Badge in Azure

Chapter 1404: Bloody (Part 2)

Armies in large numbers were useless against mages, as they might have simply thrown forbidden curses at them in their towers. One forbidden curse could have easily wiped out about 1000 elite troops in just one thought. Mages could have easily killed over 10000 conventional troops.

Platoons of 20 or 40 units who were all wearing magic armor, on the other hand, became the ideal groups for taking on mages.

The brutal battle ended up mages of the Elemental Hand suffering heavy casualties. Blood splattered everywhere. The casualties at the side of the Qin troops were hardly small. However, there were hardly any blood spilled when they died, with some being burned to a crisp while others were frozen into ice blocks.

Even those who were shredded by Wind Blades had their wounds shaved and cleaned by the elemental powers within, resulting in no blood spilling off of the wounds.

If the defensive capacity of the Mages’ Castle were to be able to used even at ten percent, things would not have ended up as they were on that day. Despite being only at level ten, Saleen’s proficiency at astrology would have still enabled him to determine how dangerous things would have gotten within a year.

According to his calculations, if he were to let the Elemental Hand be for over a year, things would have gotten very difficult for him. As such, he had to bring Safilos and find the lair, annihilating the mages of Alchemy City once and for all.

The Mages’ Castle was one without walls, making it necessary for the magic screens to be fully opened. Saleen’s lightning bolts notwithstanding, even huge bolts of lightning in nature would have been grounded and made completely harmless.

Without means to keep the screen up, the Mages’ Castle lost even that one percent of defensive capacity it had.

The Elemental Hand had been very careless, thinking that with the Holy See’s armies being onto Nature City, Saleen would have had no time to deal with them.

With the wars out on the other side being ones that would have carried on for over a year or so, all powerful mages of the Elemental Hand were cooped up in the underground laboratories doing research, and none of them came out to fight.

Saleen led a team and headed straight for the nearest high level magic tower.

Saleen brought enough men with him on the expedition. With the exception of Eleanor and Sika, who needed to look after his children at Metatrin City, as well as Daniel, all his other followers and trusted mages were brought with him.

Even Truman was right behind him, watching Saleen fight without saying a word.

Combat was important in Truman’s perspective, as his teacher was an enemy of many. If he were to perform poorly at combat, he would have easily ended up killed. That was something that he was unable to do anything about. He needed to pay the equivalent price of getting the best magical resources there were after all.

Saleen, on the other hand, was very confident in his student. Truman had the Elemental Envoy with him and there were six other elemental creatures right behind him after all. One of those creatures had his miniaturized magic cannon embedded on its chest.

The offensive capacity of that miniaturized magic cannon was not all that far behind the large scale magic cannon that Saleen replicated, yet the smaller version was capable of rapid fire without suffering any structural damage.

Rafel charged at the forefront. She blew up holes in one tower after another using her green spear, before casting seeds of the goddess, making the air within the tower difficult to breathe with. When the mages chanted, they would have sucked in those divine seeds and make plants grow from inside out.

None of the mages in the magic towers that Rafel poked holes in dared to chant their verses.

It was very difficult to cast large scale forbidden curses without being able to chant the verses. With that, the effects of the magic towers were diminished. The troops became safer without large scale forbidden curses being thrown about, and they went about killing any from Alchemy City within the compound they could find.

With Saleen being in charge, none of the small fries had gotten so much as the chance to turn the tables.

With the magic screen shattered, the nine core mages of the Elemental Hand were alerted. However, they were at the key moments of crafting the Baldur’s Gate, so they had no intentions to leave just yet.

The ones who attended to them were basically level ten mages. All nine of them were level 11 mage trainers at the moment, and they had not expected the Baldur’s Gate to be completely overwhelmed. They simply thought that something was wrong with the screen.

“My-my lord!”

A warrior barged in and all nine of them cast cold glances at the warrior who was getting in their way of performing alchemy. The warrior kneeled right away.

“Why did you let someone like him in here?”

The attending level ten mage was very embarrassed, but they said after taking a look at the warrior’s badge, “A messenger.”

“Hmph, talk about building armies and whatnot…”

One of the level 11 mage trainer said impatiently.

“Speak. What is happening?” A young mage asked right away. If the warrior were to keep their mouths shut still, they would have ended up dead soon.

“Saleen! Saleen is here!” That warrior shouted. It was as if they had been silenced for too long. Their shout was unusually high-pitched and irritating.

The nine mages were extremely irked by that warrior, but they were able to hear from the warrior’s tone that many in Alchemy City feared Saleen. Saleen’s Floating City loomed over Alchemy City in the last attack, and huge rocks were rained down from above, which proved to be more devastating than magic spells being cast.

That was because the rocks were hardly worth anything, yet they possessed damage potential on par with high level magic.

Regardless of how sturdy a set of magic armor would have been, it would not have been able to withstand being crushed by rocks of over 100 thousand pounds. The warriors wearing the armors would have died all the same.

Furthermore, the speed at which the rocks fall was something that was unavoidable unless one possessed a certain measure of calculative abilities.

The Floating City struck fear into the people of Alchemy City due to its unconventional ways of attack and extremely potent damage potential. Common folks would have had to die by the millions to attack Alchemy City, but Saleen was able to rub dirt on Alchemy City with just a single Floating City.

