Badge in Azure

Chapter 1478: Cleaning Up the Plane (Part 2)

Saleen issued his orders, and Borges listened at the side, dazed.

His orders were detailed, covering things like the size of armies, the amount of supplies, holy masters, mages, and all warriors to be deployed and so on.

Borges knew what the numbers meant. The king had an army with over a million units.

Saleen did not hide anything from Borges. The emperor controlled hundreds of square kilometers and was of quite high ranking—a level seven grand swordmaster. For a plane with the most powerful of professionals at level nine, a level seven emperor was very powerful.

Borges was not stupid, but he definitely loved to put on airs. However, Saleen knew that due to his current level, the emperor would put the bad habits aside for the moment.

Rafel brought Saleen’s badge and letter, traversing back and forth between the planes. Saleen left Borges in the imperial city while he continued to look into details regarding the plane.

Saleen had the power to unite the entire plane under one banner, but doing so would be pointless. It was better to let Borges be an emperor. If the Goddess of Nature wanted to claim the plane, Saleen would at least be able to stay out of trouble.

Saleen hated the feeling of building a nation just to crush it personally later.

The plane had a religion dedicated to the God of Underworld. It was better to just leave the squabble to the gods.

Rafel assembled an army within days. Saleen did not let Borges lead the army. He sent Rafel to the northern frontlines to attack areas ruled by the asmodians.

The Water Fox was brought to the plane and headed west, crushing the nation that worshipped the God of Underworld. Saleen had softened the Water Fox, so it would not dare to do anything out of place anymore.

There were two armies. The one heading north had over 600,000 soldiers, while the one heading west was over 300,000. There was another army with 200,000 units heading west to clean up the nearby nations.

The plane had never seen armies of such sizes before. Even when they fought the asmodians at the northern pass, they had only ever rotated armies of tens of thousands.

There had never been armies with over 100,000 units.

The armies practically trampled their targets, due to the leading armies having a battalion’s worth of Bug Angel Warriors among them. The warriors sported combat capacity between level seven to level nine wearing such armor, and in that plane, level nine was the top.

Nobody was stupid enough to stand in the armies’ ways. Instead, many emperors sent their troops to follow the incredibly large armies on their way to wipe out the asmodians.

The emperors were hardly wealthy and were basically only sending out a dozen knights, their squires and food sent along as well. The food was meant for the great armies, as the price of protection.

As such, Saleen’s armies became rather reluctant to wipe the nations out.

However, Saleen had long decided to clean up the plane and saw no reason to stop just because they offered food that was hardly worth much. Saleen’s emissaries caught up with the great armies and sent letters to the dynasties.

The entourages consisted of companies of 200 soldiers. The level ten mages were in charge, several silver grand swordmasters served as bodyguards, and a small number were escorts.

Saleen had more than enough men to spare, and the emissaries were treated very nicely. No one attempted to make a move on them at all.

One-fifth of an emissary entourage was above level seven, with a level ten professional in charge. None of the empires had ever seen such an entourage before.

There was little they could do, as the army was more powerful than they were. The emperors were unable to do anything other than yield. Saleen did not imprison them; he made them greater nobles, instead of emperors.

From the emperors’ perspective, Saleen was being utterly ridiculous. But Saleen had sent a 600,000 person army pass through their gates, and no one dared to defy such force.

Both sides of the plane had been having an easy time, but a powerful kingdom showed up out of nowhere, trying wipe out the asmodians. The balance was disrupted and their days of peace were over. While there had been conflicts every now and then, their wars had never truly killed anyone.

The asmodians scared the common people into submission. However, the asmodians were actually rather weak, and their numbers were relatively small. Even if the asmodian army was stronger than they were, they still would be able to make it past the northern pass.

Saleen had disrupted that plane’s balance, but no one else was able to stop him. The only one who had anything to gain was Borges. He was lucky. Saleen killed 50 of his knights, and as a token of compensation, Saleen let him rule the plane.

Saleen stayed behind to see if the God of Underworld would show up. There were many purgatory planes and more than one or two Gods of Underworld. If the God of Underworld was powerful, he would send the Nature Faith’s believers up as cannon fodders. If the god was weak…

News came half a month later, saying that the great army that had gone to take on the nation worshipping the God of Underworld had practically overrun the place, razing the nation completely. Any temples of antagonistic faiths were all destroyed, and their pope was killed. The Water Fox turned the nation into one worshipping the Goddess of Nature.

Saleen sent an order to attack the divine kingdom of the God of Underworld next.

He came personally to the new Nature Temple and brought his own elite troops, looking for signs of the God of Underworld.

