Badge in Azure

Chapter 1428: Eye of Souls (Part 1)

Destruction was a job that was hardly stressful for any of the enchanters. Huge numbers of magic bugs or demonic spirits were often seen being killed in the demon plane.

Magic bugs were also intelligent creatures, so killing them was scarcely different from killing people. That was a peculiar thing about the demon plane: Though it was vast and desolate, the number of living beings found there eclipsed those in other planes.

At any rate, deciding who would live and who would die was not something the demons lost any sleep over.

It was a very simple job to have the Floating City destroy the city below. The only thing the giant weapon had to do was hover above a target and seize control of the city gates at the edge of the walls to prevent anyone from going in or out.

That maneuver was followed by the casting of forbidden curses in the city center.

Because of their high cost of operation, magic cannons were not a good choice for large-scale destruction; casting forbidden curses was a lot easier, but there were pros and cons to using them.

One big advantage was that only 100 enchanters were needed to easily cast a forbidden curse. Saleen had well over 100,000 enchanters stationed at the Floating City, which meant that it would have been easy for them to cast over 1,000 forbidden curses.

The drawback of using them, however, was not related to their level but to how they were cast.

For instance, most forbidden curses could not precisely hit their target because the area they covered was so large. It was, therefore, easier to throw a curse anywhere deemed suitable. That was especially so when dealing with unmovable cities where one forbidden curse could wipe out everyone within a radius of several meters. Higher-level forbidden curses, which required about 1,000 enchanters casting simultaneously, could obliterate everything within a one-kilometer radius or so.

Fortunately, Saleen didn’t have to remind the enchanters to restrain their power, as they were already casting within the limit, meaning none of them would have suffered any injuries.

By this time, Cologne City had turned into a real hellhole: Only the divine miracle at the city center was left unscathed.

There stood a stone house where a saint had once performed meditations. Legend had it that a devout believer over 1,000 years ago did not eat, drink, sleep or rest for 360 days and nights; all he did was pray nonstop until his god was moved by his piety.

The god cast divine power and bestowed that believer with the title of saint.

Saints were known to be pure of heart, feverish in their faith, just and fair-minded and free of mortal temptations.

In the words of the mages, saints were people whose brains had gone haywire. If those saints had put the same effort and fervor into studying magic, they would have become the greatest mages ever seen, so long as they had magic chords coalescing in their bodies.

That was the mages’ opinion of persistent believers who had placed their faith in one god.

The gods looked favorably on the pious. They not only bestowed their disciples with the title of a saint but also granted them awesome power, modifying their bodies and making them superior beings who ranked among the top ten in the history of the Holy See.

Their god had even cast divine spells on the stone house: Anyone entering this sanctuary had the potential of becoming a saint and receiving the blessings of divine arts. No one on Myers Mainland was permitted to harm anyone who had set foot in the holy house.

In other words, the stone house offered a shortcut to heaven.

Millions of believers journeyed to Cologne City to see if they too could walk into the stone house and climb the stairway to heaven. Every few years, someone actually succeeded in doing this, or so the story goes. That was why the city was such a bustling place.

If one were to calculate the odds, the chance of achieving such a goal was one in a thousand.

Of course, there were still doubts about whether those people were real saints. Their god required propaganda. After all, who would have believed in any god incapable of performing miracles?

That simple method was effective for attracting disciples. But how would any of them know if the stone house actually led to heaven or purgatory? It would have sufficed to have someone walk in and disappear. Their god doesn’t lie, right?

Untold numbers of people rushed to the city gates in an attempt to escape, but they were quickly repelled by blasts from the magic cannons.

Some even tried to take flight and attack the Floating City, but its large-scale Thunder Dragon Blasters swiftly and ably killed the attackers, one after another. With the enchanters taking control from above, flying into Cologne City required ten times more energy than what was typically used in flight, and the speed had to be reduced to less than half of what they were used to.

Unsurprisingly, none of them attempted to charge into the stone house. Saleen smirked and said, “Seems like none of those people are of resilient faith. All of them would have been able to escape otherwise.”

He was initially concerned about the Nature Faith giving birth to yet another monster on the mainland. But after thinking things over, he realized he had nothing to fear from the believers. Many gladly abandoned their faith in life-and-death situations.

To be sure, no one in Cologne City maintained their faith under such difficult situations.

Saleen had evolved in his development far enough to have lost any interest in killing his enemies. He was well aware of what he needed to do in order to advance even further—evolve his soul to break through level-12. Gods had researched souls as well, and Saleen was looking into the souls of those believers.

His Elemental Eye finally changed. Despite having advanced numerous times, it seemed to have hardly changed at all. In the recent massacre, Saleen finally saw signs of souls.

To put in a more precise manner, what Saleen was seeing were the projections of souls. Human souls did not reside in their own bodies. Only people above level-13 could make such projections tangible.

Saleen acquired these powers when he advanced to level-11.

