Badge in Azure

Chapter 1410: Pursuit (Part 1)

The weapon spirit of the Baldur’s Gate was a very cunning being. It intended to dupe even Saleen, but when it saw the countless lightning runes hovering in that blue eyes of Saleen, it gave up on that thought altogether.

Saleen opened his mouth and said a few words to that weapon spirit.

That weapon spirit knew that Saleen was speaking the language of magic, judging from how his lips moved. All weapon spirits were capable of speaking the language of magic, or mages would not have been able to command them otherwise.

What Saleen mouthed was: ‘submit to me, and I shall give you your freedom.’

The weapon spirit recalled what its master said right there and then, coming to realization that that mage before it was the key to its freedom. It was just that it needed to be service for several more years.

That was not a problem for it, as when the power of its upcoming master had reached the level where they no longer needed the Baldur’s Gate, they would have set it free.

It happened with its former master all those years ago, but that master told it that it had one thing left to be done, before said master left. It would have been unable to leave Myers Mainland until that matter was settled.

Its former master did not make clear what that matter would have been, or its master would have taken it along when they left, just like how they left with the weapon spirits of that six godly items. The weapon spirit was bored from being imprisoned in the Baldur’s Gate for so many years.

It no longer had any thoughts of working against Saleen, after seeing what he said.

Mages were known for making good on their words after all.

Saleen took out a scroll after he finished saying those words. It was a scroll crafted using dragon hide and it had binding powers of rules of the dragon plane. The dragon plane was considered a main plane as well, with the power of its rules once reaching level 18.

Furthermore, the dragon plane had never been at rock bottom like Myers Mainland. At the very least, level 15 dragons were still around, and the dragon graveyard was also an independent space.

Ancient ghost dragons were even capable delivering countless dragon messages, enabling dragons of further generations to acquire comprehensive knowledge.

The scroll crafted using dragon hide was something that was hard to come by even during ancient times, as both races were still allies and humans were forbidden from killing dragons, unless said dragons were the ones who believed in gods of foreign planes.

Dragon hide were acquired by humans from trading with dragons. To dragons, their souls, bones, and horns were sacred relics. As for dragon hide, it was treated like snakeskin, as dragons shed their hide like snakes would have their skins. Shed hide could be traded to humans.

As such, humans came to acquire large amount of related knowledge, and Saleen was able to craft dragon hide scrolls without having to painstakingly dig for information.

That blank dragon hide scrolls had a color as black as night. That was not from a black-colored dragon, but a dark type dragon, which was even more rare. Dark element was everywhere and beings who turned their backs on that contract would not have been able to survive anywhere.

Humans were able to live somewhere without light, yet there was no one anyone could have lived anywhere without darkness.

It was a complete opposite to what the Lord of Glory preached, and that was the opinion of mages. Saleen had been to one of Lord of Glory’s divine kingdom, and there were shadows in that divine kingdom still. He came to be increasingly convinced by that mages’ saying since then.

Saleen placed great thought into every single word used and he did not even referred to contractual formulas, writing that contract solely by relying on his own power of the soul.

The Baldur’s Gate was too important, and with that weapon spirit intact, Saleen would have only needed several months to pick up most of everything there was to learn about the gate.

The Mages’ Castle, which, at the moment, was manned by the Elemental Hand, had yet to be completely developed.

The people of Alchemy City had to repair the castle on their own, adding redundant facilities and buildings to it, or the castle would have been little more than a broken net in the hands of the Elemental Hand, where loopholes were everywhere.

The key point to it was that there were no mages who were of level 13 or higher in the ranks of the Elemental Hand, and there were no weapon spirits commanding the Baldur’s Gate found.

If Saleen had not shown up, the Elemental Hand could have taken their time to slowly work on that huge equipment. They could have used tens of years to do so and it would have still been worth it. They did not even need that long for it to be functional.

They would have only needed little more than a year, to raise the Baldur’s Gate’s combat capacity tens of times over what it was at the moment.

One could have told that much simply by looking at the Floating City. A piece of equipment capable of housing massive number of personnel would have tipped the balance of war. If it had not been for the fact that Saleen had too many places requiring protection, he would have taken the Floating City everywhere for invasions.

Intense rumbling was felt from the room and Saleen saw mages in the room falling over. One after another had their backs on the ground. It was Earthquake of uncannily high levels.

The Earthquake spell looked simple, yet it was actually a control type magic of extraordinary power, capable of messing up the elements in space and bring about powers outside of the six major elements.

At the same time, Earthquake was also capable of shaking souls of living beings, instead of simply throwing them off-balance physically. When trained to mastery, one could have even used the spell to alter the structure of the ground, causing volcanic eruptions and bringing about tidal waves.

That Earthquake was not something cast by the Elemental Hand mages, but by that weapon spirit. The Baldur’s Gate’s weapon spirit cast an Earthquake to throw all Elemental Hand mages off-balance, before bringing the crystal-shaped magic array and shrinking to a dot, flying outside the crystal wall and coming before Saleen.

