Badge in Azure

The elemental stone statues blocked the exit of the cabin. Stone statues created by grade-9 spells could not be collapsed easily. When the ancient warriors charged forward and pierced their lances through the abdomen of the stone statue soldiers, the shafts turned into stone instantaneously. The red light flickered, and the long lances broke. The stone statue soldiers swung their fists at the warriors, who quickly retreated back into the cabin.

Saleen had already taken out his magic staff and two rows of magic light shone. A grade-8 spell and a grade-9 spell appeared outside of the metal cabin door at the same time. When the ancient warriors at the rear dashed out, the two spells locked onto their targets.

The spells were Frosty Thorns and Soul Fossilization.

The red aura on the legs of the second ancient warrior that charged out was struck by the spells. It dimmed, and in an instant, both legs were tangled up in frosty thorns and became frozen.

His body was struck by Soul Fossilization and the tainted blood armor turned green in color. Saleen stepped forward and under the protection of the six towering stone statue soldiers, approached the warrior who had been fossilized. He inserted a shard of Eternal Control into the forehead of the warrior.

Nailisi rushed to Saleen’s side and threw the warrior into the Purgatory of Ice. It would take three to five days to see the effects of utilizing Eternal Control that way.

The stone statue soldiers did not wield any weapons and continued to block the cabin entrance and the ancient warriors. The six of them were up against yet another grade-9 warrior that had just regained consciousness and they managed to fossilize him as well. Again, Saleen inserted a shard of Eternal Control into the forehead of the warrior.

In the instant when the shard of Eternal Control was inserted into the body, the soul that was on the brink of being dissipated quickly dove into the shard, as if it was quietly catching its breath there.

Once again, the second grade-9 warrior was also thrown into the Purgatory of Ice to wait for Eternal Control to take effect.

What they were doing was actually very risky. Saleen was a mage yet had to get so close to the body of the grade-9 warrior in order to insert the shard. If the stone statues made any mistakes, Saleen would be in grave danger.

Two of the six elemental stone statue soldiers stood behind Saleen, one on the left and one on the right. When the third warrior charged out, the two stone statue soldiers attacked from both sides, but the warrior suddenly increased his speed and the stone fists missed their target totally. The warrior’s long lance was coming towards Saleen’s abdomen and managed to pierce through multiple layers of water shield before finally coming to a stop at the Ice Plate Armor.

Saleen tried to back off, but Nailisi managed to use her tail to wrap around his waist and pull him behind her.

The ancient warrior’s long lance lost its target. The red aura on the tip became intense and shot towards Nailisi’s eyes like a serpent. Nailisi took two steps back before the stone statue soldiers smashed at the long lance with their fists.

Saleen remained calm and took out another magic staff. He only had sixty magic staffs at the moment and had wanted to give them to his followers. Regardless of if they had advanced into sorcerers or not, he would give each of them a strong magic staff as a form of congratulation. The magic staffs already stored magic spells and were meant to be used in the Oceanic Ice Block. In order to control the ancient warriors on the combat vessel, Saleen had no choice but to use them.

Nicholas and Eleanor were more nervous than Saleen. When the ancient warrior’s long lance pierced into Saleen’s Ice Plate Armor, Eleanor almost shot her arrow and Nicholas almost cast his divine spell. On the other hand, after Saleen was saved by Nailisi’s tail. He calmly took out a new magic staff and cast another grade-9 spell, which was Absolute Zero.

The water puppet had mixed feelings as he watched Saleen battling. Saleen wanted him to learn how to treasure his own life more, yet Saleen himself was fighting against a grade-9 opponent. Saleen was a mage and not a swordsman.

The water puppet carefully observed Saleen and every move he made. Ever since he signed the bond, he was no longer able to obtain Saleen’s thoughts and could only send information to Saleen. In his eyes, Saleen became an even bigger and more impressive figure…

Suddenly, the water puppet crossed both his hands and performed a complicated magic gesture. A Frosty Thorn tangled the legs of another warrior that had managed to dodge the stone statues’ fists.

Saleen smiled. He did not need to speak much to the water puppet. The water puppet would gradually learn about what kind of person Saleen was. All of the water puppet’s magic abilities came from him, so what other choice did he have?

Fortunately, Saleen received guidance from Jason at the crucial moment when he was about to advance to grade-9. That was when he understood the weakness of his magic and began to change his attitude towards battles.

Two grade-8 mages and six grade-9 elemental creatures were blocking off ancient warriors in a narrow opening. Grade-8 and grade-9 spells appeared one after another. Saleen and the water puppet worked well with each other and never considered the possibility of retreating. They were determined to make sure that the ancient warriors would be blocked in the cabin and would not be able to attack all at once.

All twenty-four shards of Eternal Control had been inserted into the ancient warriors. The warriors were thrown into the Purgatory of Ice while the remaining four ancient warriors were killed, and their corpses were also thrown into the Twelve Notes of Purgatory.

Saleen used up half an hour’s time to settle the forty warriors. Twelve of the elemental stone statue warriors had been destroyed, and when Saleen finally terminated the spell, there were still another twelve elemental stone statue soldiers waiting outside of the cabin for Saleen’s commands.

