Badge in Azure

Chapter 1310: Apotheosis (Part 2)

Gods usually attract believers two ways—intimidation or enticement.

Intimidation was practiced by the side of the Lord of Glory. Any who did not believe in the Lord shall be cast to hell. As with enticement, that was even more simple: believe in me and I shall grant you eternal life.

That line was not a lie.

From a logical perspective, so long as the Lord of Glory lived, the believers would never die. If the Lord of Glory were to perish, then the believers would have lost their object of worship. With their faith lost, so would their eternal life be lost.

It was not a lie, but it was indeed a trap.

The Lord of Glory needed only to keep himself alive and he had no need to care about his believers’ wellbeing. There was little point for him to have concerns for others when he was no longer around after all.

Believers were akin to granaries to the gods. When people were alive, they would definitely been concerned about the food they ate. No dead people would fuss about food. Even with the entire spirit plane invading Myers Mainland, not a single grain would be lost from any granary because of the spirits.

The time to fulfill his end of the deal with Fycro was less than four months away, and it was impossible for Saleen to create any god in four months. His main concern was still on the Floating City itself.

The skeletal dragon below behaved just as he expected. With the mages of Alchemy City gone and the city taken over by the half-dead, the humongous creation simply stayed put in the city to train. The Alchemy City lost little from their emergence.

While the skeletal dragon was an intelligent being, it had no need for human equipment. With the exception of making city center into its lair using bones, hardly anything was changed elsewhere in the city.

After the people of Alchemy City left, the skeletal dragon didn’t even have an interest to take down the buildings.

The skeletal dragon saw the Floating City above as well. The skeletal dragon did not bother flying up to attack the city above after the thunderstorm was gone, it had no certainty of being able to destroy it. So long as the Floating City remained non-hostile, the skeletal dragon tolerated its presence.

Saleen took the Floating City 30,000 meters above ground as well, monitoring things from above.

They were both at peace with each other at the moment, yet it was only a matter of time before they clashed. Saleen knew that better than anyone else. He did not know of the bone dragon’s level. Typically the levels of beings on Myers Mainland should have been capped at level 12.

Level 13 beings could have stayed intact after their powers were suppressed, with the example being Rafel the archangel.

The Floating City needed re-crafting. Saleen added too much bone crystal of the giant, affecting the Floating City’s flight ability. He intended to add three new mechanical cores this time, to properly enable to the Floating City to fly. The city was meant to traverse planes, without corresponding power sources it would be difficult for the Floating City to regain its former powers.

Three broken mechanical cores were installed onto the Floating City. Saleen added Genesis Stock Solution, Six Elements’ Heavy Water and huge amounts of bone crystal of the giant.

Everything was focused at the center of the Floating City this time.

The three mechanical cores were restored by the Genesis Stock Solution and Six Elements’ Heavy Water. As far as materials go, bone crystals of the giant were on par with elementite. It was just that the level of those crystals were not as high as the elementite’s.

But then again, the structural strength of the bone crystals of the giant was above that of elementite, and was far more ductile. The earth element powers imbued within the crystals were also stronger than those in elementite. While the powers of the crystals were singular, they were also higher in purity.

Of course, Saleen was not only doing surface work. He had first modified the core of the Floating City. A tower built using bone crystals of the giant was erected at the plaza. The huge alchemy platform acquired from underground was first repaired within the tower. Countless mechanical puppets flashed with electricity with the Lightning Constellation at work, and reinstalling that platform was rather easy as well.

There were nine alchemy factories set up in nine respective floors of the tower. Four mechanical cores of the Sky City were located at the bottom of the factories. The modifications did not alert anyone and there were no strange phenomenon taking place.

Rafel and her angels were granted Six Elements’ Heavy Water, allowing them to strengthen and compress their bodies before anything else.

Saying that an angel’s height being higher is better was not true. After losing their god, those metal angels’ bodies suffered structural degradation, so much so that they risked being disintegrated altogether.

After Saleen distributed the Six Elements’ Heavy Water, the height of the metal angels were gradually shrunken to about three meters. Rafel’s height was shrunken to almost that of Nailisi’s.

Nailisi found that vexing. Rafel was a similar size to her, and that made the angel’s perfect appearance stand out.

Angels were weapons of war, and a weapon’s usefulness could be determined from their looks alone. Rafel’s bodily structure was eerily perfect. If it had not been for the pair of wings, she would be able to pass as a stunningly beautiful human.

Rafel’s wings made her look rather demonic, and her golden eyes seemed to enchant people’s souls.

Saleen related to Nailisi’s feelings, but there was no way he could give up on a helper like Rafel. His certainty in being able to take on the skeletal dragon was boosted considerably with Rafel around.

The metal angels were put to sleep inside the Magical Element Tower. Saleen had no intentions of allowing the metal angels to go to battle before they could be resurrected. Unless his hands were forced, he would not consider the possibility of making the metal angels cannon fodder.

Mages wanted very much to research angels as well after all. Mages had once created powerful puppets, but puppets were incapable of possessing souls. Angels, on the other hand, were.

