Badge in Azure

The eggs of magic bugs were of bright red color. The eggs burrowed with all they had got into the flesh of the angel of fear. The liquid secreted by the eggs softened the flesh of the angel of fear. As soon as the eggs made it inside, they began to absorb the flesh within and grew rapidly.

Magic bugs were the lowest form of existence on the demon plane. Even demons treated the bugs as little more than common foodstuff. That food could be dangerous in itself, nonetheless. The magic bugs survived by sheer numbers. Some had also left behind comparatively horrifying bloodlines.

The ones kept as Nailisi’s prized possessions were of two bloodlines. The bugs bred rapidly and larvae were known to kill each other. Only the strongest were able to survive. After tens of generations individuals capable of killing demons were born. More than one-hundred generations later, individuals capable of taking down supreme demons would also appear among the bloodlines.

Nailisi did not put any hopes in her bloodlines being able to produce strong individuals. She only wanted the dead bodies of them as materials for crafting soul beads. Dead bloodshine breed bugs would turn into red crystals. The higher the level of the dead bug, the higher the level of the crystal yielded.

Nailisi had not intended to take her three-faced bone demon form. As the bloodshines bugs were able to devour the angel of fear’s flesh, things had gotten easier for her. Her own demon lineage was the most powerful. Her spirit form had yet to advance to king level. That meant it would not have done her any good to absorb more soul flames than the winged skeleton. Such advancement required her to develop deeper understanding of the rules of the spirits before it became possible.

Eggs of bloodshines bugs hatched quickly, yielding hundreds of them at once. Almost all of them were crushed under the pressure of the seawater around. Even so, the fratricide took place as usual. The newborn bloodshines breed had yet to develop tough shells, meaning that the slaughter was done quickly. In the blink of an eye, the hundreds of bugs born were reduced to only two.

The dead ones had their bodies cannibalized. The remaining two were bugs of similar prowess. They began eating away at the angel of death instead of killing each other.

Saleen watched the eggs and the weird breeding phenomenon for a few seconds, then he went on to craft his equipment without bothering to address Nailisi. The magic bugs were indeed strange, but it was impossible for them to advance beyond grade-10. There was little else for them to eat there; that meant they would not grown to disastrous numbers.

The water flame under his control spread out to an area several yards. The skin of the angel of fear was being crafted bit by bit. Saleen then took out thirty-six single-horned white whales’ horns. They seemed to be the only material capable of matching the skin of the angel of fear.

Thirty-six whale horns were crafted into a round frame. It was then covered by the skin of the angel of fear, creating a war drum with a diameter of three yards.

The drum’s underside was smooth, but it had a ferocious-looking face on the upside. The face was made flat by Saleen. Despite the face having lost its soul, it glared angrily at him nonetheless.

That was the memory of the body. Seeing the face actually had Saleen feel more pleased with himself. It was that thing that had caused Soldier to self destruct, reducing him to a heart and a flame that seemed close to being snuffed out.

Saleen thought for a bit, before taking out the broken jade from the bag and putting it in front of the drum, saying, “You see this now? This is what you ended up becoming. My War Drum of Fear, a tool to help me conquer the world!”

Saleen provoked the linked soul of the angel of fear while opening a slit on the broken jade unnoticeably. He used a portion of the rules of Eternal Control that he was familiar with. Even if Saleen was to use all of his powers at it, he would not have been able to keep the slit opened for more than a split second.

The time was simply too short to even cast instant magic.

“Don’t fall for it!”, the angel of fear yelled. She had developed a fear of Saleen. Her intuition told her that it was but a trap.

The linked soul of the angel of fear however, did not possess enough intelligence to discern something like that. It simply took the split second chance to try to escape. As soon as a thread was seen, Saleen’s left hand went grabbing it tight. His left hand seemed shriveled due to the use of Crystal Finger, looking like a branch of a tree. The casting of Crystal Finger that time however, was incomplete and the recoil suffered was nowhere near as strong as before. As a result, his left hand was still capable of standard tasks expected of a hand.

The slit in the broken jade was shut as soon as the linked soul had one thread left outside. Shrieks of pain were heard, yet it was no longer capable of casting any signs of fear at Saleen.

Saleen smirked as he took out an Eternal Control shard. He had intended to use it to subdue elemental creatures, but it would prove adequate to deal with something like that. A thread of a soul was too weak to be worth mentioning after all.

The thread of soul was sucked right into the Eternal Control shard, which Saleen then threw into the water flame. The shard was quickly fused with the war drum, making it to the center and levitating there.

“Nailisi, leave the skull and the spine behind!”

“Master, what about that pile of bones then?”, Nailisi could not help but ask.

Saleen was relieved to find her beginning to show concern for the winged skeleton. He had no idea however, that Nailisi was simply moved by the winged skeleton’s actions for the time being. When Soldier finally came alive again, she would definitely be jealous again for all the concern and trust the winged skeleton would get from Saleen.

