Badge in Azure

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

Saleen looked at his children with a dumbfounded expression for quite some time. The Caucasus warriors bowed to him and saw themselves out after a while. Saleen turned and saw Sika standing at the door smiling, clapping her hands.

Seeing their mother at the door, the children cast the beast aside and ran for her.

While it was obvious that his children were capable of some speech, they simply gaga-ed their way to their mother, and nothing of sense was able to be made from the words coming out of their mouths. Sika hoisted her children up and kissed them once each, letting them play with her for a bit before putting them down. She then told the children, "Go play by yourselves. I need to talk to your father."

Saleen was even more surprised as he saw his children climbing down from Sika's arms. While the children were incapable of saying much, it was obvious that they were able to understand Sika's words. Normal children would have only been able to say a few words at such an age, yet his were able to make sense of the complex speech of adults. Saleen was at a loss. He did not know if he should be worried or happy about his children's development.

The children ran straight for the mythical beast as soon as they left Sika's side. The little mythical beast trembled, and then looked at Saleen. He just simply pretended to not have noticed anything. "Smart thing that beast is, knowing how to play helpless and all that." Had Sika not been able to subdue it, the mythical beast would have probably run away a long time ago, instead of staying around being toyed with by the children.

Saleen's son and daughter were just as active. The children hardly differed from one another. His son went and picked up the beast by the tail. The boy then walked to the table. The table was tall, and the children climbed on to the chairs and the opposing side of the table. Sika apparently was used to it all and did not have the least bit of fear of her children falling off. If her children fell off just from getting up to a chair, they would not have been the offspring of a priestess.

The boy put the mythical beast on the table and the two children took out pieces of toys from their clothes, which looked like building blocks. They went on to build a house for the mythical beast, and then stuffed the beast inside without any regard if the beast liked the little cage built by the little humans at all.

The clothes the children wore were hardly any different from those worn by normal children. The only possible difference was that the clothes were made of purple-gold sea urchin hides, which had storage spaces within that even normal people were capable of using. While Saleen's children did have peculiar developments about them, they were children nonetheless. They did not possess skills, and there was no way they were able to use spatial equipment.

The children then took out fresh meat from their pockets and start playing feed-the-beast. Saleen let out a long sigh. While his children were indeed special, they were hardly any different from normal children of their age when it came to hobbies. They spent all day playing and did little else.

Sika took Saleen to the other end of the room and sat by the window. Having left for several months, he missed Sika awfully. But seeing the serious look on her face, he knew that there were countless matters about the Kingdom of Metatrin waiting for him to attend to. As a regent, Sika was able to do little, but keep the place running as it was.

"Saleen, I have two main matters to talk to you about, and I will leave it up to you to decide which one you would want to address to first. Before that, take a look at this letter."

Sika took out a letter as she spoke and handed it to Saleen. He opened up the letter and scanned it, then gave a cold smirk. "You believe what the Holy See is saying? That they want to form an alliance with us to take out Qin. What a joke. Lex being a Grukos aside, even with her out of the picture, this can be little more than a bluff."

"I know, so I locked up the one sending the letter. How do you want to go about it?"

"Leave it to Nicholas. Have him look into it. Sika, tell me about the two important matters you mentioned."

"The first one is that …Lex was being trapped in Lonestar City. Sikenqinyans schemed with the Holy See and deployed their forces against us. It is just that they have yet to be able to do much just yet. This letter was sent here at the same time."

Saleen grumbled. Lex was trapped, and Sika had yet to deploy any reinforcements to her rescue. That meant that it had a lot to do with the second matter.

"The second one is that our merchant ships are being held hostage by Cloudflow. Nailisi's four demons were taken by them too." Sika actually had to hold herself back from laughing when speaking about the matter.

"What happened?" Saleen was baffled at Sika's reaction. Four demons taken, and Sika felt like laughing?

"A Cloudflow person who called himself Grand Duke Iron Blood robbed our merchant ships and caught the demons. He said he wanted them to be his concubines." Sika's expressions looked strange as she elaborated. Even Saleen felt like laughing then.

Cuisi and the lot were given female forms by Nailisi using Ultimate Shapeshifting, but the demons were all males. "The grand duke actually had an eye for the four male demons. Now I'm wondering if they have finished doing the deed, if they have indeed gone through with it. My, pity for those four indeed."

It was unknown if Ultimate Shapeshifting was actually capable of changing every structure of one's body subjected to the skill. Saleen nonetheless felt a shiver down his spine the more he thought about it.

"Saleen, which one should we be looking into first?" Sika asked. Cloudflow fleets had appeared on the waters of Lianyun City, which was not all that far from Metatrin City. If he were to deploy troops to Lonestar City and the enemy fleet at sea came knocking, it would be quite a huge problem for them.

"What about the Caucasus people outside the city?" Saleen asked.

"Killed, chased away, or subdued. Not much of a problem with them with the teacher here," Sika answered in a calm manner. Saleen did not want to pursue the problem. He was only concerned if there were any trouble around his city. Sika's words meant that bloodshed still happened between Metatrin City and the Caucasus, which was not what Sika had wanted to see.

