The moment the bishop stopped speaking, red flames immediately emerged from the surrounding snowy ground. These flames were genuine and tangible, unlike the cold flames produced by the black deacon earlier on. The red flames soared from the ground, causing the temperature to rise sharply and crackling sounds to be heard from within the snow. The snow became water vapor and intertwined with Saleen's fog, as though it were trying to destroy Saleen's Quickcloud spell.

There was still a water shield within that Quickcloud spell. Hence, when the flames began burning, Saleen remained unharmed. However, the attack that came after that was a hundred times stronger. The snow which was vaporized by the flames turned into airflows which resembled tornadoes. There were at least one hundred of these airflows, and they charged towards Saleen.

"Er…"

A muffled noise came from Saleen's throat. Saleen felt that not only was the black bishop controlling the water vapor, but the surrounding air had also been totally depleted of it after the flames had started burning.

The Vacuum Imprisonment spell!

Besides using the water vapor formed from the Quickcloud spell, Saleen could not use the other surrounding water elements to supplement his spell's depletion. This holy master's divine spells and magic spells were extremely similar, and could restrict Saleen's mobility at the same time. Saleen could only stand on the spot and cast spells. He could not do anything else.

A water shield covered Saleen's body while a green water flow encircled the water shield. At this point in time, he could raise his left hand. Saleen put on the demonic bracelet, which was mosaicked with the dragonshard, on his left hand. He decided to draw elemental power directly from the dragonshard, or else he would not even be able to cast any spells.

A short and simple prayer from the black bishop had caused Saleen to lose his ability to utilize the elements.

Saleen was filled with immense regret. If he had picked up Raphael's crystal finger, he would have been able to penetrate the tree with solely his finger, and the black bishop would have been doomed. However, there were too many things for Saleen to learn. And before he advanced to the next grade, he would not be able to learn the level-6 crystal finger.

In order to solidify his foundation, Saleen had continuously delayed his advancement. But at this moment, he realized that a mage's grade was actually quite useful most of the time.

"Break it!" After absorbing the elemental power from the dragonshard, Saleen cast dozens of wind blades. These wind blades were formed via the condensation of the water vapor, and they were fundamentally water type magic. In that short period, Saleen was not able to figure out the bishop's weakness, so he could only send dozens of these weak-looking things to attack the bishop.

Had Saleen not discovered the method of releasing low-level magic across a huge area, this action would have consumed at least one-tenth of his magic chords. This water element Wind Blade spell only had the consumption of level-2 magic, thus allowing Saleen to use it without any worries.

Dozens of the tornado-like airflows were destroyed by Saleen, and Saleen cast another dozen wind blades. The atmospheric elemental power was more balanced now. It was no longer restrained by the tornadoes.

The black bishop was quite astounded when he noticed that Saleen had only used one technique to overcome his Vacuum Imprisonment Ssell.

As long as one was below the grade of a sorcerer, they would have to absorb elemental power from their surroundings in order to cast spells. If they only relied on their magic chords, the lethality of their spells would be decreased drastically. This grade-4 mage is able to deploy a countermeasure so quickly. He might have some special equipment with him.

When the black bishop considered that Saleen might have special equipment, he immediately changed his attack strategy. The red flames had subsided slightly. As the black bishop stood behind the tree, he began chanting another prayer.

"God says, wherever He is, is heaven."

Hundreds of light rays descended from the sky. The red flames, which spread for hundreds of meters, were extinguished by this wave of light rays, revealing the burnt soil on the ground.

The water vapor from Saleen's Quickcloud spell was not able to resist the white light. The white light stopped for a moment just outside of the water shield before penetrating it.

The water shield was an autonomous defense spell. Since the white light had a therapeutic effect, the water shield would definitely be fine.

The white light from the divine spell had many abilities, the most common of them being a form of therapy. Most defense spells would not resist treatment spells, even if they were level-1 divine spells or elemental spells.

As the white light entered Saleen's body, Saleen felt warmth, and he no longer felt hostile towards the black bishop. He even thought of removing the Quickcloud spell and the water shield, but this notion lingered for a moment before being interrupted by an intense pain.

At this point in time, blue smoke appeared from Saleen's left hand which had almost been fully recovered. An intense pain came from the crevice of the bone.

The divinity from the Lord of Glory clashed with that of the Goddess of Myers. This pain was even more intense than when Saleen used the clan badge.

Pain! Pain! Pain!

There were no other thoughts in Saleen's brain now. The black bishop's divine spell had failed, and he did not know about the transformation which Saleen's body had gone through. The bishop went around the tree as he took out a slender metallic thorn, wanting to kill Saleen.

The black bishop was extremely confident of his own divine spell. The divine spell was targeted solely at mages, and as long as a mage came into contact with this divine spell, the mage would lose control over his actions for a short period of time.

The green water flow which encircled Saleen also began twisting vigorously, before fusing with the two transformed water shields. The Goddess of Myers was also present in those two water shields. After being shone on by the white light, the water flow seemed to boil, and there were even signs of vaporization on its surface.

Cracking sounds came from the bone in Saleen's hand. The green colored gift of life went against the flow of blood up his arm, expelling the white light from his body. This gift of life was far more intense than the prayer chanted by the black bishop. When the last piece of leaf had entered Saleen's bone, it resulted in his left hand becoming more powerful than any other officers who served the Goddess of Myers.

Perhaps this power was not suitable to be used for combat, but at this moment, the gift of life and the divine light from the Lord of Glory were fighting for Saleen's body. The black bishop was simply borrowing the divinity of the Lord of Glory through his prayers, and this divinity also originated from this plane. Even if it was destroyed, the Lord of Glory would not notice it anyhow.

"Ah, ow!" Saleen screamed out his lungs, as his mental power vibrated vigorously. He knew that he would not be able to cast any spells. If he tried casting spells in his condition right now, he would receive a backlash from the magic. Saleen dispersed his Quickcloud spell, and raised his leg before kicking the black bishop in the stomach.