Saleen did not take out the golden heart and begin channeling energy to the winged skeleton. His attention, for that time being, was on the war drum. He was torturing the angel of fear’s soul while he was at it.

The Eternal Control shard levitated on the war drum. While the shards that Saleen crafted himself were not of high quality and did not possess powerful rules, the thread of soul within was too weak to fight it. The trapped soul had surprisingly slowly lost itself; it no longer had any connection with the main body.

The bloodshine bugs on Nailisi’s side had bred for tens of generations. Nailisi had finally gotten her hands on two dark red crystals. The two crystals contained incredible powers, as well as some rules, within.

One side of the angel of fear’s flesh was devoured, revealing the skull and the spine. Nailisi spit out the dragon crystal needles and stuck them into the crevices between the angel of fear’s bones.

Crevices would definitely have been there no matter strong the bone structure of a creature was. They would not be capable of complex movements otherwise. The angel of fear started off as a pest herself. She was only able to evolve after their kind devoured each other. Nailisi specialized in dismantling bones. The act of dismantling the angel of fear’s bones, which were of humanoid form, proved easier than pulling out sinews.

The spots where the dragon crystal needles were inserted had several energy connection points cut off. There were also some thinner, narrower, sinews attached. Nailisi then took the base of the angel of fear’s backbone. There was a tail that had yet to completely disappear. It was hardly larger than a palm. Nailisi shook it and completely dislodged the entire spine and the skull.

Nailisi was, at that moment, in her devil form. She took the several yard long spine and took it to Saleen. He gestured at her, and she threw the bones into the water flame, feeling some regret. The marrow of bones had yet to be extracted, after all.

Nailisi turned around and began extracting the marrow in the remaining bones. The way she did so was simply sticking the two red crystals onto the bone, then she had them suck out and store the marrow.

Blood Soul Towers were something demons were capable of crafting. They were something similar to soul beads. The two hardly differed in terms of use. Nailisi’s art of crafting was very crude, but such equipment’s quality depended only on the material used. A bloodshine’s finally stages of evolution had them functioning essentially as living, walking soul beads. One would be able to take the form of a devil. All soul, blood, and flesh devoured by the bloodshine bugs would be converted to the powers of the creature itself.

The flesh of the angel of fear contained rules. Grade-9 bloodshines were born after being bred for tens of times. Any further evolution would have exceeded Nailisi’s ability to control them. The pieces of blood red crystals were hardly any different from soul beads. Complete soul space began appearing within the two piece of blood red crystals after extracting massive amounts of bone marrow. The color of the angel of fear’s bone marrow was black. The bone marrow stored within the crystals began to take the forms of towers.

The towers had eighteen floors. Every floor contained a space capable of storing souls. Blood soul towers were not really durable equipment; In fact, they were so weak that Nailisi would have been able to easily crush them with her hand. They were more versatile than soul beads by certain extents though. The souls sucked into the blood soul towers would be able to retain their consciousness if Nailisi allowed it.

There would have hardly been any problem if Nailisi wanted to rear spirits inside the towers. Every floor of the tower had enough space to keep more than ten-thousand spirits within. The higher the floor number, the fewer souls the floor was able to keep, but the souls kept would be of higher quality.

Material within the angel of fear’s bone marrow had indeed contained things capable of storing souls and retaining soul powers. The angel of fear would not have been able to convert the souls devoured to be part of her own combat capacity otherwise. Digesting souls was nowhere near as convenient as storing them intact, as the retained souls could be stimulated at any moment. They could yield the power of pain and terror from the depths of their being.

Of course, there was no need to mention that the souls residing within the blood soul tower ere able to worship Nailisi, bestowing her with the power of faith. The tower was similar to the soul bead in that regard.

Nailisi was very happy about obtaining two blood soul towers. Having the two towers allowed her to steal souls of those who died on battlefields unnoticed. Be it souls of humans, or demons: keeping the souls would grow her number of believers. Demons had nothing against the power of faith. Mages found them distasteful as the power of faith was often linked to gods.

It was wrong to assume that only gods were able to use the power of faith. If that was the case, the gods would not have been able to recruit believers.

Nailisi turned gloomy after crafting two blood soul towers. She had been too greedy. There was just too much marrow in the bones of the angel of fear. She had only been able to use less than ten percent of what was available.

“Master!” Nailisi called. She knew she was going to regret it, but she continued nonetheless, “The bone marrow of this thing can be used to put Soldier back together!”

“What!?” Saleen was hardly able to believe his own ears. Since when did Nailisi became so generous?

“Master, the bone marrow of this thing can be used to craft soul beads. Look,” Nailisi said as she handed a blood soul tower to Saleen. She was still in her devil form, meaning she was literally looking downwards at Saleen. The angle allowed her to see the movement of his throat from his excitement, but it did not allow her to see his expressions.