Badge in Azure

Nicholas smiled bitterly. Nailisi had simply used him as some tool to clean up small fries. It nonetheless worked in the old man’s favor, as the demon had at least not sent him to take the lead in charging at the enemy. He had been instead relegated to a support position, where he would be able to work at full capacity as a holy master.

“Time Reversal,” Nicholas raised his scepter of the fallen and pointed it at the enemy at the other end of the hold.

The gate were at the end of the hold. Other than a silver grand swordmaster, there were also several black-robed mages who had yet to make their move.

The sorcerers were no big deal as they were only at grade-7. Nicholas alone proved adequate to deal with. There was another tall figure clad in magic armor behind these mages though.

That person simply stood there like a mountain. They held a spear in their hand without saying a word. Their armor glittered with a sheen of deep purple all over. That sheen of deep purple was something formed only by human blood clots. The entire armor seemed to have no metal parts on it; it was as if the armor was made entirely out of blood.

Tainted blood armor!

Time stopped flowing in the ship’s hold as Nicholas’ fallen divine spell was cast. In actuality, it was little more than an illusion. Even a grade-9 professional like Nicholas was not able to control time. He had only used the powers of the hundreds of thousand souls inside the soul bead to warp the perceptions of people around him.

Time had only slowed somewhat, but to the silver grand swordmaster and the sorcerers, time seemed to have truly stopped, it was even reversing. In such a situation, they were not aware of what Nailisi did.

All three of Nailisi’s bone faces chanted. King level death magic was far more potent than usual grade-9 death magic. While it had yet to reach the lethality of grade-10, the spell’s potency still far surpassed that of usual grade-9 spells.

It was for that particular reason that she took the form of a three-faced bone demon. If she were to take the form of a devil, her close combat prowess would have been off the charts, but at the cost of being magically inferior.

The power of Luoluokaluo gradually manifested itself. Nailisi now possessed the power of a giant dragon. If she was able to devour yet another giant dragon, she would be able to take the form of a dragon herself. The devil form and the human form carried special significance, especially the human form. As the restoration of power continued taking place on the Myers Mainland, her powers would also experience exponential enhancement, possibly even exceeding that of her other forms some day.

It went without saying how the power of the Lightning Guardian helped her against a good number of powerful foes. Some defensive abilities could be even rendered completely useless against the effects of the Lightning Gaurdian, allowing her to engage in close combat effortlessly.

While she did not have any particular reason to place any importance on her spirit form, it nonetheless proved to be the most useful combat method at that moment.

The three faces of the three-faced bone demon were independent of each other. They were even capable of chanting extremely complex chants. Elf tongue, spirit tongue, and even the dragon tongue, none proved difficult for these three faces.

What Nailisi had been chanting at that moment was, however, a death magic spell created by humans: Bone Needle Territory.

It was a grade-9 spell. As the chants to conjure the technique proved too complex and fluctuations of mental powers moved too quickly, the spell was deemed too difficult for common grade-9 sorcerers. The casting speed for the it was rather slow, which was three seconds. That span of time was enough for a mage to cast nearly a hundred instant magic spells.

Under the effects of the holy spell, Nailisi was able to complete casting her spell, which rendered the entire hold horrifyingly freezing. Countless bone needles thinner than ones used for sewing flew at breakneck speeds at the silver grand swordsman and the group of sorcerers.

The air seemed to have been sucked dry and the bone needles numbering in millions vanished at the blink of an eye. The bone needles had penetrated the silver grand swordmaster’s Protection Sword Aura, armor, skin, flesh, and bones by the time they came to realized what happened.

The body of the silver grand swordmaster slumped on the floor like a rag doll, with their blood being sucked dry by the bone needles in an instant. None of the grade-7 sorcerers were spared either. All of them were rendered human-sized sieves as the bone needles penetrated their Elemental Shields.

It was rather unexpected for Nailisi to wipe out so many with just one single grade-9 spell.

Not all enemies in front of her ended up dead. The one who sent a blaring alert in her mind, remained standing behind the fallen group. The tainted blood armor had cracks all over from the needles, and yet it held true. The figure still had the spear in their hand, standing there and emanating sword aura all over their body. Their sword aura however, was a color that Nailisi had never seen before: blood-red.

“Ancient warriors have a myriad of peculiar ways to train in their arts. Having a blood-red sword aura is hardly surprising,” Nicholas held his scepter of the fallen tight in his hand, and explained it to Nailisi.

An ancient warrior then? Nailisi felt a tinge of fear in her mind. She had experienced personally how powerful humans were twenty-thousand years ago. Warriors back then were capable of tearing space and traversing dimensions like mages. The likes of Grand Swordmaster Flash was nothing compared to what these warriors were capable of.

“Something is off. I can’t feel any signs of life from that fellow there!”, the soul flame in her eyes danced violently. Her current form possessed six eye sockets, and all six soul flames possessed powers well above dead spirits of similar level. She had formed a soul bond with Saleen, and that enabled her to be very familiar with the power of life.

She had thought that the warrior was so powerful that they were able to conceal their own signs of life, yet she had only realized then that the few needles that actually made it into the warrior’s body failed to absorb any life force.

