Badge in Azure

Chapter 1434: Heroes (Part 1)

Saleen turned around and looked at the Lord of Glory’s double, who was still giving chase. The god had cold eyes and he did not seem to be an entity of light at all. Is he using the light element to chase after me?

Saleen smirked coldly deep down. We’d see how you deal with it when we got to the Imperial City of the Abyss.

Gods did not find it as convenient to use elements as mages did. However, being extremely powerful to begin with meant that they were able to compensate. Mages were capable of manipulating elements in a very harmonious manner, while gods had to resort to using their own powers to force elements into doing their bidding in battle.

The Imperial City of the Abyss was a place bereft of any light. Light element hardly existed there and when the Lord of Glory entered the place, he probably would have no longer been able to borrow powers of ambient light element. Any damages he suffered would have no longer been able to be repaired by robbing powers of light element.

Saleen turned around and used the power of the Signet of Silence. He finally found the Lord of Glory’s weakness, which surprisingly was that ball of light in his hand.

If it had not been for the power of the Signet of Silence, Saleen would have never been able to discover that weakness.

There was a broken divine persona within that ball of light.

It was a godly item that carried the life of that double. With the protection of the broken divine persona at work, Saleen had no idea how he would have been able to kill that double. In truth, the humanoid form of the double was coalesced from less than one percent of the power leaking from the divine persona. If he wanted to kill that Lord of Glory’s double and yet was unable to destroy that broken divine persona, he would have had to kill that extremely resilient humanoid body hundreds of times over.

Saleen had always been able to keep an edge over powerful beings thanks to his equipment. He was even able to solve just about everything using equipment. However, it was not up to that point that he realized that, his own personal prowess was still the most important.

It was no wonder why his teacher never bothered crafting any other special equipment other than his magic amplifier. His teacher’s level was truly at the pinnacle of level 13.

The Lord of Glory’s double felt uncomfortable all over after being taken just one look by Saleen. However, due to the working of Nicholas’ lesser prophecy spell, he was unable to pinpoint the reason, simply thinking that Saleen had been able to form some special aura using the hatred towards him. It was something that was commonly seen when gods went about killing their enemies.

Saleen was running away in a very unsightly manner, and the double of the Lord of Glory was having a very hard time chasing after the mage as well.

Saleen dared not enter the ocean, as that would have slowed his movement speed. He was not clear how well could the Lord of Glory’s double have been able to move underwater.

Water was something capable of transmitting light element. If he were to dive into the water and the Lord of Glory’s double was hardly slowed, then he would have just robbed himself of the chance to even escape to the Imperial City of the Abys.

The Lord of Glory was afraid of Saleen getting into the water as well. His movement abilities would have been affected by water element as well. Flashes of the ball of light would have created a great margin of error underwater. While his speed would have hardly been affected, but it would have made locking onto Saleen’s escape route a lot more difficult.

One mistaken transmission of light element might have actually thrown him further away from his quarry instead.

Saleen headed straight for the Oceanic Ice Block. Both of them were running at more or less the same speed. Saleen was capable of using Comet Flash once every one or two hours and his magic chords had gradually recovered, enabling him to use the Crystal Finger again.

However, he no longer dared to do that, as he was utterly incapable of targeting the Lord of Glory’s double. Furthermore, it was difficult for the Crystal Finger to break that divine persona fragment as well. If he were to be unable to break the source of the double’s power, then the double would have never died. It was utterly impossible for Saleen to use Crystal Finger for hundreds of times successively.

The Lord of Glory was not thinking deep as well. Any further north and they would have arrived at the extreme north of the plane. He would have been able to use a very little-known divine spell in the extreme north or extreme south of any plane. He would have been able to crank his speed to the highest, and the mage would no longer be able to escape, regardless of how fast the mage would have been.

Saleen gave up trying to attack the Lord of Glory’s double on his own after finding out about his weakness clearly. He had done experiments testing the resilience of a divine person, and there was no way he could have broken the divine persona as he was right there and then.

The Oceanic Ice Block was right before his eyes within just hours. Saleen saw the ice sheets and knew that it was impossible for him to do much in the water. It was fortunate that Dante was a weapon spirit and was capable of moving faster in the water than he was. The use of skills would not be affected by his size.

Dante carried Saleen and dived. The Lord of Glory’s double was only able to see clearly by then, that the being he thought to be have been a descendant of the giants, was surprisingly a pseudogod.

The Lord of Glory’s double was elated. Killing the mage became a secondary priority. That mage had actually subjugated a pseudogod, which explained why he dared to challenged the might of a god.

Pseudogods were not true gods and he deemed the mage to have been stupid.

However, pseudogods were the best supplement there wer to gods. There were hardly any stranded pseudogods to be found anywhere, as any lifeform evolving to a pseudogod would have hidden themselves right away. They would have also followed some other powerful gods otherwise, as not taking either of those options might have ended up with them being eaten by gods.

Dante dived into the water and the Lord of Glory’s double had no choice but to follow. The ball of light flickered in the water and the distance between them had been reduced to half of what it had been. The double did not want to go out of control. If he were to end up going in the opposite direction instead, it would have been considerably slower than it was at the moment instead. His sensory prowess enabled him to sense something thousands of kilometers away, so he was not afraid that Saleen would have been able to escape.

