Badge in Azure

Chapter 870: Elemental Stone Statue Soldier (Part 1)Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

The leader of the stone statue soldier's second attack came quickly right in front Saleen's eyes as the Dismantle Element spell failed. The speed of grade-10 elemental creatures was not something melee soldiers were able to achieve.

The leader's warhammer was shaped like a war drum, with tower-shaped magic arrays within. The drum's surface had a diameter of one and a half yards. A wind dragon was conjured by Saleen as the hammer came crashing down, which entangled the weapon. His wind dragon was conjured by converted water element, and it was several times more powerful than usual wind dragons.

Saleen hesitated for a moment and decided not to use the Crystal Finger, and not to use grade-10 scrolls either. As the wind dragon was successfully conjured, he unleashed Vacuum Imprisonment from his robe. He followed that up with three consecutive castings of Dismantle Element.

The three consecutive castings of Dismantle Element formed an elemental point. The beat of three grade-9 magic worked as if it was a war drum: one hit followed by another hit without pause.

Light of six major elements flashed wildly on the body of the leader. Saleen did not dare to wait for the magic determination to finish. He took out his third staff and cast Death Impact. The spell was an instant death spell which also worked on elemental creatures. Effects of instant death magic stored within magic staffs were not half as powerful though.

Saleen followed up with yet another grade-9 spell after casting Death Impact, it was the Invasion of Darkness spell.

The spell was a debuffing spell, which only produced death effect when overwhelming the enemy with one's level. That meant that a grade-9 Invasion of Darkness spell would have proved lethal to grade-6 professionals, but to grade-7 professionals, the spell was only able to weaken its target. As the leader of the stone statue soldiers was a grade-10 being, such grade-9 spells could not have any overwhelming effect. It simply worked as a simple weakening spell, to weaken all of the soldier's attributes.

The third Dismantle Element spell announced it success with a loud crack. A huge crack formed across the leader's twenty yard tall body, which snapped the being in two soon after.

As Dismantle Element worked, the following spells were all completed. The stone statue soldier leader cracked all over as Death Impact came into effect, which sounded like dynamite going off. Under the succeeding Invasion of Darkness' effect, all attempts by the leader to repair itself failed completely. Saleen bore witness to the twenty yard tall body of the leader crumbling into pieces.

The warhammer had only managed to reach the ground after that, which created a crater of more than a yard deep on the stone floor right in front of Saleen. He was sent jumping up for more than half a yard as a result. The warhammer fell onto the ground like it was made of soft metal. The edge of the crater on the stone floor was clear-cut, without the tiniest of crack one could see.

Saleen pointed a finger. A small stone statue of about two yards tall broke from the shell of the leader's body. Taking one step forward, it stabbed a stone spear at Saleen's brow.

Saleen fired his Crystal Finger without hesitation. He felt a sharp pain on his finger, which then ended up being completely dried and shriveled. Despite having suppressed the power of the Crystal Finger to its absolute lowest, it still rendered one of Saleen's fingers completely dead, which looked so dried up that it looked like the flesh of spirits.

Such was the result of Saleen advancing into the rank of a grade-8 sorcerer and his body strengthening, thus enabling him to withstand the resulting recoil. The original consequence of using such an attack would have cost Saleen his entire arm.

The Crystal Finger's attack bore a hole in the brow of the smaller statue which burst out of the larger leader. Saleen put away his grade-10 scroll, as he did not have enough time to use it. He had never thought the leader's body contained such a fail-safe within.

A broken jade piece was thrown from Saleen's right hand, shooting right for the hole in the brow of the smaller statue.

Shrieks of pain were heard from within the two yard tall statue's head. The broken jade left by Shanglan went about sucking its soul maniacally. Grade-9 stone statue soldiers did not have souls, but that one was a grade-10 stone statue soldier capable of advancement, which looked like it was about to molt and become a grade-11 leader.

The structure of a soul had begun to form in its body. When the soul was born, it would have allowed the being to not be limited by its form, and become a high level elemental creature. The Eternal Control rule within the broken jade struck intense fear into that newborn soul within.

The elemental creature felt fear for the first time.

Elemental creatures with souls were painfully few and far between. Stone statue soldiers were in the handful of elemental creatures capable of developing a soul. The soul knew well that if it was not able to break free, it would lose its freedom forever.

Saleen did not show any mercy at all. The hammer attack from the leader would not have been something he was able to slow down if he did not possess insane spells like Dismantle Element. The magic of the warhammer had completely turned into a physical attack, which exceeded the Darkness Shield's capacity to defend against.

What an insane elemental creature! Saleen did not dare use Eye of Lightning against it. The Eye of Lightning might not have been able to paralyze something like the stone statue soldier leader. Casting the spell would have left Saleen with some dire after effects, such as a temporary drop in mental powers. Such a drop required multiple meditation sessions to recover, and even the use of divine crystals would not have been of much help.

