Badge in Azure

The winged skeleton began to sprint under the water while dragging the huge Meteor Hammer. Since he could utilize the rich death powers, he was able to run much faster there than on land.

The Meteor Hammer that was refined from the whale horn of the single-horned white whale was being dragged behind by the winged skeleton, creating a straight line. The 24 ancient warriors split into two rows and ran behind the winged skeleton.

The specifications of the ancient warriors’ weapons remained unchanged, except that they were newly refined by Saleen. They would no longer be destroyed easily by warriors of a lower grade.

The winged skeleton ran with his body slightly bent forward. A pair of skeletal wings spread open behind him, splitting the waters like the blades of knives, forming two hollow passageways. Within less than half an hour, the winged skeleton covered a distance of 80 miles and arrived at the city wall of the Imperial City of the Abyss.

The fallen city walls were still more than 100 yards tall and were even more majestic than those of Metatrin City. Without any hesitation, the winged skeleton planted his feet on the city walls and ran all the way up vertically. The 24 ancient warriors did not hesitate either as they followed the winged skeleton like two rows of feathers behind him.

In the blink of an eye, the winged skeleton reached the top of the city wall. Most of the materials that had broken off from the top of the city wall had already disappeared and very few gigantic rocks had yet to be destroyed by the water currents. Their current location was still part of the foundation of the original wall but the rest of the wall that was supposed to be above them had become decayed from time and from the powers of the abyss.

There was no defense on the top of the city wall, but the winged skeleton was sensitive enough to detect the elemental stone statue soldiers within on the interior. The 100 yard tall elemental stone statue soldiers hid behind the city wall and coincidentally, one of them faced the winged skeleton directly.

All of a sudden, the grade-9 elemental stone statue soldier raised its magic war hammer and smashed it towards the winged skeleton.

Although the elemental stone statue soldiers did not possess souls, their decision-making in battles was still competent enough to fit the title of grade-9 creatures. It had taken into account the speed and path that the winged skeleton would escape in and had aimed the war hammer towards the winged skeleton’s head.

But there was no way winged skull would be struck by such a sudden attack so easily. After all, he had survived countless battles in the death dimension. His wings transformed slightly and by borrowing the power of the water, he drifted more than eight yards towards the left and went around the elemental stone statue soldier’s body.

Then, the winged skeleton used his Meteor Hammer and smashed it viciously against the elemental stone statue soldier’s head.

At the core of the Meteor Hammer, a gigantic Bloodstone exploded due to the huge impact. The power of the explosion was unleashed from the gaps of the magic patterns in the Meteor Hammer and it applied directly on the site of impact on the elemental stone statue soldier. An explosion within an enclosed space shot out from a passageway that was thinner than a strand of hair meant that the explosiveness of the Bloodstone was multiplied by tens of thousands of times.

Only the horn of the single-horned white whale could handle such a powerful explosion. The winged skeleton was never able to create an equipment like that even if he did think about it before.

The body of the elemental stone statue soldier was harder than ordinary grade-9 creatures. The ground elements here were rich so any wounds sustained by the elemental stone statue soldiers could be repaired quickly. The strike from the winged skeleton was so explosive that it far surpassed the maximum limit of the explosiveness of the Bloodstone.

When the energy shot out from the Meteor Hammer, the head of the elemental stone statue soldier, which was more than 10 yards tall, broke into pieces instantly. There was no way it would be able to heal such a wound in a short time.

The winged skeleton was stunned for a moment. He did not expect that the weapon that he had conceptualized could be so powerful. Unfortunately, he did not have the time to stop and analyze as two more elemental stone statue soldiers were attacking him from both sides. The winged skeleton knew that there would be plenty of such elemental creatures near the city wall.

The winged skeleton was aware that, unless he killed the leader of the stone statue soldiers, the ordinary stone statue soldiers would keep reviving. What he did not know was the range of the leader’s control over the stone statue soldiers, but he estimated that it should be more than 10 miles.

At that point in time, the winged skeleton suddenly heard a powerful howl. He was confused. It felt like the sound that he was hearing was produced 10 days ago or 10 days later and definitely not in the present moment.

Could spirits of the dead hallucinate? No, not unless they were on the brink of death. Soldier knew that he was still very young and could easily live for another tens of thousands of years. The howl caused the winged skeleton’s golden heart to pound fiercely again, but the feeling of fear has reduced drastically.

Winged skull realized that his soul flame was very calm. The black and white soul flames burned slowly in his eyes, absorbing the surrounding soul aura.

It was as if his golden heart was absorbing the powerful impact on behalf of his soul flames. How was it possible that he could still be affected by the attack from the sound that was probably a thousand miles away?

The winged skeleton suppressed his confusion. He realized that his golden heart was pounding at a consistent rhythm. When the attack came, the pounding of the golden heart directly adjusted the spirit energy in his body to form a strange frequency of vibration. It was because of this frequency of vibration that the fear-inducing sound attack was vanquished within two seconds.

