Badge in Azure

Seeing the Vermillion Knight taking his Eternal Control shard, Saleen knew things could have still gotten better. Unless the Vermillion Knight was killed by his family badge, he would still have ways to restore the knight. Even if it were restored, the grade-10 Vermillion Knight would be one without a soul, making advancement impossible.

An elemental badge lacking the possibility to advance was not something Saleen would consider to be of great combat potential. Doing so in the long run would only cause the powers possessed between the six elemental badges to be unequal. When a true professional was encountered, the elemental creatures’ weaknesses would be exposed. That would then cause them to be easily defeated by some special skills, such as an eerie spell like Dismantle Element.

Flare, the Vermillion Knight was also nervous. They held the Eternal Control shard in their hand, and began to somewhat believe Saleen’s words. The shard itself was not something with a high level, yet the rules within were very complex. Having reached grade-10, the Vermillion Knight had some knowledge of the rules of power of the fire element. As such, Flare was able to sense rules to a certain degree.

While they had no idea what rules laid within the shard, it was obvious that the mastery of alchemic arts of the mage in front of their eyes was of a level way higher than their own. Humans had always been such peculiar creatures. Even when they lacked power, they were still capable of creating miracles.

Nailisi was relieved to see that Saleen threw out an Eternal Control shard at the knight. She kept observing the restoration process of the winged skeleton’s body. She was afraid that Saleen would decide to sign a contract with the new elemental creature due to them possessing intellect. They were a grade-10 creature, which meant they were more powerful than she was for the time being. If Flare did become a soul bonded-creature of Saleen’s, her position would be threatened.

Saleen’s actions however, spoke clearly of his intention of having the Vermillion Knight serve him as an elemental badge.

The magic image Saleen cast was crystal clear. Flare and all the Vermillion Knights under them watched it. While the grade-9 elemental creatures lacked souls, they nonetheless possessed simple intelligence. They would not be able to serve as humanity’s elite troops otherwise.

Saleen cast the Stone Statue Army, a grade-9 spell infused in his robe. It created six stone statue soldiers. He had one of the soldiers stand before him. He had it cast a grade-9 Fossilization on him.

As soon as Fossilization was cast, Saleen’s Eye of Lightning was unleashed. Flare saw two golden beams shoot out from his eyes and clash in midair. They created a large golden rune.

The grade-9 Fossilization spell dispelled immediately, like it had never happened.

Saleen did not let the electrical sparks leak out. Doing so would have wasted a lot of energy. Doing so once would have cost him one-sixth of his mental powers. Having control over electricity was a very troublesome matter. Even with Saleen’s massive mental power reserves, he was only able to use the Eye of Lightning six times, even when used in the spell’s lowest power level.

The Eye of Lightning, at the lowest power level, could do little as an offensive tactic. Its greatest use was simply to halt his enemy’s use of skills.

The Vermillion Knight was able to tell where the strength of the skill was. The world’s greatest power laid with the use of magic. That skill of Saleen’s was almost capable of outright disregarding differences in levels and destroying his enemy’s spells. If Saleen’s level was to be raised even further in the future, hardly any spell could so much as even touched him.

The Vermillion Knight, however, was unable to tell the Eye of Lightning’s weakness. The spell was not one that could be controlled without powerful mental powers. Without good control, the Eye of Lightning would not be able to dispel enemy attacks accurately.

That was precisely why he did not dare use the skill when facing the angel of fear. He would have been rendered in a coma if the skill failed, and that would have been the end of it.

“I don’t want to waste too much power, Flare. Have you seen anything like this before? I’m a grade-8mage, but I’m capable of easily destroy a grade-9 spell.”

“A grade-8 mage…destroying a grade-9 spell?” the Vermillion Knight looked at Saleen’s magic phantasm. It was a grade-10 being. Flare was able to see that the phantasm was not a bluff.

“Are you willing to submit?” Saleen was feeling rather exasperated. The one standing in front of him was a mere common elemental creature instead of something like a fire element spirit. Despite that he had to keep persuading nonetheless.

The Vermillion Knight took a look at the Eternal Control shard in his hand and asked, “What is this?”

“An equipment to control souls. It would allow us to communicate easier, and it is useful for the growth of your soul. No other human will be able to subdue you unless I die.”

Flare, the Vermillion Knight pressed the shard into their own forehead. Their soul was a matured one, and that meant they feared death. They had taken a peek out of the hole at the window of the crystal tower. It was the work of an equipment of at least grade-16.

A grade-14 equipment would not have been able to keep the energies controlled so well. The use of such an equipment would probably have collapsed the entire crystal tower.

Grade-15 equipment would have left a strong aura behind, allowing one to assess the kind of attack used to make one such hole. The Vermillion Knight was unable to detect anything. They were only able to tell that there were no powdered crystal remains on the hole. That meant that the spell vaporized a crystal with an extremely high melting point, and it did it cleanly and instantly.

Such crystals were used as construction materials for military depots to defend against high temperature spells such as Fire Meteor.