Saleen was full of mental strength and could control even more warriors, except that he did not have enough time. After the fleet had traveled the circumference of the Oceanic Ice Block for a few days, they could finally see the gigantic glacial sheet from a distance.

They had finally reached the Oceanic Ice Block.

“We will stop here for three days and no attacks will be launched.” Saleen gave the order to the Mechanical Soul and led the rest onto the pan’s turtle alchemical boat. Although the exterior of the pan’s turtle alchemical boats was made from materials of a grade-8 magic beast, its defense far surpassed that of most grade-9 magic beasts.

On the ancient combat vessel, it was the first time the Mechanical Soul began to think for itself.

From what he has observed, Saleen’s abilities were not entirely fearsome since he was only a grade-8 mage. Although some of his subordinates were at grade-9, they should be no match for a spirit of the dead like him. For some reason, the battles that he had observed had struck fear in him.

Saleen only needed half an hour’s time to deal with forty grade-9 warriors, while the water puppet did not even dare to open a single cabin, much less defeat forty warriors.

The Mechanical Soul still retained some memories of humans’ powers. Long ago, the Mechanical Soul was already at grade-16 in the death dimension, but his soul flame was refined by a human and he was then absorbed into an equipment to become a weapon’s spirit. A sliver of soul flame managed to escape and was finally restored after tens of thousands of years.

Was there a need to continue going against Saleen? He did not have much energy left to keep opposing.

The Mechanical Soul had been temporarily put in charge of the fleet, other than the dragon skeleton combat vessel that was controlled by the mages. Saleen and the rest entered the pan’s turtle alchemical boat. In the three days that he would be there, he would have to subdue all twenty-four ancient warriors and turn them into his most powerful forces.

Saleen and Nailisi entered the Purgatory of Ice. The fossilization spell and water-element control spell on the twenty-four ancient warriors were no longer effective. The moment Saleen entered, the warriors looked at him with enmity. In the depths of their souls dwelled the shards of Eternal Control that Saleen had refined and inserted into them. There were two rules in the shards, which were Eternal Control and Power of Lightning.

“Do you all… still know how to talk?” Saleen spoke in the ancient Myers language.

The eyelids of the twenty-four warriors flickered quickly. It was clear that they understood what Saleen said but they were not able to say anything despite some movement of their lips. The bones of the warriors had greatly degenerated, and their vocal chords were worse.

Saleen pointed at the warrior at the front and said, “Try to attack me.”

The red light on the warrior’s body flashed and he charged at Saleen, aiming for his neck with his long lance. The long lance had barely traveled a yard’s distance before a streak of blue electric current flashed in the depths of the warrior’s soul. Just like that, the ancient warrior fell onto the ground.

“Looks like it’s very effective.” Saleen was relieved to see that the moment he sensed danger, the warrior immediately received punishment.

“Master, what ability is this? Will you teach me it?” Nailisi asked in envy.

“You already have your demon army, you don’t need this. Besides… this is a rule that I discovered on my own. There’s no way I can pass it down to you, unless you learn and explore it yourself.”

“Then forget it.” Nailisi was a Luoluokaluo and she had her own path to take. An ability like that that allowed her to control others was not that important to her. After all, all the demons in her demon army would submit to her without needing any techniques to control them.

“All of you shall become my bodyguards. You will not need any names individually. All of you shall be called the Ancient Warriors.” Saleen looked at the twenty-four warriors and gave up the notion of letting them become generals. The souls of the Ancient Warriors were already very weak, there was no point in allowing them to rest for three days. Their souls would still be equally fragile even if they rested for three years.

They had no choice but to become soldiers who had no chances of advancing. Even though they had met him, their fates would not change.

Saleen knew that unless he used the broken jades from the soul flames of the Three Kings to subdue the Ancient Warriors, there was no way their souls would return to optimal conditions.

Unfortunately, he only had three broken jades and he had already used one of them on the Mechanical Soul. He could not possibly use the remaining two broken jades to rescue the tens of thousands of soldiers on the ancient combat vessel.

The twenty-four Ancient Warriors stood in two neat rows in the Purgatory of Ice. Saleen stood in the middle and began to observe their tainted blood armor.

If the twenty-four grade-9 warriors had decided to attack in a group, Saleen and Nailisi would have been no match for them. In one-to-one combat, even if the warriors were able to unleash all their combat technique, they would still be defeated by Saleen and Nailisi.

The materials used to make tainted blood armor was the blood, bones, and even some fascia of magic beasts. The ancient humans compressed and purified those materials to form pieces of regular armor plates before joining them together with the power of magic. Even Saleen was unable to grasp such alchemy abilities. If he advanced to grade-10, he could try to refine magic armor of a lower quality like them.

The Ancient Warriors could not speak but that was not an issue for Saleen. In any case, the tainted blood armor did not have masks. He only needed to refine a magic mask for each of them and he would be able to use the power of magic to allow the warriors to communicate with him.