Badge in Azure

Saleen’s Floating City did not fly by for fear of causing unnecessary trouble. The Floating City was sturdy, but the number of magic cannons placed at the Palace at Sea was simply too many. Saleen had no intentions of fighting Grand Duke Iron Blood.

However, the Floating City’s land area was simply too huge, and parking it near the Palace at Sea would pose a threat to the place as well. The reason why Saleen made such a request was to gauge the Grand Duke’s reactions. The Grand Duke agreed to it and he made up his mind to fight Alchemy City. The assault would require them to mobilize naval forces.

Attacking from the sea would make the Floating City a makeshift giant warship. The Ancient looked like a toy beside the Floating City.

It was essentially a blitz instead of a siege. There was no way one could lay siege to a city full of mages for long. Getting inside and destroying the enemy’s magic amplifier would suffice. Once the magic amplifier was gone, taking out Alchemy City would no longer seem to be such a tall order.

It was the middle of September, and the agreement with Fycro was to be fulfilled by the end of December. Having more than three months to spare meant that Saleen and the Grand Duke would have ample time to launch a true assault, which would not take more than a day.

If the assault were drawn out for more than a day, they would either be forced to destroy the city or the city would annihilate the opposing joint forces. All of that was foreseeable.

While it was true that Alchemy City had not been able to do anything effective against Saleen despite their past efforts, it was mostly due to none of the core Elemental Hand members making a move.

There was no way they could take Alchemy City by surprise, which meant that they had to hit and run instead. Imposa knew the weakness of Alchemy City’s magic amplifier, and the city would not be able to do much to him if he just broke the magic amplifier and ran.

The parties of the allied forces needed to be upfront with each other, introducing the equipment and forces that they were able to field.

Two level 10 true might were fielded from the Grand Duke’s side, excluding the Grand Duke himself. There were also four level ten sorcerers, excluding Imposa. The Grand Duke had eight level ten professionals joining the fight.

On Saleen’s side, there were six level 10 professionals: Saleen, Sika, Nailisi, the Winged Skull, Jola, and Nicholas. The rest were at level nine.

Even 14 level 10 professionals storming Alchemy City felt inadequate. They needed to reinforce their equipment before they would be able to stand a chance. That alone served a testament of the city’s might.

Imposa had his mole within Alchemy City. The current intel suggested that the nine in power in Elemental Hand had all advanced to level 10. There were 21 other level 10 professionals, which meant that the city had 30 level ten sorcerers.

The social status of warriors in Alchemy City had always been low. However, there were also two level 10 true and over a dozen golden grand swordmasters in their midst. The group was quite a force to be reckoned with and if they teamed up, it would pose serious danger to Saleen’s side.

The side with Devil’s Horn was even more troublesome, as Imposa had little information on mages at Devil’s Horn. The only thing known about them was that more than four level 10 sorcerers emerged from their ranks.

Sorcerers who were forcefully advanced were not included. The sorcerers who left Alchemy City to carry out their missions did not have high status at Alchemy City.

Furthermore, Devil’s Horn served as a barrier at sea for Alchemy City. If anyone intended to attack Alchemy City, they would have to first destroy Devil’s Horn.

Devil’s Horn had flying warships, making them difficult to deal with. It was due to that fact that Grand Duke Iron Blood hoped that Saleen was able to deploy the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel. Only a vessel capable of flight would be able to take on flying warships of Devil’s Horn.

Saleen agreed. The Grand Duke deployed his Ancient into the assault. An Ancient served as the main force of a fleet. In ancient times, such small fleets usually had about 30 auxiliary escorts. The Grand Duke was willing to deploy escorts and his personal army manned the warships.

Saleen gained more warship schematics and had little intention of keeping the metal diving combat vessels secret. He was willing to provide information regarding the ships with the exclusion of the magic power furnaces, allowing the Grand Duke’s men to repair the ships.

Unless the magic power furnaces were broken, the Grand Duke did not need Saleen’s help with his underwater fleet.

The Grand Duke also asked Saleen to supply magic cannons. Saleen had already acquired manufacturing schematics of true magic cannons, but they remained very difficult to craft. They came with alchemical requirements of a level 9 sorcerer at the very least.

Grand Duke Iron Blood told Saleen, “in this assault of Alchemy City, we only have one day to get to it after taking out Devil’s Horn. We’re not allowed to bring what we’re truly capable of to bear before that. It is only when our troops have all gotten to shore to wreak havoc that we can deploy the magic cannons. I’ll only need the old types. We’ll just dispose of them if they’re broken.”

Saleen frowned. “Won’t that be a little too costly?”

“This is Alchemy City we’re talking about. We need to prepare to throw our gear away. What is broken is dead weight. We’ll just take whatever to cover the losses,” the Grand Duke was being upfront and heated with his words, so much so that Saleen was feeling embarrassed.

The Grand Duke laughed. “Your highness, this…”

“Well, it’s still kind of embarrassing to word it out loud.”

