Badge in Azure

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

Taking bones apart and extracting marrows was something mages did all the time. Generally speaking, bone marrow was something used for making blood, but the bone marrow of many magic beasts was stuff used to repair their magic nuclei. Their bone marrow also contained various special materials. It could serve as excellent magic material when extracted and refined.

The one vital shortcoming of sea magic beasts when compared to those on land was that they did not have as much marrow. The same went with blood, as well. Fortunately, sea magic beasts were commonly of large sizes. A low-level sea magic beast could have a length exceeding ten yards easily.

At Saleen's level, he had developed the ability to see notable traits of souls. He had also developed workable experimental schematics regarding the crafting of soul-related equipment. Sorcerers at that stage began studying matters related to the soul. When they had finally reached the stage of a grade-9 sorcerer, that was when they truly were able to work on the matter of souls.

Even so, Saleen was nonetheless able to sense that the blood soul tower was superior to Nicholas' soul bead. While Nicholas' soul bead was crafted by Fycro, he did not consider anything about Nicholas' future. The old man was little else but a pawn Fycro left at Saleen's side.

In Fycro's perspective, Nicholas was simply a grade-9 fallen holy master that he would be able to dispose of any time he fancied.

With that said, there was no way Fycro would have crafted truly powerful equipment for a disposable pawn such as Nicholas. The soul bead Fycro gave Nicholas was simply one that was able to prevent Nicholas from losing his grade-9 powers. It was not something that would have helped him advance further. Nicholas himself did not give advancing any thought at all, but Saleen was different. He had little idea what grade-10 fallen holy masters were like, and he wondered if such powers could trigger the gods directly.

As such, it was imperative for Saleen to try to have Nicholas advance into grade-10.

Holy masters faced far more difficulties, in regards to advancing into grade-10, than mages. The Lord of Glory was a stingy god; he was one to be very reluctant in sharing power with believers.

More importantly, as these bone marrow was something that could be used to craft soul beads, it was also without doubt something that was able to restore souls. The soul of the winged skeleton was very frail. If he did not receive any treatment to address his current situation, not only would his powers be severely weakened, the painstakingly grown intelligence could even recede to nothing.

"Nooo!", the angel of fear was electrocuted viciously. Her fear spiked immeasurably when she heard that Saleen intended to use her bone marrow to craft equipment. The loss of her bone marrow meant that her soul would never again been able to return to her body.

"I surrender! Have mercy on me, please, I will do whatever you say!", the angel of fear could not muster even an ounce of courage to fight Saleen anymore.

"Too late," Saleen replied concisely, and then said to Nailisi, "Soldier's body can't be restored for the time being. Craft a soul bead for him. I want the quality to be at least one level higher than what you have now. I'm still crafting the War Drum of Fear. We will return to the magic tower as soon as I'm done with the drum. We will help Soldier get his body back."

"Master…", the winged skeleton's voice was heard from the golden heart inside the bag near Saleen.

"What?!", Saleen was overjoyed at hearing the winged skeleton's voice. "Soldier kept his consciousness! It should be comparatively easy to restore him, then."

"Yes, master," Nailisi put aside her feelings of frustration and noted to herself, "It seems that I have done Soldier quite a favor now. He Should probably not be at odds with me all the time anymore then, no?" Nailisi was still needed to command her demon army; staying back at sea for prolonged periods was not an option. With the pan's turtle alchemical boat in the winged skeleton's possession, the task of salvaging sunken ships was delegated almost entirely to him alone. She would need their help in the future still, for getting her hands on various materials.

Nailisi took out her last batch of bug eggs and put them inside the angel of fear's flesh, catalyzing them and having them mature quickly. It was so she was able to craft a blood soul tower again.

Saleen stayed nearby instead of returning to the divine tree magic tower; he kept working on his War Drum of Fear.

Tens of thousands of pests remained still near their vicinity, trembling in fear. None dared to attack, and none dared to even run.

Saleen's water flame had the angel of fear's skull and spine refined to the length of little more than a yard. They were fashioned in the shape of a bone mace. The head of the artifact was made from none other than the angel of fear's skull.

The bone mace was already a powerful weapon on its own. Saleen rushed to finish the bone mace, and struck hard on the War Drum of Fear. The pests shrieked in terror when the sound of the drum reached their ears.

Doom, doom, doom…

Saleen beat at the drum with a very slow tempo, yet the pain suffered by the pests hardly lightened.

"Get in there right now!", Saleen shouted. The linked soul of the angel of fear inside the Eternal Control shard that was levitating inside the drum roared with a low voice. That prompted hundreds of pests to jump into the air and head for the War Drum of Fear. The pests' bodies were at least more than four yards tall. The humanoid face on the drum opened its mouth wide and sucked them right into the drum.

The face sucked slowly when it first started absorbing the pests, but when more than one-hundred of the pests were absorbed, the rate of absorption jumped by several hundred times. More and more pests charged at the drum, running straight for the mouth of the face on the drum.

The crafting of the War Drum of Fear was something that Saleen had been planning for quite some time. War drums were an invention hailing back to the time when ancient humans went conquering other planes. The sound of drums could have been heard from up to one-hundred miles away. They were able to carry complex messages. The warriors commanded by the humans consisted of a myriad of races, even gods who had betrayed their kind. Commanding them in unison was no small feat.