Dante realized that the god chasing after them slowed down as well, which made it feel somewhat relieved.

Saleen had instead taken the chance to widen the distance between them, saying, “Dante, go further forward. We’d soon reach an independent space. Power of rules of Myers Mainland had no control over there. Remember what I said and undo your seal immediately, moving forward at full speed.

“Undo my seal?” Dante was feeling rather sheepish.

“Yes, undo your seal. But when I summon you, you have to immediately return to the magic amplifier. There are a bunch of ghosts there who like consuming divine powers.”

“Ghosts...” Dante felt like laughing.

Saleen then said, “Indeed. The strongest one among them is a level 18 ghost.”

Dante shut up right there and then, realizing why Saleen chose to run all the way there. A level 18 ghost? The growth of power with every advancement after level 13 would have been like that of three levels at lower levels.

That meant that after level 13, every advancement would have brought power growth of that of one whole rank. That was a difference that was incapable of being compensated in any way. The Lord of Glory’s double was at level 14. He was able to only use powers at level 12 and yet he had already almost annihilated Saleen’s men. None of those powerful beings around Saleen were able to take even a single hit.

The number of powerful magic beasts beneath the ice sheet at the Oceanic Ice Block was an infuriating one. However, they parted and made way for the Lord of Glory’s double without him having to do anything.

That was an effect from Divine Might. Even if the magic beasts were not intelligent ones, they were nonetheless able to tell that the being before them had powers that they were unable to resist.

As such, Saleen did not meet any resistance as well. Dante took him straight to the tunnels in the underwater rocks, arriving at the external fringes of the Imperial City of the Abyss. Due to reminders from Saleen, he undid the seal on his body before he continued moving forward, with his powers returning to level 13 at once.

The power difference between level 13 and level 12 was just too great. Dante was a pseudogod and thus, without a divine persona. Its power suffered a severe drop after sealing it at level 12. However, when the seal was undone, its speed was increased by a dozen times over all of a sudden.

If it had not been for the peculiar relationship between it and Saleen, Saleen would have been affected by Dante’s Divine Might as well.

The Imperial City of the Abyss was not far away. Saleen took out the badge that Gaine gave him and pinned it on Dante, saying, “When I tell you to run, you dive straight into the magic amplifier. Whatever happens, don’t come out.

“Yes, master.” Dante only realized by then that the secrets on his master was far more than what it had expected.

Due to the workings of the badge, the elemental creatures behind the walls did not attack Dante when it went over the walls. None of the magic arrays in the city were activated. Saleen was entering as an astrologer. That identity allowed him free access at the external fringes of the city without invoking any attacks.

Saleen dared to use the badge by then. After Gaine left, there was no other astrologer found in the Imperial City of the Abyss.

The Lord of Glory’s double found that the mage’s movement speed sped up all of a sudden and he was baffled, thinking that there was a space portal in front and the mage managed to escape. When he was sucked into the bottom of the ocean by the abyss’ power shortly after, he discovered that the rules there no longer limited the rise of his power.

The Lord of Glory’s double was elated. The ball of light in his hand burst in size and the power of his body was enhanced 100 times over, and the levels were still climbing afterwards.

He no longer needed the power of the godly item after the seal was undone. One step enabled him to move almost 1000 meters underwater. His speed was increased several times over.

Due to no longer having to use power from the godly item, his movement skill became something he was able to control. The power at level 14 ensured that he would not have been lost underwater.

Nicholas’ lesser prophecy spell became totally useless by then. It was considered a miracle to have a level 11 fallen holy master confuse a god for that long. The Lord of Glory’s double knew that he had been confused due to the effects of the lesser prophecy spell before. However, his mood had turned for the better and his powers completely recovered. There would have been no one capable of taking him on in the entire Myers Mainland.

The Lord of Glory charged before the Imperial City of the Abyss in glee. The joy felt within was indescribable.

He was surprised to find the place to be something from the First Dynasty.

He had without doubt, knew of the First Dynasty. The mages of the First Dynasty had destroyed too many divine kingdoms. The Lord of Glory had been running from them back in those days.

Ruins huh? It wouldn’t be surprising to find any godly items in there. That mage...

Hardly surprising why he possesses so many weird powers then. So this is where he found all of that.

Saleen had Dante take him straight to the Cemetery of Heroes. He was still having a bit of hope in him. While Nailisi did not leave any message behind and he was no longer able to sense her, but the contract deep within his soul had yet to disappear.

With the contract still intact, it meant that there was still hope for Nailisi to be revived.

However, Rafel was definitely dead and it did not seem that Nicholas had any chance of survival. The Winged Skull was the least injured. If they were to not encounter any enemies, they would have definitely returned to Metatrin City and moved the rest of Saleen’s forces to the interdimensional space.

The Winged Skull came to possess a plane by then. Given enough time, they would have even been able to gain 12 gods as their bouncer. By then, it would have been possible to even crush the Lord of Glory’s divine kingdoms.