Badge in Azure

“Very well, I will bring her back to you. Before that, I will need my old equipment.”

“This is not within the terms!”

“Theisio, do you need to be such a cheapskate? I know you have got a lot in your collection. The dead brothers I used to work with, their gear is in your hands, no?”

Theisio spoke with anguish, “Go collect it yourself at the Seventh Church.”

“As you wish, your holiness,” Don said as he turned into a streak of white light and slithered out through the opening that was hardly larger than a book.

“Get back here at once!” Theisio yelled at the top of his lungs, yet Don was nowhere to be found.

Don vanished before Theisio was aware of anything in his room, and yelled when he knew what happened, “Someone! Get someone here at once!”

Several high priests showed up at the door, and Theisio was then all flustered. He waved his subordinates away and chose to jump over the window, flying to the Seventh Church personally instead.

The Seventh Church was an ancient ruin with a history spanning over one-thousand years. When the Lord of Glory came to spread the faith, it was written in the Codex that there were seven days in a week, as the gods created the world in seven days.

Everyone on the Myers Mainland was in agreeance that there were six days in a week, corresponding to the transitional rules taking place between the six elements, though. The Seventh Church symbolized the adamant will of the gods within the Holy City. The Holy See persisted with the daily life and prayer routine of having seven days in a week, even though that cost them a lot of followers.

The pope knew what Don was up to. There was only a handful who were capable of stopping the escaped prisoner within the city. His silhouette drew a streak through the sky, and a beam of white light was seen right above the Seventh Church, shooting down and collapsing the place’s roof. The earth shook. Within mere seconds, the core of the Seventh Church, the chapel for holding prayers, a building of sixty yards tall, was seen cracking apart.

The sight had the pope flying into a rage, and he almost raised his staff but decided at the last minute to put it down. “I take down Don, then what? Kill the fellow, or continue locking the fellow up?”

The pope lowered his staff and took out a book. The cover of the book in his hand glittered with golden light, seemingly having an uncountable amount of holy prose shimmering in and out between the streaks.

Theisio opened the book and shouted, “Restore!”

Holy lights flew from all over Holy City and fell onto the Seventh Church simultaneously. The cracks on the building itself were quickly repaired. Then, a boom was heard from within the church, followed by tens of holy masters fleeing for their lives from the front gate. The building with a history spanning one-thousand years, crumbled shortly after.

A streak of bright light shot up from the resulting pile of dust and smoke. It spoke to Theisio in a nonchalant manner, “Theisio, I will now go get the job done. You get busy with fixing the place.”

Don’s silhouette was lost within the light heading far away. Theisio’s eyes were cold. He put the book away slowly, and a grin appeared on his face.

If he could have retrieved the ring on Lex’s finger, it would have been worth seeing everyone in the Seventh Church dead. He would never be a true pope with one out of the three Godly Items lost. That ring seemed to be a fitting replacement for the Seal of Divine Power.

Don retrieved his old gear from the ruined church. He changed into a white robe and went soaring higher.

Was the prisoner doing this to save his daughter? That did not seem so. Even if his daughter was returned, she would have been rendered a lost cause. He was clear of the pivotal council’s methods. No normal human being was able to ever return as who they were before after what they went through there.

So was it done in revenge to Theisio? While he had indeed committed sins, that had nothing to do with Theisio.

Was the prisoner doing it because of contempt for everyone as he claimed, then?

Daliang enjoyed breezy weather in the month of September. The palace had undergone basic repairs, and there were six other magic towers erected, all of which had six floors. With that, the place would never again be rendered totally defenseless when powerful enemies showed up at the door again.

With the Cloudflow invaders retreating and the Holy See’s army heading north, the trouble with the clash of the three cities was resolved. There was hardly any tension left within Daliang. The gates were no longer shut. While there were hardly any faraway merchants stopping by, some mercenaries showed up and signed up to see if they could be as lucky as the Dragon-slaughtering Mercenary Group.

Don infiltrated the city without any trouble. He joined one of the mercenary groups as a mage. Dressed in a white robe and capable of playing up a few tricks, the mercenaries were more than happy to have Don among their ranks.

Don was, of course, no mage, but some magic did not require magic chords to conjure. He cooked up a lot of trouble in the past for having researched magic. That made him lose a good bunch of his brothers-in-arms. Don, without a doubt, had a great resentment towards magic. That did not stop him from researching and using magic though.

Don’s mind seemed to be filled with evil fires every time he used magic, suppressing his urge to slaughter everyone around him.

Not that time. That time, he was there to take someone away, and that required quite a bit of discretion.

Don had a keen enough sense to join a mercenary group with little more than one-hundred members, but members of which were of high quality. The group was taken in by the city as expected without trouble.

As a mage from a mercenary group, Don was not summoned to the palace immediately, and he felt no need to rush things. If he was to go on his way by force, there was no guarantee that he would have been able to destroy all the magic towers in the way. As soon as Lex retreated into one of those towers, there was little else he could do.