That was one of the reasons why Alchemy City had to move. If they were to seriously think about it, there was no way the mages of Alchemy City would have been able to fly up there to attack the Floating City.

If they were to simply hold the line on the ground, the people of Alchemy City would have never been able to see the light of day ever again, simply by having the Floating City loom over Alchemy City, even if Saleen were to have no plans of attacking Alchemy City below.

To put it more bluntly, Saleen only needed to station the Floating City on top of Alchemy City and rain down rocks on the city below whenever he fancy, and the people at the city below would have considered leaving due to not all of them being able to evade the rocks.

That was the very reason why the mages of Alchemy City all moved inside the Baldur’s Gate. Saleen’s Floating City was simply too obnoxious. Not only did it have formidable defense, it was also capable of flight and attacks could have been in very affordable ways.

But then again, those from the Alchemy City were simply able to keep all those thoughts to themselves. Showing such thoughts on their faces would have earned the ire of those powerful mages. One level 11 mage trainer cast a whiff of mist, which enveloped that warrior.

The metal armor on that warrior crumbled instant, and the warrior themselves were reduced to frozen dust.

That was Mist of Extreme Cold, a magic spell that was at the brink of being lost, and one that Saleen was incapable of using. The spell did not look overpowering, and yet it was able to deal great damage. It was said that when upgraded until the very pinnacle, it would have been able to cover entire continents.

Even if there were to be living beings capable of surviving the spell, they would not have been able to live long on the affected continent.

That godly skill was an ability above level 16.

There was no actual need to drop the temperature of the place to such levels, as changing three to five points in temperature would have been enough to make many living beings suffer, so much so that they would have been driven to extinction.

The nine mages looked at each other after killing that irksome warrior.

The mage who took the lead wore a purple robe. His powers were near level 12. The one with the highest level of powers were made the leader of the inner circle of the Elemental Hand. All remaining eight of them wore only red robes.

“Get prepared and seal this place up for the time being. We’ll come back and work on the Baldur’s Gate later.”

“Great Elder, couldn’t we just wait a little longer?” The youngest mage in their midst asked.

“No. If we were to lose the mages in the Mages’ Castle up there, we’d end up being sealed down here by Saleen,” the Great Elder said with a glum face, feeling very irritated deep down.

If he were to have just one more year to work with, he would have been able to crush Metatrin City.

“Great Elder, would Saleen be capable of such a feat?”

“Heh, if we are able to advance to level 11, so could Saleen. We’re not the only ones who benefited from the rules of the plane. When he was at Alchemy City back then, he was but a low level mage and none of us batted an eye on him. We only took him as a lackey of Lex back then. And what now? He has already become someone who could steer the way things work on Myers Mainland.”

All of them felt dejected. Mages do not believe in fate, yet fate favors certain mages nonetheless.

It was a famous saying. There were powerful mages emerging in every era. While some of those mages were not even geniuses to begin with, they were nonetheless able to get to the pinnacle of magic study and look down on all others.

For example, the founding emperor of the First Dynasty, the demon mage of the Second Dynasty, the leader of the magic army of the Third Dynasty, and the destroyers of the Fourth Dynasty.

It was especially so in the case of the destroyers of the Fourth Dynasty. That was a term referring to a group of mages.

There were still massive numbers of astrologers present in the Fourth Dynasty. They predicted that the power of the mainland would have continued to weaken. All professionals on Myers Mainland would have only gotten increasingly weak.

The mages realized that as well, and the destroyers were a group of mages that killed their way out of Myers Mainland. Those mages wreck havoc in other planes.

The destroyers were a group of kings who brought their subjects with them and destroyed many civilizations along the way, including kingdoms of the gods. While that was hardly worth mentioning compared to the feats of the First Dynasty, but that was already at the end of their era.

Some even claimed that the destroyers were the last bit of glory of humanity.

Due to the destroyers’ actions, there were many subcontinent planes that had humans living alongside other beings. Where Sul came from was actually connected to the destroyers.

At present, with the power of Myers Mainland continue to rise, Saleen became one of those favored sons of the heavens in history, one who had a common upbringing, who had been able to grow at a frightening rate and possess extremely formidable equipment.

The mages felt heavy deep down, as the growth of every being of such nature was done by stepping on countless powerful beings, and that was how they reached the very top.

If Saleen were to be that one mage who was favored by fate, then what of us? Are you just people bringing Saleen to glory then?

“No dynasty shall last forever. Even gods would perish. Saleen might have had incredible luck, but there was no telling that he was one such people. There were many excellent mages who died at moments of their greatest glory, and Saleen would not have been any different. I propose that we use the godly item of the Baldur’s Gate, and we shall get rid of this guy together. What do you all think?” The Great Elder suggested.

“Which one?”

None of the mages objected, and they were only concerned about technical problems.

“The Book of Gaia. We’re now underground, and earth type godly items would work the best.”

“Alright, count me in!”

“I too…”

The mages all nodded. The Great Elder was a very steady man. The Book of Gaia did indeed appear to be the best choice out of the other five. The Deathly Night, which was supposed to be the most powerful, was not even mentioned by the Great Elder.

There were all godly items that were usable only by powerful beings of level 13 and above. The nine of them could have made use of them through certain special methods. There were six godly items within the Baldur’s Gate, and each corresponded to a type of elemental magic.