Saleen did not ask any further and Sika did not feel like talking about it further. The matter with Caucasus people was put aside for the time being.

"How was that Grand Duke Iron Blood able to catch Cuisi and the lot?"

Sika felt rather surprised that Saleen went on to ask about the four unimportant demons, instead of asking about Lex first.

"The number of demons produced in the Demon City has been quite high. The more capable ones among them were selected and made to fill the ranks of the temple guards. Those with lower intelligence were sent to be sailors, saving us quite a bit in manpower. The best choice for commanding the demon sailors was mages, then demons of higher intelligence. Cuisi and the lot became a good choice in that case. Cuisi had his powers restored as a supreme demon, almost equivalent to a grade-9 professional, so I had him put in charge of escorting the merchant ships."

Saleen nodded. Having demons becoming sailors was a good call, as even if battles were to take place, there would be no fear of the demons falling into the water, as their combat capacity was hardly diminished in the water. Even if the ships they were on were sunk by the enemy, the demons would be able to make it onboard enemy ships shortly after and began killing again.

"Initially, there would have been no problem with the demons being less intelligent with Cuisi and the other three taking command. Our fleet was just… in any case, they encountered the Cloudflow fleet on their way to Lianyun City. The merchant ships we were escorting were all taken away. Smaller warships were all sunk by the enemy. Then, there was someone sending this."

Saleen saw Sika taking out an invitation and put it between the short desk between them. The invitation was sprinkled with golden powder and embellished with intricate patterns. The heft of it was felt when it landed on the table.

There were fields dedicated to analyzing human psychology in magical knowledge. Saleen was almost able to see the grand duke's snobbish face on the invitation on the desk. The face would have been one that was twice as large as usual human's, and one that felt rather pleased with himself. Little did he know that an invitation like that would make him a laughing stock of nobles in Qin.

The words on the invitation were written in the Cloudflow language. In actuality, even the official writing system of the Tanggulasi Empire was a derivation of the Myers language systems. Other than having a great difference in pronunciation, one would be able to make out the gist of the meaning written just by looking at the written words.

Saleen knew the Cloudflow writing system. The content had Saleen wondering if he should be laughing or crying. The grand duke invited Saleen to his wedding, obviously for marrying his concubines-to-be. Details such as what kind of gifts should be presented, and the date were also written.

Ever since Saleen returned from the Imperial City of the Abyss, he his mind growing more astute. He was able to see the underlying problem of the invitation. At first glance, the invitation would be little more than an insult to Saleen. When the problem was to be pondered at a deeper level, things became far more complex instead.

Lex was trapped in Lonestar City at the west. The grand duke sent an invitation meant to provoke Saleen from the eastern seas. Two matters were intertwined, and Saleen had to make his choice.

If it were in the past, Saleen would have chosen to find Lex before anything else. At that moment, Saleen knew that Grand Duke Iron Blood had the Dragon Island under his command, and one Ancient warship as well. If that Ancient was to make its way to the port of Metatrin City, things would turn dire very quickly. All sorcerers were to be inside their respective magic towers before the city could be truly secured against such threats.

The east side of Metatrin City would be destroyed if all weapons of the Ancient were to fire at the city otherwise. The power of Grand Duke Iron Blood was probably on par with that of Cloudflow nobles. Despite being only a grand duke, he nonetheless commanded more than ten square miles of territory. While the population on the Dragon Island was small, it was nonetheless a place capable of supporting a population in the tens of millions.

Saleen dared not treat the grand duke as just another duke. That time however, Grand Duke Iron Blood had indeed made the wrong move. There was no way he could have been able to master all secrets of the Dragon Island in such a short time. First or second dynasty technology was not something that could be thoroughly researched within just two or three generations.

It was no surprise that Cloud Flow was able to break through Alchemy City's lockdown, as one Ancient had managed to do so. With a second one deployed, it simply took time for them to break through the lockdown of Alchemy City again.

What Saleen was thinking however, was that Alchemy City had simply let Grand Duke Iron Blood's fleet pass for fear of suffering too great of a loss.

No matter how powerful the Cloudflow fleet was, it was not a certainty for them to attack Lianyun City. Two great highways laid right behind the city, enabling forces of the entire northern Qin to provide support. It would have been utterly impossible for the Cloudflow forces to land and take the place. Having the experience of the predicament with the eastern seas coalition forces, Holy Rock had raised Lianyun City's position and increased the forces garrisoned there. Large amount of magic equipment was added to it as well.

There had been only one chance at ambush. The eastern seas coalition forces made it, and it would be impossible for Cloudflow people to pull such a stunt again.

Alchemy City knew that, and the act of letting the Cloudflow fleet pass was obviously to have them come at him. Saleen had all of that running about in his mind, which was why he cursed at Alchemy City the very moment he came down from the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel. He did not even know that his four demon subordinates had already been captured.

"Any more important matters to inform me of?" Saleen had plans of how to deal with it all and went on to ask Sika again.