The purple glow in the stone statue soldier leader's faded, as the rule within Shanglan's broken jade completely overwhelmed the newborn soul.

"What you are struggling for? You were but humanity's weapon even in ancient times!", Saleen shouted, and the leader's soul immediately suffered an electrical shock. Saleen had no intention of killing the leader's soul, as it was very difficult for elemental creatures to develop souls. Saleen simply hoped his new servant would have been smarter.

If it had been an adamant one like Ismail, who absolutely refused to submit, Saleen would not have minded killing it off. He would have still been able to get a grade-11 stone statue soldier leader after all.

"Master…," the leader kneeled before Saleen. It was no Ismail, Saleen was right. It was little more than humanity's soldier in ancient times, and a soldier needed to know how to follow orders.

"What is this place?", Saleen asked his new servant.

"I…do not know," the purple glow in its eyes shone again, yet it said nothing about what it remembered. Too much time had passed and there had been no human stepping foot in the city for tens of thousands of years. The memory of elemental creatures was limited, and its soul had just been born recently.

Saleen was dumbfounded for a moment, before realizing he would not have been able to get anything by asking the leader. The leader's vocabulary even sounded dry and limited. The ancient Ismail language was pleasant to the ear and its intonations sounded like music. The words of that language spoken by the leader not only sounded dry, but it also seemed like the words were simply forced into a sentence without any concern for eloquence.

Inherited knowledge was still required to be gradually absorbed to enable the elemental creature to make such knowledge its own.

Saleen was hardly disappointed. If the leader knew too much, it would have probably proved difficult to control. The tricks and methods ancient humans had at their disposal were too complex. There may have been something within enabling it to break free of the Eternal Control.

"I know, you can…become…,"

"Master, I will summon my, subordinates!", the stone statue soldier leader said as the magic patterns on its body glittered. At the edge of the city's wall more than twenty miles away, one-hundred and forty-four grade-9 stone statue soldiers seemed to have heard their leader's summon. All opened their eyes one by one, turned around, and made their way to the military depot. The soldiers were huge, and every one of them stood at a height of one-hundred yards. All had warhammers in their hands.

The power of the warhammers was enough to put most mages to shame. The hammers were but magic equipment, yet one strike was enough to yield concussive force and shock so powerful that magic armor would prove useless. In the perspective of equipment, going on offense had always been easier than going on defense. Most contemporary magic armor possessed such defensive qualities that rendered most weapons useless against them.

That was the very reason, despite magic armor being expensive to craft and even more expensive to repair, many would still b willing to equip their personal troops with such equipment.

Saleen compared the elemental stone statue soldiers with the stone statue soldiers he summoned using magic, and found the elemental counterparts to be easier to control. Their impressive combat capacity was also something that no elemental creature summoned by magic could have achieved.

One-hundred and forty-four huge elemental stone statue soldiers ran in the same direction. One step enabled them to move more than twenty yards. The distance of twenty miles took the soldiers less than five minutes to cover.

Saleen took the leader to the street and looked at the grade-9 elemental stone statue soldiers in lines before him, feeling very pleased with himself. Even if he ultimately failed to locate the single horned white whale's cemetery, what he bagged thus far would have been enough to satisfy him.

"No! I can't be satisfied so easily! I must find the whale's cemetery, or I won't be able to truly keep the Ancient I just captured running. Large number of magic nuclei are needed to make that ancient weapon fight in its fullest. With the Ancient, I would be able to conquer Alchemy City and Cloudflow heading south. I would also be able to attack the Tribunal's Purgatory heading west. Life is just like practicing magic, there is no backing down and the only way to go is to go forward. If I get satisfied and leave right now, the Ancient will be little more than a massive decoration. I will only be able to use the few upper floors like the Cloudflow people, calculate the number of rooms to open down there, and be exasperated for being able to do anything with them."

"I will first give you a name," Saleen looked at the leader who was significantly taller than he was and thought for a bit, "You will be called…Vinny."

"Yes, master."

"Vinny, how many leaders like you are there?", Saleen asked something simple. He wanted to collect more leaders like it, as doing so would grow the number of stone statue soldiers under his command to terrifying levels.

"The Imperial City of the Abyss is twelve-thousand miles long and eight-thousand miles wide. My…elemental creatures, in great numbers, always able to replenish. Master…"

"If you were to die, would these soldiers die with you?"

"They would not. I'm simply their leader. If I'm not to be. The soldiers will choose a new leader."

Saleen understood right away. Ancient humans would not have allowed one to subdue great numbers of stone statue soldiers and rob them of the borders of their cities. He would not have been able to subdue the leaders one by one, unless he had an unlimited number of broken jade. The leaders would not revived when killed either.

That could prove troublesome. If Vinny died, Saleen would not have any use for the soldiers. The initial excitement he felt seeing one-hundred and forty-four elemental stone statue soldiers gradually dissipated. He instead began figuring out how to put the creatures to good use, and go deeper into the city.