The study of the soul was mystical. Possessing incomplete true souls enabled someone to reach the height of a pseudo god. Those who possessed a complete soul would at least be at the same level as the Lord of Glory.

Saleen’s power of soul had long surpassed that of pseudo gods, thanks to the workings of the Ring of Cosmos. What that meant was, there was no way level-13 pseudo pods would be able to enthrall Saleen using the power of the soul.

When gazing with his Elemental Eye, he saw that all those people wailing and running to safety had incomplete soul projections. That was because they had prayed for so long that some of the original powers of their souls were stolen.

Soul projections in such states actually meant that regardless of how they worked on training their souls, their true souls would never return to their bodies.

Saleen was frightened by what he saw and on discovering how fragile souls were. If he lowered his guard and ended up believing in some gods, he would have been robbed the ability to fulfill his ideals.

The advancement of those holy masters was, in truth, bestowed entirely by their gods. The power of their souls had never developed in the first place.

If a holy master were able to enhance the power of their souls, it would have only been a matter of time before having divine fires igniting in them. No one would have believed in the gods if that ever happened.

Those fractured soul projections remained fairly stable in peoples’ bodies. Saleen then saw the attack from the forbidden curses, which reduced them to dust. The few lucky ones ended up in pieces instead. Those who were fossilized were able to keep their dead bodies intact, with their soul projections struggling within.

Saleen was thinking that despite being only projections, souls were nonetheless connected to bodies all the time.

The problem was that the power of those projections was not strong enough to mobilize greater mental powers.

Once the soul returned to the body, that person’s mental powers would evolve to the power of the soul. By then, the use of magic chords would have been a piece of cake.

There were some who attempted to pray, and their souls were infused with bits of power. Saleen saw clearly that those were powers that were stored within the stone house. After it was destroyed, those powers eventually dissipated.

Further, he came to realize that the powers the believers obtained through their daily prayers were stockpiled simply by singing the god’s praises.

Saleen couldn’t help but chuckle, finding the whole business similar to how loan sharks operated.

The lending business of Sikeqinyans was very well known. There was a good joke about the business. A poor man wanted to do start a small business and borrowed money from a boss of a Sikeqinyan chamber of commerce.

He only wanted to borrow two gold coins and was required to clear the debt within a year. The boss told the poor man that the interest was two gold coins, but after the risks were factored in the poor man had to first pay the interest upfront.

The poor man paid the interest of two gold coins, which was money his family had saved for a year.

The merchant eventually got the two gold coins, while the poor man had to first pay two gold coins and was then required to pay the two gold coins borrowed by the end of the year.

That was where the central problem of faith. One was required to pay using the power of the soul, and prayers had to be said every day in order to send the power of faith to their god. Said god would have then left a part of the power of faith on the believer’s plane, which was allowed to be used by said believer. In truth, said god did next to nothing but ended up gaining everything.

The so-called believers were like sheep—released to graze on the fields and required to present their owners with milk and meat when they returned.

Saleen sighed. His Elemental Eye had finally advanced, enabling him to peer into the fundamental nature of power: the power that came from souls. That was the evolved form of his Elemental Eye—the Eye of Souls.

If the Eye of Souls continued evolving, it would become one of the most powerful mage skills available, the All-seeing Eye, also known as the Eye of Thorough Understanding.

The Eye of Souls was originally an ability above level-12, whereas the Eye of Thorough Understanding was an ability above level-15.

Armed with the Eye of Souls, Saleen became even more certain about taking on the Lord of Glory’s double with the power of his equipment. What the Eye of Souls was capable of seeing was more than just elements; it could also discern the nature of all powers. Saleen’s current calculative abilities matched those of nearly 100 of mages at his level. The Eye of Souls possessed powerful targeting ability as well. From then, he would never miss with shots from his Thunder Dragon Blaster.

Saleen deliberately observed the Winged Skull and realized that its soul flames had become true souls that made them weaker versions of himself.

That discovery gave Saleen pause for thought.

That definitely would not have been a recent occurrence. The Winged Skull’s powers of late had not seen apparent enhancements, which meant that its power of the soul had long been stronger than his. The Winged Skull had the capacity to wipe away those magic patterns in the depths of their souls.

Did this have something to do with spirits clinging to what they were familiar with? They were unwilling to undo their contract with me, and it was probably the same with Nailisi.

Saleen observed them all. He found Nicholas’s soul to still be in projection state; however, his soul projection was nearly complete. Saleen attributed that to repairs done by continuous use of lesser prophecy spells, as well as souls within the Blood Soul Tower praying for him, enabling the wounds of the soul projection to be healed.

The souls of Jola and Sul were full and the others were more or less so, but not as strong as the ones of the two level-10 true mights.

The weakest one was Isabella’s. The woman was trained in both magic and sword arts. While her combat capacity was superb among peers of her level, a crack was seen on her soul projection.

It did not seem to be a wound. Would someone like that eventually have her soul split in two?

If that were the case, it would be twice as hard for her to advance.

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