Badge in Azure

Chapter 1497: Thought Patterns of Powerful Beings (Part 2)

The goddess had once been a level 18 mage. She was able to tell what Saleen needed with just one look and gave him lessons specifically tailored to him. She finally came to provide him with what truly mattered.

No amount of equipment and wealth could have compared to the value of a mage’s personal experience in training.

Saleen would not have to worry about equipment and wealth when he reached level 18. If he were to be stuck as a mage at level 14, it would have been only a matter of time before he was surpassed by someone else. None of his equipment would have been able to ensure that Saleen was able to stand at the peak of power.

The case with the general made Saleen realize that, when one stands at the very peak, they simply look up to even greater heights, and absolutely do not bother looking down at the pointless things below them.

The goddess had effectively made it so that Saleen was unable to leave her side by imparting her magical knowledge to him when he ran into a dead end. If she had not wanted Saleen as an ally of hers, she would not have bothered doing so.

To the goddess, Saleen had become someone useful to her, and there might come a day where they would actually get along as equals, or at least as enemies worthy of each other’s respect.

One way or another, Saleen would finally get his dues after paying the price.

Guidance from the goddess would have probably been the most valuable thing he could have found on that plane.

“First of all, hand me back the Lightning Moon.” Saleen saw that it would take quite a bit of time for the general and his people to be done with the divine personas. The magic cube was also fusing with the Hall of Gods inside his magic amplifier at an excruciatingly slow rate.

He was still at level 14, so it would have worked better to let Dante take care of Water Flame control.

The goddess had no doubt knew what Saleen wanted. She chucked the invisible Lightning Moon into Saleen’s magic amplifier. Dante only sighed a breath of relief after it was inside. Under Saleen’s orders, it began to speed up the fusion between the magic cube and the Hall of Gods.

The magic cube was able to preserve the Hall of God’s attributes and expand its space. Such a fusion worked to ensure the strength of the magic cube as well, instead of being like it was before—structurally weak and full of shortcomings.

Saleen’s magic amplifier had already come to possess considerable space within. He was currently a level 14 mage. By the time he reached level 15, he would have been able to establish his nation inside, just like how Raphael had done it.

While the space within the magic amplifier was stable, it was incapable of growing plants and nurturing living beings. Space was not enough without celestial entities.

Sika’s metal totem pole was actually better in comparison.

However, with the addition of the Hall of Gods, all those things mentioned above would have been possible. The magic amplifier was already a space capable of sustaining life on its own, and Saleen had actually planned to fuse the Baldur’s Gate instead.

But then again, the level of the Baldur’s Gate was simply too high. Such fusion would have taken tens of thousands of years to complete. The Hall of Gods, on the other hand, despite being made of remains of high-level gods, was inferior to the Baldur’s Gate in terms of its own level.

With the help of the goddess and knowing where the backdoor of the Hall of Gods was, Saleen would have only needed several years to fuse the Hall of Gods with the magic cube completely.

Saleen was multitasking at the moment, but with the help of Dante, everything still went smoothly. More than a month passed before they realized it. The general had yet to absorb the divine personas completely, but the goddess was unable to wait any longer.

“General, if you’re still going to take your sweet time…” she said.

The goddess then pointed a very long nail at the brow of the youth she sealed, and said, “I’ll just use bait to draw the Heretic God over using the quickest way possible.”

That youth’s eyes glittered. It was unknown what was going on in their mind.

Saleen smirked coldly deep down, finding it hilarious that the fellow was still thinking that they were able to escape. The goddess could have rendered them unconscious very easily, but she left them conscious so as to give them hope, preventing them from dying.

The goddess was not being arrogant. That youth could have been the smartest person in the world, and still, they would not have been able to shrug themselves free of the seal.

Saleen was apparently able to sense that the more the youth tried to figure out ways to get out of their current predicament, the more excited the goddess became. It was like how cats were when they toyed with rats. If the rats were to give up and roll over, the cats would have lost their interest.

That was probably some game powerful beings played when they were bored. But Myers is already in so much trouble. Is she even able to feel bored now?

The goddess did actually feel bored. Everything worked as planned, and no unforeseen circumstances occurred. If the general was really that decisive in bringing down the sword, he would not have been the only general among the 12 who had been able to enter the Cemetery of Heroes, and he would not have remained stuck to his grave, even after that many years.

Sacrificing some of the heroes would have allowed him to regain his strength and shake free of the curse. It would have been better if he was willing to sacrifice the grandmaster. If the goddess had been in his shoes, she would have done so a long time ago.

“Just give me a day.” The general eyed the remaining six pieces of divine personas, looking exasperated. There were hardly any rules worth taking within, yet there was no doubt that the amount of power was ample. That meant that every single piece had been worked on by the goddess. The heroic spirits would have only been able to use the power of the divine personas in order to shake free of their graves for a time.

Why didn’t Myers just tempt me using the divine personas instead? Is it to say that I’m of no use to her then? So much so that I’m inferior to that puny mage?