The winged skeleton swung the hammer again and the two yard long hammer head smashed one of the legs of the elemental stone statue soldier into pieces. Then, the winged skeleton turned around and led the 24 ancient warriors towards the direction where the sound was coming from.

The winged skeleton knew that no sound attacks could travel across a thousand miles. What he was hearing was the reverberations from the water. It was because he was over-sensitive. Ordinary creatures would not be able to extract an attack of that frequency from the waters.

Reverberations alone were already capable of inducing such deep fear in him. Without the golden heart, he would have had to use up most of his energy just to resist such an attack. Even his newly evolved soul flames might have turned back into ordinary soul flames of a single color.

The winged skeleton’s learning ability came from Saleen. There was no way he was going to let go of that opportunity. The reverberation of that sound was extremely long and all that while, Soldier’s golden heart was still pounding rhythmically and resisting the sound attack.

The winged skeleton tried to control the golden heart to maintain the current frequency. He realized that at that frequency, he would constantly be in a defensive state but at the expense of using up one-fifth more energy. Even if he sprung a surprise attack, the golden heart would still be able to absorb at least half of the damage received. If he was able to react in it time, the golden heart would even be able to absorb all the impact.

No! It was not just the golden heart. In actual fact, his golden heart was adjusting the spirit energy within his body to carry out defense. If the grade of the attack was too high and spirit energy alone would not be able to resist it, that was when the golden heart would share the load.

The winged skull was already a Spirit King, so he could very well build his own spirit kingdom if he was to leave Saleen and return to death dimension. In the death dimension, his spirit energy would be vast like the great oceans and thick like sticky fluid. As long as his soul flames continued to burn brightly, his powers would never wilt.

That was the secret behind how Spirit Kings could surpass grade-9 spirits. A Spirit King’s death dimension could gather spirit energy continuously for the Spirit King to use.

The winged skeleton never stopped moving even as he was slowly adapting to the fact that there was a heart pounding in his chest cavity. As he became more familiar with controlling the golden heart, the amount of energy he used up would slowly become normal again. Soldier was overjoyed. It turned out that he only had to use up more energy in the beginning of the training. As he became more and more familiar with this technique, the amount of energy that he would use up would become less and less.

The golden heart was too valuable…

The winged skeleton suddenly wondered how much this golden heart was worth in terms of gold coins. Such a weird jump in logic must have been due to the influence of Saleen.

Another elemental stone statue soldier appeared after a few hundred yards. The winged skeleton swung his Meteor Hammer at it. That time, before the magic array in the Meteor Hammer could create the Bloodstone, the frequency of vibration of the winged skeleton’s golden heart had already reached the weapon. A dark golden color appeared on the hammer’s head, and without a sound, the Meteor Hammer smashed against the elemental stone statue soldier’s magic warhammer.

The magic warhammer was smashed into pieces instantaneously. On the other hand, the Meteor Hammer was unharmed and continued to smash onto the elemental stone statue soldier’s foot. Just like that, the foot disappeared.

The elemental stone statue soldier’s foot was much bigger than the Meteor Hammer but when the latter smashed on the former, there was a strange ripple of energy that covered an area of 10 yards in diameter. The power of the golden heart was unleashed through the Meteor Hammer, turning the elemental stone statue soldier into something as fragile as beancurd.

The winged skeleton sensed that around half of his spirit energy had already been used up. Spirit energy was equivalent to the strength and stamina of the spirit. Without spirit energy, the winged skeleton would probably still be able to continue fighting but he would also start to feel hungry and weak.

Half of his body’s energy was used up just from two hits of the Meteor Hammer and those two hits were used conservatively only on his targets.

The effect of such an attack was much more powerful than the explosion of Bloodstones. The price to pay for Bloodstones was small while an attack like that would use up plenty of the winged skeleton’s spirit energy. The winged skeleton decided to absorb thick energy from the death dimension to replenish his own body.

His death dimension was huge so there was plenty of spirit energy stored there. It was not easy to store such energy though. Gathering a day’s worth of energy would only sustain two smashes with the Meteor Hammer.

The elemental stone statue soldier, who had lost its foot, crashed down. The magic array in Soldier’s Meteor Hammer instantly created a Bloodstone before the hammer smashed onto the face of the elemental stone statue soldier. Its face was smashed open and at least half of its brain was destroyed.

The magic array could only be activated every six seconds. In an intense battle, the power supplied by the golden heart was still very crucial.

The winged skeleton decided to ignore this elemental stone statue soldier, who was trying to repair itself, and continued forward. His soul could sense that Saleen was in danger. He had no choice but to familiarize himself with how the golden heart worked, even as he continued to sprint.

“Don’t stop. If I stop, I may never get to see Saleen again.”