The Floating City gradually changed looks. When the nine-floored alchemy factories were built with the group of palaces at the center, the factories acted as the core with four great pillars below—the four mechanical cores of Sky City.

The Floating City came to look rather different from the Sky City. With four mechanical cores sharing the load of the city’s operation, the pressure of the Floating City became considerably lightened, though it could even be said that doing so caused the City to waste too much energy.

But then again, Saleen had placed the magic net and residual energies could be used to keep the magic net of the Floating City running instead of activating the magic net only when they needed to do battle.

At the center beneath the four mechanical cores was Saleen’s Magical Element Tower, buried underground. The tower had thoroughly merged with the Floating City into a single being.

What surprised Saleen was when the adjustments on the Floating City’s structure was finished, something like a sword spirit appeared at the center of the tower.

Saleen’s Floating City used up about nine giants’ worth of bone crystals. Only by splurging like that was the Floating City to be made stable again. That mysterious thing appeared at the core, which was translucent and looked like a soul but did not look as ethereal.

Saleen sensed thick earth elemental powers emanating from it, yet it was not an earth elemental creature.

Judging from its appearance, it looked like a young giant.

The Floating City has given birth to a weapon spirit? Saleen mused, frowned for a bit. If he was unable to subjugate the weapon spirit, the Floating City would fly off on its own. It was no joking matter.

When Saleen was hesitating, that weapon spirit suddenly opened its eyes. Those were the only things than looked real from the void-like being.

Saleen cast Lightning Constellation at once.

The Big Guy pounced, and there were thousands of other smaller puppets by its side attacking. The entire thirteenth floor of the Magical Element Tower was filled with the lightning puppets.

“Hmph!”

That pair of eyes glared at Saleen, who shot lightning icicles right away.

The brimming eyes then closed immediately. Saleen’s lightning icicle phased right through the void and crashed onto the wall of the tower, dropping to the floor. It was the very first time Saleen’s lightning icicles were utterly ineffective since the day he invented them.

When the lightning icicles dropped to the ground, that pair of eyes opened again, pouncing onto the Big Guy’s body. The electrical charges around the puppets seemed to have no effect on the weapon spirit at all.

Saleen became certain that the thing with an appearance of the giant was a weapon spirit. In ancient times, the Sky Cities were not equipment and were incapable of developing weapon spirits.

The Floating City had limited area, and all attributes of the place suggested that it was a massively oversized equipment.

Saleen poured too much Genesis Stock Solution, Six Elements’ Heavy Water and bone crystals of the giant into crafting his work.

When all four mechanical cores of Sky City became operational, the entire Floating City became, without a doubt, a piece of equipment.

What made it stand out was that the piece of equipment was over 900 meters thick and 36 square miles, and Saleen still had problems wrapping his head around that concept.

The Floating City’s power was massive. Saleen put huge amounts of magic nuclei into all magic power furnaces and even put in various kinds of crystals, including shards of dragon crystal.

When all four mechanical cores worked as they should have, the fuel cost of the Floating City was reduced. Energy coursed through the Floating City’s vicinity. Even when they were not in battle, the energies cycled in a perfect balance.

The weapon spirit was born and became extremely powerful. Saleen’s lightning puppets should have caused massive damage to it, but it was rooted to the Floating City itself.

Unless Saleen became capable of destroying the Floating City, there would be no way for him to kill that thing.

The Floating City was too sturdy. Even if Saleen shot it with his Lightning Badge, it would not be destroyed. The bone crystals of nine giants enabled the Floating City to be a massively oversized shield.

Not even the grandmaster would be able to shake the foundations of the Floating City, let alone Saleen.

Saleen’s mind felt cold. He had Nailisi stand guard outside to keep his actions a secret. He was afraid that Sika would be harmed, so he did not bring her along, so he was the only one tackling the problem on the thirteenth floor of the magic tower.

The astrologers said that 13 was a bad number, and it did seem to be .

Saleen was unable to retreat. The weapon spirit was so powerful that it was actually consumed his lightning puppets. What made Saleen’s heart ache was that even the weapon spirit of the Lightning Constellation had been consumed.

That weapon spirit had developed a soul, but it died because of an error he made. The operations of the entire Puppet Constellation slowed due to the death of the Big Guy.

Saleen wracked his brains to figure out a solution. He was literally trapped in the thirteenth floor of the magic tower. The entire tower had been sealed and since it was situated underground, no one outside would be able to get in, and he was unable to get out.

If he were to be incapable of subjugating the weapon spirit, everyone onboard would be doomed. The weapon spirit would be able to control the entire Floating City, making the entire magic net its weapon.

Most materials of the Floating City were imbued with bone crystals of the giant. The energy packed in it was over 100 times greater than the ones within magic nuclei.

Once the weapon spirit decided to go all out, it could cast all kinds of magic spells using the magic net, and no one would be able to resist it.

Saleen had his back against the wall. His magic amplifier manifested behind him, and a black ring hovered behind him.