There was little need to get too close to Lex. Three-hundred yards would have been enough, as she would have been out of the towers’ range for protection. As long as things happened to be so, Don had enough confidence to take his target away. As for escape, there was no option but to fight his way out of the city.

Don waited a week to be selected by Lex’s people to join the ranks of the palace mages. As a level two white-robed mage, there was no way for him to be able to join the ranks of her personal mages. There were other tests to be had, such as loyalty.

Don was at the time, in charge of the records, taking note of the books that low-level mages borrowed. The magic tower of the palace could have been seen from the window of his quarters. Then again, there was a need for his sharp eyes to make out the sight in a crisp-clear manner.

There was nothing to set up to hide anything within the tower. Don was able to somewhat see into the seventh floor of the tower with his power. There was a silhouette of a woman. The young female mage was a grade-6 grand mage, as per Theisio’s description.

A grade-6 grand mage was still within his means to deal with. If she were to advance into the ranks of sorcerers, however, things would have been rather messy.

Taking someone alive was a far more difficult job than simply killing someone.

Seeing that silhouette from afar brought him a sense of tranquility. He did not intend to return quickly from the mission. All his brothers from back then were dead. As a holy master of the Heaven Knights, he knew full well that there was a ruin from the second dynasty in the place that his brothers were looking for him in.

The mages committing sacrilegious acts on the dynasty committed equally blasphemous acts of various sorts against the gods. Don did not mind it. He liked magic, and he did not regret giving up his future for the art. He was unfortunate to be born as a child of God. As a believer, it was not fitting for him to learn such things.

“So, that is to say, I will be cast to hell for it then?” Don thought as he looked at the female mage within the tower, how wonderful and blessed it was to be able to practice magic to one’s heart’s content. “I will just let her be happy for a few more days then.”

The mage’s crystal coffin was no longer inside the tower’s seventh floor. Stephanie had moved Eleanor to the eighth floor to continue her treatment. There was actually no need for the treatment to take such a long time. The delay was due to Stephanie’s research on the body of the elf as the treatment took place. While that did not benefit Eleanor in the slightest, it was at least reassuring to know that the treatment was a meticulous one, and would not have left her with unwanted side effects.

The female who was dressed in Lex’s clothes and had her hair done like Lex’s on the seventh floor was Isabella. While Daliang had been free from any crisis at that time, it was somewhat unnerving for Lex to leave for such a long time. As such, Lex did not announce her departure and instead had Lex practice within the tower in her stead.

Lex was not even within the city. She snuck out and headed for Bitterwater Prefecture, and returned to Metatrin City through the teleportation portal. Jason needed her back as soon as possible, so she went the quickest way she was able to think of.

It was a matter of fact that the Holy See had spies within Daliang, but their numbers were too small and their levels too low. It was done so that they would not have attracted any attention to them, but the information they were able to gather was limited. Any news they dared send out was comparatively important intelligence. Lex had not even informed the army of her departure, and as such, the low-level spies knew nothing about it at all.

Even if the pope was to send a force to sack the city, they would not have found Lex anywhere. That was because Lex had entered the Hell of God’s Punishment. Thirty-six sorcerers created the inter-dimensional teleportation portal, arriving accurately outside Raphael’s magic tower using Lex’s God’s ring.

Lex brought massive relevant materials with her, creating a large-scale teleportation portal outside Raphael’s tower.

Inter-dimensional travel was not a difficult feat so long one was willing to pay the price, or else summoning magic would be something impossible. In theory, inter-dimensional teleportation hardly cost any more than teleportation on the same plane. This was because teleportation on the same plane had one teleport through space more than twice. Inter-dimensional teleportation only had one teleport through said space once.

Of course, if the inter-dimensional teleportation concerned had planes being very far from each other and coordinates being unclear, the massive cost to it would not have been something seen in teleportation within the same plane.

Lex teleported herself back to the magic array beneath the temple after creating a detailed coordinate. She intended to take six mages with her. Without the god’s ring, the danger posed to the mages traveling between dimensions would have surpassed the danger of flying in thunderstorms.

The reason why Jason was willing to work with her before she married Saleen was because she possessed the God ring. It enabled her to teleport between dimensions safely.

Lex had no choice but to seek Jason’s help. There was no way she was able to gather so many sorcerers. While the Grukos might have been able to provide her with such, and she would have been able to do so with the Seal of the Six-Winged Flying Snake, doing so would have resulted in her falling on bad terms with Saleen. She ended up getting nothing out of it.

According to the traditions of her house, Lex would have been able to get twenty percent out of said earnings at most.

“Teacher, will you not accompany me there?”, Lex rubbed at the God’s ring. Even with such a Godly Item equipped, one was only able to provide protection for six at most. With the number of times doing so being limited, transport of all thirty-six sorcerers would have taken two or three years. Something good came out of it nonetheless. Metatrin City could not be left defenseless after all.

“I’m not going,” Jason smiled, “I’m hoping to advance using my own powers.”