“Hahahahaha…” The Grand Duke almost choked on his laughter. He patted Saleen’s shoulder. “Alchemy City took Pompeii out, so you’ll need to get something back.”

Saleen nodded. “It makes me feel comfortable that you share these thoughts.”

Nailisi’s hands got sweaty when the Grand Duke patted his back. The Grand Duke was a level 10 true might, but Saleen’s constitution was on par with a silver grand swordmaster at most and he had no sword aura for protection.

Saleen was not worried. Sika was sitting right beside him and if the Grand Duke truly intended to kill him, he had the Figure of Fate to step in and ensure that he’d survive. Furthermore, he could use lightning skills to paralyze the Grand Duke.

Nothing could survive Sika and her metal totem pole. He and Sika had done synchronization training. If he were able to paralyze his opponent for 30 frames, Sika would be able to brandish her metal totem pole and finish the attack.

30 frames was to about half a second.

Balls of lightning would be able to attack quickly when fighting up close. The Grand Duke might even be killed by the ball of lightning, making half a second of paralysis insignificant. Saleen was well-equipped with a mage’s advantages but had none of a mage’s shortcomings.

Grand Duke Iron Blood was impressed at seeing Saleen looking calm after his shoulder getting patted. Mages like that were few and far between.

Saleen agreed to change the magic cannons for the Ancients and even equipped Imposa’s large puppets with magic cannons. It would allow the puppets to go onto shore right away and attack Alchemy City together with the army.

Alchemy City’s layout was little different from Saleen’s Metatrin City. There were no walls at the ports. Alchemy City placed magic towers for defenses. Six nine-floored towers were found near the ports, making their defenses formidable.

There was no need to talk much about armor and weapons. The Grand Duke made another list and all required supplies were listed. The wealth of Dragon Island was like Saleen’s—difficult to be converted to one’s own needed supplies. The trade had given both of them what they needed.

The final agreement stated that Grand Duke Iron Blood mobilized 200,000 men while Saleen mobilized 30,000. They were about to take Alchemy City, which had been standing tall and proud for over 1,000 years, with just 230,000 men.

As for loot distribution for this assault, things had never been simpler since the day Saleen participated in wars—finders keepers.

Everything depended on luck.

Saleen knew well that Imposa knew Alchemy City very well, meaning that he knew where most of the wealth was being kept. Alchemy City was unlike Saleen’s own nation. His nation kept most of the wealth at the temple while he and his teacher carried a portion on their persons.

Anything that could not be distributed was sent to the interdimensional space. Alchemy City needed to have shared storage. The power of the Elemental Hand was so huge that no single person would be able to control it in its entirety.

Furthermore, not everyone would have equipment like 12 Notes of First Purgatory, which came with humongous storage space. The space equipment that a level ten sorcerer usually carried had less than one-tenth the capacity of a dimension stone.

Saleen never had any worries about the finders-keepers policy. He had the Elemental Eye and his huge Lightning Territory. He had more than enough to cover the entire Alchemy City.

He had 50,000 lightning puppets pillaging for him. The rate at which he was able pillage was not inferior to Grand Duke Iron Blood.

Saleen was extremely rich. Robbing the place was but an act of revenge. If he was careless for even a split second when Alchemy City ambushed him, he would be meat on a chopping board for the three metal angels.

Saleen did not think that his wealth would suffice, as fighting off the invasion from the abomination plane would incur a massive cost. Be it manpower or supplies, it would be quite an ordeal to his nation.

It was a good thing if he got windfall of some kind at Alchemy City. Taking on Alchemy City would cause many mages to come to his side. Even if the Grand Duke turned out to be the one with the greater loot, he would still be the one to have some solid gain from the assault.

Saleen liked the policy very much. It was up to Imposa to lay out the plans for the battle after that.

Imposa took out defense schematics of Alchemy City of sufficient detail. Saleen looked at the defensive schematics and felt Imposa was really, really bold.

Alchemy City looked like a magic fortress. Every single building had magic defense attributes. If it had not been for the fact that he was equipped with the Floating City, there would be nothing he could do to Alchemy City. The tightly packed magic defense array schematics were displayed and Saleen made rough calculations.

If they took the city from the front, it would require a 10 million-person army before the city’s defenses could be taken down and allow them to enter the city.

The ones that would come to shore were puppets and Iron Blood Warriors. The Grand Duke’s army needed to wear Bug Angel Armors and drop into Alchemy City from the Floating City.

Alchemy City had an attack range beyond ten miles. If their troops dropped unscathed, the Floating City would need to stop at an altitude of about 12,000 meters before dropping the warriors.

Everything else would be out of the question without the use of Bug Angel Armors.

A thought occurred to Saleen. Did Fycro give me the schematics of Bug Angel Armor because he had predicted all this? That I’d attack Alchemy City with Grand Duke Iron Blood?

Despite Fycro’s pretty words, Alchemy City remained an obstacle on his path to godhood. In order to expand his powers, he needed to recruit believers from Myers Mainland.