“Alright, one day it is then.” The goddess did not pressure the general any further. The Heretic God would have been able to grow its power greatly within just a single day. They were still in the Imperial City, and she had only destroyed magic arrays that she was unable to control. The hub at the palace was untouched. If push came to shove, she could just kill herself along with the Heretic God.

It was only a matter of willingness on the general’s part.

“Myers, is fame really that useless?” Saleen asked all of a sudden.

“Useless? No. With fame and reputation, you’d get around to doing things a lot easier. For instance, if the general wasn’t going to comply, I’d have just baited the Heretic God here. If you were to be the one doing it, would it have scared the general?” she asked.

Saleen shook his head. If he were to threaten the general, the general would have simply turned a deaf ear to his words.

“Fame is like shackles, and it has cost people their freedom. But if you’re able to make good use of fame, the shackles can be turned into your weapon,” she said.

Saleen realized something all of a sudden. That was her way of telling him what the Shackles of the Fallen were truly for.

Only when one was to always stay true to oneself and keep oneself from falling would they be able to control the Shackles of the Fallen truly.

“I’ve laid down 24 temples for those to come after I perish. Only you had been destroying the temples thoroughly. If you were to leave them be, those temples would have simply shut themselves up and given birth to new treasures.” The goddess’s expression showed that she clearly expected Saleen to feel regretful.

Per the goddess’ wishes, he went on to look regretful.

“No matter, you enabled me to save quite a lot. Those followers of mine wouldn’t have had weapons to use when they resurrect otherwise,” the goddess continued.

Saleen was only truly regretful then. If he knew that was the goddess’ plan, he would not have cared who would have taken the luck within. So long as he was able to keep the temples intact, he would have been able to excavate them over and over.

However, that lasted but for a second, and Saleen came to his senses again.

He was unable to help himself and laughed. Suddenly, his mood had lightened up considerably.

“I sure am curious how the Lord of Glory’s divine kingdom is doing…” Saleen said.

“It would have been an intense fight. I’d be seeing a lot of death among my believers,” the goddess answered.

“Aren’t you worried?” he asked.

“Why should I be? So long as I live, their souls would stay intact,” she said.

“But they’re still your slaves,” Saleen said.

“They’re actually those who wanted to be and never got the chance,” the goddess informed him.

“You talk as if people wanted such opportunities.”

“Hehe.” The goddess did not say anything more. She was thinking deep down just how excruciating it had been for the heroic spirits in the cemetery, being trapped for tens of thousands of years. Furthermore, due to the considerably hastened passage of time, it would have felt even more excruciating.

She wondered if the general would have kneeled to her if she were just to let them know a bit of what was going on.

Saleen had not spent all that long in the Imperial City of the Abyss. The passage of time at the Cemetery of Heroes was a lot faster than it was outside. The goddess had also only compressed the time spent within the Hall of Gods into just a single day, and she had not let Saleen spend too much time within.

At Cloudflow Empire, a million-strong army charged outside the gates of the divine kingdom. The divine kingdom army was not actually invincible. Like humans, they wore armor and rode steeds. The holy masters and angels were akin to the mages and powerful swordsmen of the humans.

The common foot soldiers rode tall, white camels unique to the Lord of Glory’s divine kingdom, and they moved extremely fast.

The fighting broke out at Lion City. The army amassed by Grand Duke Platinum was over 300 thousand-strong. But then again, he was not the only one gathering an army. There were also ragtag bands of troops as well as militia gathered at their own volition. The number of those troops reached a staggering million and more.

The reason they were out to fight was simple—they were doing it to keep living.

Trade effectively ceased, and the peasants from nearby lands all flocked to the city. Food was gathered in a hasty manner. Everyone wanted to live, and it was all up to the nobles.

However, the nobles saw no reason to simply feed them without asking them for anything in return. They wanted those people to go out and fight.

When the first line of defense was being hammered on, there were some who attempted to surrender to the god creatures. However, the god creatures did not care in the least. They were out to carry out their god’s orders faithfully, and that meant to destroy that plane completely.

No one else came to have such bright ideas again after that.

The Lord of Glory had a reason to be enraged. All of his believers in that plane were being killed. The Holy See that he established was completely destroyed, and the last enemy had actually killed his saint.

Souls of saints were not something that just appeared in every plane.

From the Lord of Glory’s standpoint, he no longer needed faith from that plane. All he needed to do was to mete out his punishment. The wrath of god shall burn Myers Mainland, and that would have been the end of everything. None of those blasphemers shall be left behind.

He was simply meting out the final judgment, written in the codex that he had penned himself.

The initial fear was quickly quelled by the first victory the humans scored. Grand Duke Platinum sent out his personal guards and attacked the flanks of the divine kingdom army, leading a small brigade. There were only 2000 humans fighting in that particular battle, yet they had been able to cut up nearly 10000 enemy units. Over 1500 people managed to return.

That was to say that the probing done by that human brigade lost only about 400 soldiers while killing up to 9000 enemies.

That was a very overwhelming difference in kill counts. Morale on the humans’ line of defense was at an all-time high. That was because casualties would have usually been very high on the field. Most of the armies simply stayed at the line of defense. The ones who went out in the open were either the handful of elite troops or the massive scores of militia units.