Badge in Azure

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

There had been eight ancient warriors under Cloudflow control on the Ancient. There was only one of them that proved more powerful, and it ended up torn apart. Two ended up slapped by the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel into the sea and eaten by magic beasts. The remaining five were eventually thrown into Nailisi's purgatory of ice.

"Master, I have yet to gain control of these ancient warriors. It seems like they entered sleep mode on their own," Nailisi did not take out the Twelve Notes of Purgatory, and chose to warn Saleen instead.

Saleen hesitated, then said, "Take me there."

He did not dare to let the ancient warriors out. If they were to run amok, it would again proved to be a case of why grade-9 powerful humans were ten times more difficult to deal with than grade-9 magic beasts.

Nailisi nodded and brought Saleen into the purgatory of ice.

The collection of purgatories had more and more items in them. Among them were branches of divine trees, broken souls of sorts, bones of powerful magic beasts, and other rare items. If the Twelve Notes of Purgatory were able to be fixed, Nailisi would have gladly gave all of them up.

There was a piece of large crystal hanging in the sky in the purgatory of ice. A very pointy hexagonal awn pointed downwards. It seemed as if it would touch the ground at any moment.

The ground was covered with transparent ice. As the purgatory of ice was still undergoing repairs, there was hardly any complex terrain. All there was to see was flatlands so smooth that they shone like a mirror.

Five huge pieces of ice stood on the smooth ground, within the ancient warriors standing in silence within, their eyes closed.

Saleen came before one of the huge ice blocks and opened his Elemental Eye to observe the ancient warrior within in detail. He finally figured out something about them when up close and personal.

The tainted blood armor equipped on the bodies on the ancient warriors were also some kind of magic equipment. Every single plate looked like blood clots and had six elemental points on them.

Elemental points were something that replaced magic arrays on magic equipment, as there was no need for effects derived from magic arrays on the equipment. The effects would hardly be of use most of the time. As such, every single basic component of the magic equipment would have six elemental points on them, allowing for the balancing of magic power when passing through the parts.

Elemental points were weaknesses; all of them were designed only on internal components. The elemental points on that particular tainted blood armor were no exception. If Saleen did not have the elemental eye, he would not have understood those points. Under normal inspections, the tainted blood armor would have been thought of as only normal equipment, having jaw-dropping defense only due to being made of materials of exceptional quality.

The tainted blood armor was designed so that elemental resonance was used to connect the elemental points, without use of any connecting magic patterns. That was what made the tainted blood armor a truly intricate piece of equipment. The impact withstood by every plate was actually dispersed between every single plate on the armor.

The tainted blood armor seemed to share similarities with Qin equipment. Large plates were used on the chest and back area, while the plates everywhere else were small. The strength of the small pieces were no different than the large ones. Having more plates simply meant having higher overall defense rating.

A design combining the use of elemental points and elemental resonance placed immense requirements on the materials used. Saleen knew that there were still other secrets to it than just those designs. The tainted blood armor would not be able to withstand high level magic attacks otherwise, and more so would not let the ancient warriors possess an edge in the interdimensional wars.

The ancient warrior within the ice seemed to sense Saleen's scrutiny, and their eyes popped open in response. The ice crystal before them cracked, forming a long crack which extended to the surface of the ice block.

Saleen cursed under his breath. "Is this the power of their bodies?" The durable ice of the purgatory of ice was as strong as steel. The ancient warrior was able crack it by simply opening their eyes! "If one such being is to punch me on the body, even a grade-7 water shield would prove dangerously inadequate." Saleen became unsure about his chances at withstanding such powerful melee clashes.

Nailisi stepped forward, standing in Saleen's way.

Saleen smiled and said, "It's alright. I have this with me," he showed Nailisi the Crystal Ring on his finger. He would not have handed the ring to the water puppet, as he would be able to try using the ring personally without suffering any damage to his body, when he had reached Raphael's level one day.

Even at that moment, Saleen would be able to give up the flesh of his left hand to unleash the full power of Crystal Finger. Even the tainted blood armor of the ancient warrior would not have proved enough to withstand the Crystal Finger's attack at such a close distance.

Raphael could have been said to be the most talented mage seen for the past one-thousand years or so. The magic he created had offensive powers so fearsome that it would not have been able to differentiate using levels. The ferocious attack of the water element was able to crush just about anything. There was no limit to how much damage the Crystal Finger could have done, so long as the user was able to withstand the resulting recoil.

"Alright, master. Just be careful. This thing…," Nailisi did not continue. She instead took out a Dragon Crystal Needle. The needle served as her way to attack at close range. Tiny needles crafted from dragon crystals were able to break through grade-9 defense when shot. She had no surety of being able to kill grade-9 mages with it, but penetrating grade-9 a magic array defense would prove very easy.

Magic arrays were dead things while people were living things. The ancient warrior had no intelligence to speak of. Nailisi's Dragon Crystal Needed would be able to break the tainted blood armor's defense and break any one of the ancient warrior's bones.