They found a huge hidden divine rune charm array under the altar of the God of Underworld. Saleen took out the god’s codex and burned it, sending the strongest message he was able to.

The God of Underworld was weak. Precisely speaking, it was a demigod. The provocation from a subcontinent plane had the God of Underworld fuming, and it opened the portal between the two planes.

It did not expect a plane with only level nine professionals to dare to burn its codex.

The God of the Underworld’s flames of wrath turned into black flames wrapping its body, bringing the God of Underworld through obstacles and onto the plane.

That God of Underworld did not dare to propagate its faith on main planes due to being weak. All of its religions were spread in subcontinent planes or interdimensional spaces. If it ran into any other gods, it would flee.

However, it no longer wanted to flee, infuriated that puny humans of impure bloodlines in interdimensional spaces were bold enough to oppose its rule.

The God of Underworld led 100,000 god creatures and attacked the subcontinent plane.

It had yet to reach level 15 and not a true god, so it was reluctant to create combat angels, as they would expend its powers. The god creatures were only there to expand his bloodline, as just a little gift would allow a god’s bloodline to pass on.

God creatures had many talents, but their growth was abhorrently slow. They were also unlike combat angels, which were capable of being modified and given more powers.

The 100,000-soldier army of god creature warriors opened the portal between the two planes. Under the lead of the God of Underworld, they attacked the subcontinent plane.

That resulting battle was easy. Saleen locked onto the God of Underworld and bombarded it with the magic spells contained with the Book of Lightning. Thick electrical bolts sent the God of Underworld to the ground. Its broken divine persona dropped, taken by Saleen’s lightning warriors, and handed to Saleen.

It was the Nature Faith’s turn to work. Armies of Nature Faith charged into the God of Underworld’s divine kingdom and began to kill everything in sight. The goddess was actually against such actions, but she had only given the decree since she was resurrected. The goddess did not tell how the Nature Faith should go about their business.

Everything was done according to Saleen’s thoughts, and Saleen’s target was that God of Underworld.

A level 14 demigod was no longer a match for him. Despite being of equal level, he had superior equipment.

Saleen supervised the deicidal war. He held onto the broken divine persona and attempted to absorb the rules. It was a pity that the power of rules of the demigod was tiny. It would not have been so easily killed otherwise.

The demigod’s rules were called Flames of Purgatory. It was the beginning rule all Gods of Underworld mastered.

While the might of the Flames of Purgatory was not weak, at level 14, it was not capable of posing a threat to gods of similar level. It was unlike the Lord of Glory’s Light of Judgment, which was capable of killing level 15 gods.

The adherents of Nature Faith were fervently devoted to Saleen. Not only did he consolidate all of the nations in the plane they headed to, he also killed the God of Underworld before everyone.

No one ever saw the Goddess of Nature, but the level 14 god fell before them.

Killing a god gave Saleen near infinite weight and authority in the minds of the adherents. The adherents began to clash head on with the god creatures. Due to the death of the God of Underworld, the god creatures’ powers were considerably weakened and the level difference disappeared. Saleen’s troops gained the edge.

Saleen watched, unfazed, and observed how god creatures fought, as well as details regarding the battle.

Saleen was disappointed. The God of Underworld was too weak. It only had a handful of underlings above level ten. Such warriors were hardly considered threats to Saleen.

He cast Thundering Shock and suppressed all of the god creatures. He chanted something, but that had nothing to do with Nature Faith. The adherents of the faith, however, did not realize what was going on and sped up their attack, ganging up on the last thousand god creatures.

Saleen felt that the state of affairs was set and charged into the depths of the God of Underworld’s divine kingdom to explore.

It was no surprise why the level 14 demigod was so weak. It spent most of its powers on the creation of its divine kingdom. Saleen spread his power of the soul out and probed the divine kingdom, finding weak beings. The place was quite different from a purgatory plane, which meant that it was probably the God of Underworld’s own body.

The divine kingdom was not large, so its only advantage was its extreme speed at fleeing.

Saleen sealed the portal. He chanted lightning runes instead of beginning a genocide. All of the divine kingdom’s god creatures were afraid. The human mage hovering in the sky was surrounded by 24 magic beasts, and lightning flashed and thunder rumbled, making it possible for him to cast deadly attacks at any given moment.

One god creature after another emerged and laid prostrate before Saleen. He held onto the broken divine persona of the God of Underworld and waited until a good number of god creatures to gather before he spoke, “I’m Saleen, a human mage. From this day forth, this divine kingdom belongs to me, and your faith shall be devoted to it,” Saleen said as he released the weapon spirit of the Lightning Moon.

The three-headed, six-armed giant roared, every single roar a massive explosion, shaking the minds of the god creatures below.