“Contract!” That weapon spirit howled. That was its only chance. If it were to be taken in by Saleen, it would have then been able to take on the Elemental Hand mages. Saleen wrote the contract deliberately for that weapon spirit to see it. The contract had a time limit to it.

That weapon spirit knew very well what would have happened to it if the mages of the Elemental Hand were to subjugate it. They would have wiped its memories clean, which meant that the weapon spirit as it was, would have ceased to exist.

The new weapon spirit would have been in the same form, but that weapon spirit would have no longer been it.

The weapon spirit did not realize that it had been awakened to the fundamental nature of life, giving it fear of death.

Saleen threw the scroll onto the magic array hovering right before it, and the weapon spirit jumped on it, siphoning whatever energy it had left into it, signing the magic contract. The Earthquake cast to control all the mages in that room exhausted whatever energy it had taken from the Book of Gaia.

It was only able to escape at the end using bits of earth’s power left in it.

Saleen hardly felt much of any changes after the contract was signed. It simply felt that he had a tighter connection to his surroundings. The Book of Gaia was brought along when it left. Saleen pried it away from the magic array and put it inside his Ring of Cosmos.

That weapon spirit reminded Saleen right away, “Master, that’s the Book of Gaia, a godly item!”

“I know it’s a godly item, but I can’t use it as I am now.” Saleen felt at the same time, that despite having signed a contract with that weapon spirit, he remained incapable of controlling the Baldur’s Gate.

The weapon spirit had been starved throughout the years and all energies within it had been expended. It had even suffered considerable drop in levels because of it. That weapon spirit had been of at least level 16, yet the Earthquake that Saleen saw earlier was only of level 13.

That weapon spirit has had a hard time casting that level 13 Earthquake, and it had to rely on the ridiculously thick earth element around to cast it in one go, affecting all Elemental Hand mages.

The Elemental Hand mages called out in fight seeing that weapon spirit escape.

The mages pulled out all stops by then. They attacked immediately, seeing how they were about to lose the Baldur’s Gate.

Other than the nine elders, the skins of all remaining level ten mage trainers crumbled and thick, deathly auras shot out of their eyes, charging straight for the crystal wall.

Those mage trainers were nurtured by the nine, and all such times, all of them had to die so as to destroy that crystal wall.

When those mage trainers extended their hands, all that was left were ashen bones.

The mental powers of those mages were enhanced to frightening levels when their flesh dissolved. It was something that not even Saleen could have aspired to.

Tens of bloodied, rotten hands pressed onto the crystal wall, and all of the mages at the brink of death unleashed intense mental attacks.

That was Soul Resonance. While the skill was by no means redundant, it nonetheless cost massive damage to mages casting it. A mage who was unable to withstand the damage would have died from casting it. The resonance could have been used on any material.

Saleen was able to see everything clearly from outside. 12 Thundering Phantasms were unleashed and lined before him. He cast thousands of bubbles at the same time, stacking at the front of the wall. All of the bubbles were actually low level Water Shields.

Saleen did not need to care about how capable those Water Shields were at defending against elemental magic, as the lightning patterns on the Water Shields were what mattered—they were capable of resisting mental impacts, and worked quite well without regard for levels.

Saleen naturally had no fear of soul attacks. His thundering sound rumbled in his mind, which prevented even gods from shocking him.

However, it was too late to send the people around him into his magic amplifier.

Saleen everything he got in that move and he held his family badge in his hand at that moment, hoping that it was able to absorb some of the power of the soul attack.

The crystal wall was reduced to dust without making a sound. Saleen used a level zero magic immediately and the badge began to absorb powers of the soul in the air.

The thousands of Water Shields broke. They were only level four magic and was furthermore, cast without splurging on magic chords, naturally making them incapable of resisting the burning soul powers from tens of level ten mage trainers.

Saleen only needed for them to get in the way for a moment. His face was calm, buying microseconds and then unleashed blue light from his family badge all of a sudden.

The burning souls of the tens of mages were absorbed by his family badge in a frenzy. Saleen was able to hear moans of satisfaction from the badge. It was illusive, and yet it was real at the same time.

The badge was not a living being and it did not have a weapon spirit, yet that piece of object resonated with Saleen’s soul.

The burning souls were incredibly replenishing to Saleen’s family badge. Saleen recalled those pests that he had with him. They became of little use to him as he was at the moment, inferior even compared to the Bug Angel Warriors. However, all of those pests were constituted from soul fragments.

He wondered if he would have been able to achieve the same results by burning the pests’ cores.

That thought flashed in Saleen’s mind for only a split second and he did not continue doing any calculations. The nine mages of the Elemental Hand had already unleashed devastating attacks by then.

“Master, kill the purple-robed one. He has five other godly items with him!” The weapon spirit of the Baldur’s Gate called, before leaping into the magic amplifier concealed in the void after that.

It turned into half the size of a human and was extremely nimble. Saleen was surprised to see that it was able to see an invisible equipment of his.

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