Badge in Azure

Chapter 1306: Calm Before the Storm (Part 2)

The summoning array split up and stood up straight against the ground. An irregular black tear appeared and energy gushed from it. The green got increasingly thin and the purple increasingly thick.

Low pitched roars were heard from the tear. The elders of the Elemental Hand began giving orders to the mages who were close to them, having them clear the area. All core members of the Elemental Hand prepared to leave.

While the wealth of Alchemy City was vast, with the exception of the underground warehouses, most was concentrated in the hands of the nine elders.

They were not ready to give up the city, but the mages of the Elemental Hand were incapable of taking on the monster that was answering the summons.

The nine elders began to transfer the items in the warehouses and left their magic towers. Mages around the summoning array were shifting rapidly as well. The mages of the Elemental Hand closed in on another core area on the south side of the city, and no longer backing up the mages at the east side, who were still fighting the archangel.

Hundreds of hands shot out from the tear. All of the hands had long fingernails and thick hair.

Purple smog emerged from the tear shortly after, which smelled humid and putrid. The hands were shrouded by the smog. Hundreds of shrieks were heard. The hands corroded until only bones were left.

The roar became increasingly clear and agitated. A 20-meter-tall creature walked out from the tear, clad in purple aura. Every step it took made the ground crack and blister.

Alchemy City’s ground was made of rocks as strong as steel. While the rocks lacked malleability, they were very corrosion-resistant.

However, under the purple aura, the rocky ground that had not needed replacement for 1,000 years was stripped, as if it had been subjected to harsh weathering.

A spirit?

The creature had a bony face and its eyes were replaced with soul flames. All nearby mages were surprised.

The spirit plane, like Myers Mainland, had power levels that severely plummeted, but the spirit that emerged from the summoning array looked at least level 12.

There were quite a number of mages capable of summoning spirits. The death mages knew that even in the spirit plane, the kings were level ten at most. However, that monster that emerged was already level 12, and it looked like a lone wolf.

That meant that a spirit plane further away had been opened, once known as the secondary spirit plane.

However, the creature that emerged from the secondary spirit plane was actually stronger than normal.

Something is off. This should have been a teleportation portal for summoning huge beasts from the Orc Continent. Why did a spirit emerging instead? Everyone was puzzled.

The spirit was shrouded in purple aura and held a fork. The five-pronged fork had a head speared on it. The spirit is breathing hard. It is breathing; you can see the purple aura being sucked into its nostrils.

“It’s a half-dead!” Someone yelled. The surrounding towers cast high level spells at once, caging the half-dead within.

Half-deads were powerful. While they were horrible as far as summoned creatures went, the souls of half-deads could be used to make good items. Half-deads were pricey even back in ancient times.

“That…idiot…” The half-dead was still choosing its words when the spells hit it. However, the magic spells hardly did anything as they shot into the purple smog.

Spirit territory!

The mages lost all their passion when they realized. There were many creatures capable of possessing territories. A creature that possessed territorial powers meant that they possessed intelligence.

Any half-dead that possessed intelligence was difficult to capture. Their souls were capable of escaping back into the spirit plane. When spirits were crushed, they returned to the spirit plane. However, returning of their own will and being forced back there were different concepts.

Powerful mages could destroy the soul flames of spirits, wiping them out from existence. For this particular half-dead however, it would be extremely difficult to get its soul flames, especially since it possessed intellect. It would set up death magic array in the plane it came from, enabling it to escape back at any given moment.

The nine elders of the Elemental Hand were tempted. Conventional mages were not able to capture half-deads. They should consider themselves lucky if the half-dead did not eat them, let alone capturing them.

However, due to it being within the vicinity of the city’s territory, the half-dead’s power diminished, which meant that the elders were capable of taking it on.

Crack…

The tear in space behind that half-dead became even bigger. A skull that was over a dozen meters tall emerged and ate the half-dead.

“A skeletal dragon!”

“Let’s get it!”

“Run…”

The mages of Alchemy City were all over the place. If the death mages who intended to take the skeletal dragon on were able to tame it, they would become like Grand Duke Iron Blood—acquiring a massive power boost and the ability to ignore level difference.

The ones who told everyone to run were elemental mages. Magic defenses of skeletal dragons were too high, and they had no intentions of dying.