Mobilization of the warriors became more convenient with the advent of war drums. More importantly, magic power infused within the drums could be used to buff all warriors. Similarly, the war drum also possessed offensive capabilities. It was a tool capable of area-of-effect attacks by reducing opposing group's morale. Some war drums were able to kill large number of enemies outright.

The human skin war drums of Black Magicians worked precisely as such. When the Dark Sky Devil's army began its march, powerful black magicians had beaten on the war drums, making the troops of human armies succumb to the debuffing effects of black magic.

Saleen found the schematics, but they were from a sunken ship dating back to the second dynasty. Such drums were capable of coordinating the troops of various races on the battlefield, enabling the troops to rush on their enemies. The power of one war drum was even comparable to the powers of hundreds of mages. Such drums required exceptionally difficult materials to craft though, materials acquired from creatures of at least grade-12.

When Saleen acquired the angel of fear's body, he thought immediately of creating such a powerful war drum. While it was possible that the drum was something common back in the time of the second dynasty, it was simply near-impossible to find grade-12 creatures in their time.

Tens of thousands of pests ended up being devoured by the War Drum of Fear after a while. When Saleen beat on the drum with the bone mace by then, the pests within no longer felt pain; they were instead forced to keep supplying the drum with power.

"Master, done!", Nailisi stopped a pair of bloodshines' advancement by force, digging them out from the angel of fear's flesh. The bloodshine bugs wanted to attack Nailisi, but immediate had their brains pierced by one dragon crystal needle each. They were nailed dead on the ground.

These two bloodshines had reached grade-10, but their advancement was incomplete. While their bodies were of grade-10 material, their power and souls were less than grade-9 still. Nailisi dared not have the two bugs advance any further, as she would have been unable to control them anymore if they did. Nailisi used the resulting blood spar to suck out the angel of fear's bone marrow. It was done significantly faster that time. A black tower-like structure quickly formed within the crystal.

"Get back to the tower."

"Yes, master," Nailisi returned to her imp form and threw whatever remained of the angel of fear into her bracelet. She only asked when they got back to the tower, "Master, why did you not craft the drum in the magic tower instead?"

Saleen knocked on the walls of the magic tower with his finger. A sound characteristic of wood reverberated throughout the place. A low, deep rumble.

"The drum is something I will be using in the battlefield from here on out, and I don't want any divinity or whatsoever in it. Nailisi, hand me that stuff," Saleen extended his hand. Nailisi, somewhat reluctantly, placed the two blood soul towers she had just crafted on his hand.

The two blood soul towers' quality was quite a bit superior to the ones Nailisi was using herself, a product from sixty further generations of breeding. If Nailisi had not kept the evolution of the bloodshines under control, the two would have probably reached grade-12. The quality of the angel of fear's flesh was just too high. Bloodshine bugs were known to be dangerous. It was precisely for their frighteningly high speed of evolution.

The twenty-four ancient warriors went inside the divine tree magic tower as well; they felt rather uncomfortable with the place. They had been elite warriors fighting against gods back in their time, so divine equipment left a bad taste in their mouths. While the divine tree magic tower was crafted by Saleen personally, its material came from the Goddess of Myers nonetheless.

Saleen paid no heed to the ancient warriors' reactions. He took out the winged skeleton's golden heart carefully and asked, "Soldier, can you hear me?"

"Yes…"

"There are two blood soul towers here. Take them, I will get you the bone marrow of the angel of fear later," Saleen said as he placed the two blood soul towers on the golden heart. The heart extended gold-colored veins instinctively and stuck them inside the blood soul towers.

The blood soul towers were immediately absorbed into the heart. Two whiffs of soul flames were on the brink of collapse inside the golden heart. The body of the blood spars broke immediately after the towers were absorbed into the heart. The broken pieces were disintegrated and absorbed soon after. The golden heart's level far surpassed that of the bloodshines. A pair of precious blood spar ended up being easily disintegrated.

Two miniature towers appeared to be levitating inside the golden heart, which the winged skeleton's soul flame rushed to consume. The soul flames, which should have been absorbed, split into a white flame and a black flame, before burning the towers.

Soldier would, of course, not have allowed his soul to enter the towers. While going inside would have allowed them to restore themselves quickly, doing so would have posed a serious problem to advancement in later days. The winged skeleton had far-reaching goals, and grade-12 was not allowed to be his limit.

The winged skeleton had surprisingly opted to re-craft the soul towers with their own soul flames. The pair of soul towers contained special materials which replenished the winged skeleton's used flames. Saleen observed the golden heart on his hand. The heart began to beat, yet not even Saleen's Elemental Eye was able to make clear of the operational patterns of energy taking place within.

The winged skeleton's soul flames burned increasingly fiercely. The nutritious material inside the burned towers were forcibly robbed and put inside his own soul flame. The split black and white flames merged again, entangling with each other and forming an eerie yet beautiful dual-colored flame.

The black soul towers levitated silently within the pair of soul flames. The pair of soul towers served as little more than storage for keeping souls. Whether the souls kept within would continue growing was a matter entirely dependent on whether the winged skeleton was willing to infuse them with more power.

"Master. I need bones, lots of them. I need my weapon as well…" the winged skeleton's voice reverberated within the magic tower.