“A puppet perhaps?” Just as Nailisi guessed at the warrior’s nature, eerie scraping sounds were heard from the warrior’s tainted blood armor, before they ejected every single bone needle shot into them prior. The warrior had also raised their spear and pointed it at Nailisi. They blurted a string of words which sounded very peculiar.

Tens of symbols of peculiar shapes shot out from the spear and danced in the air. Nailisi tensed up. If she were to simply let that thing use a skill of some sort, she would have ended up at a serious disadvantage.

“Nicholas, stand back. I’ll take care of this fellow myself,” Nailisi said as she took out the Twelve Notes of Purgatory.

Nicholas acted without hesitation, thumping his scepter on the metal floor, creating a hole with a diameter of three yards. Nailisi’s underlings and spirits all went inside the hole.

Nailisi rushed at the warrior clad in tainted blood armor, with a bone spear in her hand.

Crack…

A clean crisp sound was heard. It originated from the pair of eyes opening beneath the warrior’s mask, as their eyelids began to move.

“So this warrior has had their eyes closed all this time. Not a living thing then, so what!” A fire burned inside Nailisi’s mind. If she was not able to take down that thing, she need not ever speak about aiding her master in anything.

Shhnngg!

The bone spear trembled violently, creating a mirage as thick as a bucket, going straight for the warrior’s helmet.

It was not known in the temperaments of such minor demons to show such bravery. Luoluokaluo, before acquiring their eight abilities, were no exception. As the abilities acquired by Nailisi all proved powerful enough, her mettle gradually developed into a fearsome one.

Nailisi had long ceased thinking only about escaping in one piece with Saleen whenever they were facing powerful foes. She instead thought of ways to kill their foes, and put such worries to rest for good.

Boom…booooomm!

The bone spear hit the warrior’s helmet, yet the strike failed to even move it by an inch. The warrior’s neck twisted about with a crack, and turned to face Nailisi. The sound obviously came from the cracking of the bones in their neck.

Without a second of hesitation, she activated the Twelve Notes of Purgatory and threw the warrior inside.

Her opponent had no signs of life, and Nailisi did not enter the purgatory of darkness. She had instead brought the figure to the purgatory of ice. The ice crystals hanging in the sky were hundreds of yards long. They looked as if they would fall at any moment.

Nailisi was about to make a move after throwing the warrior into the purgatory of ice, when the warrior simply shut their eyes with a crack.

Nailisi quickly backed down, but what she saw was that the tainted blood armor of the warrior had simply frozen over, turning into a huge block of ice. The warrior seemed to have simply fallen asleep, not resisting in anyway.

“Just what kind of monster is this thing!?”

While Nailisi was able to hold the thing under control for the moment, she had no surety of any kind. The purgatory of ice was still under repair, and there were weapon’s spirits within. As such, offensive powers were lacking. Coldness of eighty ice points were something that even grade-7 sorcerers would be able to withstand. The warrior was definitely a grade-9 powerful one, maybe even stronger. There was just no way they would have been trapped within the purgatory of ice.

Nailisi did not have time to figure that out. Her only option was to simply steel herself and leave the purgatory, heading back to the hold.

“Nailisi, we are going up!”, Nicholas was the first person Nailisi saw when she returned, bringing his demons and going up to the first floor. He did not even bother asking how Nailisi dealt with that dubious warrior.

Nailisi grabbed Nicholas’ beard and said, “What do you mean, old man? Our orders were to kill every single one onboard this ship!”

“There was no one down there. If there were to be anyone, they were just like that kind of thing you saw earlier!”, Nicholas shook his head for a moment, wringing his beard free from Nailisi’s hands. Nailisi was stunned, before realizing that she was in her spirit form. Her hands comprised only of bone segments, which were poor for holding anything tight.

“What strange things–!”

A shiver was sent down Nailisi’s spine. She might have collected a warrior, but she knew that the warrior was simply hibernating in the purgatory of ice, instead of being truly suppressed. She had no choice to but give up fighting, as she simply had little time to spare to deal with the warrior.

If there were to be more of those things further down in the hold, she could not just chuck them all into the Twelve Notes of Purgatory. If the numbers of those things proved too great, they might have simply destroyed the purgatory.

“Oh my god, my liege!”

Nailisi felt worried as she thought of all those things. If a great number of such warriors were to attack the Dragons Skeleton Combat Vessel, there would have been no way for her master to fend them off. While the winged skeleton excelled in close combat, he would not have been able to take on so many grade-9 powerful beings on his own.

“Nicholas, get back to the vessel!” Nailisi said as she made for the first floor of the hold. There were too many partitions in the large warship. Nailisi was near the head of the ship. She took out a bunch of magic bug eggs without thinking and threw them on the dead bodies, leaving them to hatch on their own. She then jumped onto the deck and made for their vessel.

The ancient warrior’s defensive capabilities were simply too powerful. That thing’s body strength was more fearsome than any living creature that she had ever encountered. That one strike from her bone spear was not something even golden grand swordmasters could have simply taken the full brunt of. The ancient warrior took the full brunt of it and it only made a cracking sound at their neck, not even actually snapping it.

“If that ancient warrior was to actually attack me, would I have been able to kill that silver grand swordmaster and those sorcerers so easily?”