Saleen kept observing with his elemental eye. There was yet another ancient warrior corpse with him. That one was chopped into six pieces, and the tainted blood armor of that warrior was destroyed. Without the connection to the user left intact, it had little value for research.

Most ancient magic equipment of low levels was as such.

The ancient warriors were hardly more than foot soldiers back in their day. If they were to die in battle, the equipment worn and used by them would not have been permitted to be taken back by the enemy for research. They would self-destruct one way or another, preventing them from being used for research.

Saleen's elemental eye and the ancient warriors' eyes met. He had developed some understanding of the soul. The warriors lacked more than just life signs; they lacked any sign of souls within them as well.

How was it possible for an empty shell without a soul retain the combat capacity from when it had been alive? If the soldiers were puppets, then why were there no magic arrays within their eyes?

Sight was indispensable if a puppet was to be able to fight like a human. As such, even metallic puppets were installed with a pair of magic eyes. The magic arrays within allowed them to work like the pupils of human eyes, as well as capture images of battle quickly and analyze them. The hooked puppet that Saleen and Lex acquired had layers of three-dimensional magic arrays in its eyes, enabling it to capture the images of a width exceeding that of most magic beasts.

It was hardly known how the ancient warrior before his eyes was able to fight, and worse still, fight like a human!

Crack…boom!

Tens of cracks appeared on the durable ice covering the ancient warrior. The plates of the tainted blood armor all vibrated, increasing the number of cracks on the ice crystal that were several yards thick sharply. Cracking sounds were heard continuously, as the ancient warrior held on to the spear in their hand, bent their knee and began walking out.

Loud booms were heard as Nailisi flew at the now-flying broken pieces of ice. She had a spear in her hand as well, which she thrust ferociously at the ancient warrior who had just broken out of the ice.

Nailisi learned the way of the spear from Jola. While she was no where near Jola's caliber with a spear, she was definitely better at it than the ancient warrior. The warrior's movements lacked fluidity and finesse. They could not have been called a grade-9 professional if it was not for its immense strength. Nailisi's spear attacks worked like a snake, snaking about and not being able to be detected, while the spearhead seemed to vibrate on its own. Despite such eerie movements, it nonetheless was able to keep the warrior's head in place, no matter how the warrior moved about. The strike would have eventually landed between the warrior's brows.

Both combatants were less than ten yards away from each other. The length of a spear was about three and a half yards, it was a military weapon. A grade-9 professional would have only needed to slide their feet, instead of lifting them, to close such distances.

The ancient warrior's spear thrust upwards, hitting the tip of Nailisi's spear. That was where a spear was at its weakest, yet also a point of force application. Under usual circumstances, Nailisi would not have been able to hold her spear tight even if she had far greater strength than the warrior.

The spear in the ancient warrior's hand lost all magical powers long ago. Being constructed of magic metals alone would not have allowed it to withstand corrosion accumulated for tens of thousands of years. The warrior's spear snapped as their weapons clashed, with their spearhead flying straight upwards. It lodged the spear into the ice crystal hanging above.

Nailisi gained the edge of having a working weapon. She thrust her spear forward and managed to stab into the warrior's brow. There was no tainted blood armor to get in the way in such a spot.

Saleen had not even moved for half a step the whole time. His element eye saw even more during such a short period of time. The tainted blood armor seemed to have resonated with the warrior's body as Nailisi launched her attack. Such powerful resonances allowed for the warrior to boost their armor, giving it an even higher defense rating.

Grade-9 soldiers were more than cannon fodder even in ancient times; they were elite troops. When the armor on their bodies managed to meld with their own physical powers, the resulting defense achieved would be far greater than contemporary armor of even holy equipment levels.

The holy equipment crafted by mages of their current day hardly qualified as elite equipment during ancient times.

If the connection between magic and sword aura was able to be made clear, the crafting of such equipment would have been possible, allowing sword aura practitioners to enhance power of magic equipment to the fullest like mages did.

The very reason why Saleen was unable to succeed with the crafting of his Devil Flying Armor was because it was a piece of equipment relying entirely on the power of the suit alone. It was a given that the drain would have been immense, and the warrior wearing it would have been unable to work with the suit effectively. Someone wearing the Devil Flying Armor would have been unable to fight effectively airborne, just like mid-level mages.

Saleen had learned the secrets of the tainted blood armor.

Nailisi's spear pierced into the warrior's head, which then blew up the head of the warrior when she twisted it. The helmet remained intact and totally unscathed. Nailisi let go of her spear and backed down. She then took out a horse-killing sword and went straight for the warrior's waist.

The warrior's body convulsed. With a loud tang, a few plates fell off the tainted blood armor from the slash, but the weapon was unable to land on the waist of the warrior properly. Nailisi let go of her weapon again.

The ancient warrior did still possess the ability to retaliate. They took one step forward, with the spear still lodged in their head, and threw a punch at Nailisi's torso. The sword was still lodged in the armor of the warrior's waist area.