The Eternal Control shard absorbed the Vermillion Knight’s soul gently. The rate of absorption that time was incredibly slow. Saleen had mastery over the shards he created. He did not make them suck maniacally, as doing so would have done some damage to the soul being absorbed. Saleen was beginning to suspect he was the one who made Gloria dumb.

Flare did not resist. As an elemental creature, advancing on their own was difficult. Saleen’s act of making them into an elemental badge meant that he intended for them to use their elemental properties to control the one-hundred and forty-four Vermillion Knights. They would hardly see battle personally. That would in turn, mean that they would be spending most of their time training.

Humanity’s lifespan might have been long, but they were nowhere near that of an elemental creature. Advancements of elemental creatures brought with them frightening increases in lifespan. They be free sooner and later. By then there would be no human capable of subduing them.

Nailisi walked up to Saleen and said, “Master, I think this fellow is still dreaming. I thought you would die soon yourself and there was no harm just following you around, but from the looks of things, your lifespan will only get longer and longer.”

“Are you complaining, Nailisi?”

“Of course not. I was just happy that the dumb fellow fell for your trick.”

“What do you mean fell for my trick? I will at least try to keep them alive with me. What I was after was the one-hundred and forty-four Vermillion Knights serving them, after all.”

“I was just thinking that since that thing has no love for you, they might feel they had their freedom robbed.”

“Nailisi!”, the winged skeleton stood up from the ground, and almost tripped.

“Oh, bones, cute bones. You have healed!” Nailisi clapped smiling. No one would have been able to sense even a single bit of dissatisfaction from her expression.

“I have indeed healed, and so I needed to ask you: Why did you run separately from master? You stood in front of master and took the angel of fear’s attack in his place!”

“Oh…” Nailisi’s eyes were wide open. She intended to answer that it was because she thought the angel of fear would have gone after her as she was being slow, but doing so would not have done Saleen any good. She was almost frightened to death herself, yet the angel of fear chased after Saleen, who had ran after her.

“I was wrong. I shall never separate from master again,” Nailisi yielded to Soldier’s words, which was a very rare sight. The winged skeleton’s words almost brought her to tears. She had made the wrong call back there. She had caused their predicament to take a turn for the worse. If the angel of fear had simply crushed Saleen without paying any heed to her, she would not have been able to save her master. It would have even been possible for her to turn her master into a spirit.

“Alright, Soldier, Nailisi didn’t do that on purpose. We will save this for later. Tell me, how are your powers doing now?”

“Power levels are average. My bones are not as sturdy as before. I need to get used to it.”

“Not as sturdy as before?”, Saleen was baffled. The angel of fear was a grade-12 creature. The strength of her bones should have definitely not been poorer than the ones the winged skeleton had before.

“I’ll be vulnerable to blunt impacts, not to sharp ones,” the winged skeleton answered concisely. He had no fear taking on blades with his current bone structure, but being hit by blunt weapons might cause dislocation. His bones were, after all, forcefully connected with each other instead of being born as one whole set naturally.

“Your weapon?”

“It’s under repairs for the time being, master. If I happen to find suitable materials, I wish to craft a weapon for myself personally.”

Nailisi wanted to say something, but the thought of the Blade of Fear, the long blade she kept for herself inside her bracelet, had her swallowed her words. The Blade of Fear was something on par with her spear. Her spear was one with exceptionally high offensive capabilities. With that in her hand, she would be able to have a sure kill on any opponent of her level.

Then again, it went without saying that the six eyes on the spear were exceptionally draining on mental powers. That was the very reason why Nailisi had crafted the blood soul towers. With an ample amount of souls collected, she would have no more issues wielding the spear at full power.

“Understood. If we are to enter the depths of the Imperial City of the Abyss again, you will have priority over any materials gathered,” Saleen said generously. He still felt that he owed the winged skeleton somewhat. Not just materials, he would have gladly given the winged skeleton his elemental badges if he had so asked. If Soldier had the gall to ask for freedom, he would even have helped with that too.

“Master, Flare is here,” Nailisi was unable to do nothing about the winged skeleton being her master’s current favorite. She was only able to cut their conversation off somehow.

The Vermillion Knight walked up to him in the magic tower. They had all one-hundred and forty-four serving them. Saleen opened the teleportation portal and Flare held a vermillion badge in their hand. All one-hundred and forty-four elemental creatures flew right inside the badge. They then walked up to the portal and came before Saleen.

Flare handed the vermillion badge to Saleen and said, “Master, this is the fire elemental badge. There is only one left around here. I have killed all the other elemental creature leaders around these parts.”

“You are not going in yourself?”

“Not quite yet. I just thought that you would have something to ask me about the imperial city. What I know would definitely be more than any of the elemental creatures you found here,” Flare answered calmly as they put their flame armor back into their body. They were then at the height of around two yards. The stead of them was nowhere to be found.

“This fellow is indeed more powerful than Gloria. Good thing I didn’t just kill them off!”