“Out of my way!” The skeletal dragon’s claws tore at its side. If the space tear had formed naturally, it would not have been able to withstand its pressure. However, the tear was a manifestation of the summoning array.

It ignored the elemental storm in the tear and did not suffer any damage.

The half-dead’s bones shattered to pieces. The soul flames in its eyes were quickly absorbed by the skeletal dragon.

The skeletal dragon spit some of the broken bony residue at the magic tower right before it, killing over half of the mages inside. The essence of the bones were absorbed by the skeletal dragon and made part of its power as well.

“Sh**, why is a skeletal dragon coming out!?”

“Let’s get out of here…”

While the mages of the Elemental Hand had many ways of dealing with it, killing the skeletal dragon would be moot if they were lost too many mages, as it would rob them of the hope to restart in the future.

Most of the elites of Alchemy City had been transferred elsewhere, and the mainland was about to fall into chaos. The Elemental Hand had no intention of being caught at the forefront. Many would perish in the upcoming chaos.

The people of the Elemental Hand began to discuss retreat. The skeletal dragon forced itself out of the tear and lowered its head, crashing into a magic tower. The Floating City in the sky remained where it was. Rain clouds were gathering and cold rain fell from the sky on the mid-autumn day.

The Floating City was half of the reason why the rain came to be.

Saleen was researching on how to convert clouds to rain. Clouds were inadequate for generating lightning, but when rain formed, lightning would definitely appear.

The enchanters on the Floating City cast many magic spells to test per Saleen’s requests and finally created a thunderstorm.

Countless half-dead emerged out of the tear from behind the skeletal dragon. The tear could not be maintained for long, but half-dead and spirits were different.

Half-deads yearned for flesh and manifestation of souls. The smell of Myers Mainland was enticing, and the half-deads were instinctually tempted. They forced themselves through the space barrier and into Alchemy City without a care.

Many half-deads lower than level seven lost their way in the space tear and were caught in the space turbulence, lost for good. However, half-deads of level seven and above possessed intelligence, and their instincts had been awakened.

The half-deads simply followed the path of energy forged by the skeletal dragon, entering Alchemy City without a scratch.

Heavy rain poured from above and the soul flames in the eyes of the half-deads danced in the rain. They spread out throughout the city.

Saleen and his party had returned to the Floating City. The reactions of the crowd watching the scene from the magic array differed.

Saleen sighed. Alchemy City was doomed. The thousand year-old city had once been the dream of countless mages and was about to be crushed by creatures from another plane.

That spirit plane was definitely not the one that the Winged Skull came from.

No one had any idea what the level of the skeletal dragon was, but it could not be any lower than 13. The rules of Myers Mainland began to loosen. Alchemy City’s territory was no longer able to suppress the skeletal dragon’s power.

It was great news to mages. Once rules on the mainland changed, advancing would no longer be difficult. To common folks, however, it was definitely a disaster.

Half-deads hunted any living beings to absorb their powers of the soul to strengthen themselves. The rate of hunting would not be high, unlike black magicians. The gods that black magicians believed in might not be able to kill the skeletal dragon.

Imposa sighed. His regret was that he was unable to continue searching the warehouse. With the emergence of the skeletal dragon, the people of the Elemental Hand would rack their brains for ways to retreat, without any spare thoughts to bother about Saleen’s party.

The Grand Duke looked at the scene and shook his head. He said to Saleen, “Your Highness, I urgently need…”

“Equipment, no? Give me a list. I’ll try to hasten the crafting processes as best as I can.”

Imposa was unable to hold back any longer. “Grand Duke, I’m willing to help you, but I don’t know what to do with the things I took from His Highness.” He took out a firewing monkey sealed in water element.

“It’s one of the god creatures, which can be used to craft tools for amplifying fire element magic powers. If the souls of these god creatures are intact, they can be made into weapon spirits as well,” Saleen explained to Grand Duke Iron Blood. Both he and Imposa did not get what they went into the warehouse for.

They were unsure if the Grand Duke would be okay with the firewing monkeys.

Imposa heard Saleen’s words and knew immediately that their worth far exceeded his expectations, but they were not quite as valuable as the fragments.

“I’m fine. I’ll take one-fifth of these if that is okay with you?” The Grand Duke asked both Saleen and Imposa.