Badge in Azure

Chapter 187: Sika, Sika! (Part 2)

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Nailisi watched helplessly as Saleen pounced on the assassin holding a scimitar.

Meanwhile, Saleen was calm. The serrated blade of the scimitar shone menacingly against the light. Orbs of power still shone brightly in Saleen’s left hand. The assassin held the scimitar firmly in his grip and started swinging it wildly in Saleen’s direction. It was clear by now that his target was Saleen. Even though he had lost his sense of awareness, the assassin was still able to instinctively devise a plan to trick his opponent.

How important was Sika to Saleen? That was a question Saleen himself could not answer. What he did know was that even if he was reduced to a most desolate state and only had powers equivalent to a grade-1 mage, Sika would never forsake him. Even if he only gave her one meal a day, she would be more than satisfied. He knew that the assassin had set a trap for him. However, because instantaneous spells could not help him this time, he could only jump into the trap in hopes that the assassin would be distracted enough to shift his focus away from Sika.

A water shield the size of two human heads immediately formed to defend the spellcaster from the scimitar attack. No sooner had the scimitar come into contact with the shield did the shield shatter. Even a grade-4 Elemental Variation spell could not have withstood the forceful impact of the grade-6 assassin’s attack. The curvature of the knife, although having only made contact with the water shield for less than a second, looked as if it was ready to draw blood anytime it touched Saleen’s flesh.

The death flames behind Daniel continued burning violently, making crackling sounds as they did so. Daniel was in pain. He was wincing and scrunching his face in distress as the fire continued to burn away at his clothes from behind. Unfortunately for him, the fire was also turning his muscles into charcoal. Suddenly, the death flames took on the shape of a green rifle and started aiming for Saleen’s back.

Saleen bent over to dodge the attack, which he was able to do, but just barely. The green rifle whizzed past Saleen’s back and slammed into the assassin’s face. Hard.

The other assassin holding the scimitar started to bring his weapon down towards Saleen’s chest repeatedly. The scimitar seemed to have a mind of its own. Even when the assassin had lost all control, the blade still aimed directly at the center of Saleen’s chest.

With the first swing, the ice plate armor split from the blunt force of the scimitar. With the second swing, the grey robe that Saleen wore was sliced away as well. With the third swing – ding! This time, however, the scimitar had made contact with a very hard object.

It was Saleen’s family badge that had managed to block the assassin’s unusually strong scimitar.

In such a short amount of time, Saleen had been unable to figure out how the assassin’s sword aura worked. All he could do now was prevent himself from being repeatedly knifed in the chest. After many swings of the scimitar, Saleen had been able to conclude that the attack route taken by the blade of the weapon was not going to change significantly even if the battle dragged on for a bit.

The scimitar was far too powerful. As soon as it had clubbed the badge, Saleen felt like he had been struck by a fully constructed puppet using a war hammer. His demon suit had managed to diffuse the intensity of the attack, but he still felt his sternum crack.

The impact of the blade had caused Saleen to bounce upwards. However, he did not just let himself fly through the air. He stretched out his left hand and reached into the assassin’s burning face before pinching the more than three hundred holy prose that were present in the assassin’s brain.

Both Saleen’s and the assassin’s attacks caused them to fall onto the ground at the same time.

Saleen grimaced in pain, feeling as if his bones had broken apart. As Daniel witnessed the scene unfold before him, he became pale in shock. He had managed to fend off his enemies with the help of Saleen. Now, Saleen seemed to be too severely injured to help him defeat the evil spirits. He was all alone.

Although the death flames had struck with everything they had, all they had done was cause a minor inconvenience to the assassins. The gap between their ranks would mean that his attacks spells were almost useless against the assassins.

Saleen and Sika lay sprawled face down on the floor about one meter away from each other. Even with such a short distance, Saleen’s hands were unable to reach out to check her wounds. He could only turn his face to look at Sika and watch helplessly as Sika bled profusely, soaking her leather armor in the process.

“Sika, Sika!” Saleen roared, not caring that by shouting loudly, he had aggravated his injuries. All he had on his mind right now was Sika’s well-being. Or rather, the lack thereof. He stared helplessly at Sika, the sweat beading on his forehead and dribbling down into his eyes.

As Sika’s body twitched, Saleen heard her faintly call his name. Tears started pouring out of Saleen’s eyes as soon as he realized that Sika was alive.

Bang!

The sound of Saleen’s fully constructed puppet being hit in the head by an evil spirit rang clearly in the air. Almost immediately, it started falling towards the ground. Distracted, Saleen shifted his focus towards regaining control of the puppet again. The fully constructed puppet threw an axe in the direction of the evil spirit who was holding onto a flail, sending him flying backwards. The fully constructed puppet slowly got up and rewound the iron chain before gripping the axe once again in its hands.

Saleen tried moving his feet. Nothing. Then his arms. Nothing. He tried his midsection. Nothing. His whole body felt numb and heavy. The only thing he could control was the puppet.

Daniel took out a grey scroll and walked hurriedly over to Saleen’s side before releasing the magic contained within it. The money spent on that scroll would have allowed him to purchase another set of death flames. There were too few scrolls in existence that necromancers could use. Literally none of them could be found in stores. As expected, the powers of a necromancer’s scroll were the greatest out of all magic scrolls. Any scroll that had been created by a necromancer was an invaluable object.

The difference between a scroll made by an elemental mage and a necromancer was that the latter used death flames while writing magic scrolls while the former did not. Therefore, the magic released from the scroll would not only include the power of the necromancer themselves, but the death flames which had been stored inside the scroll.

Crackle, crackle, crackle…

The sounds of the purple flames on the ground being dispersed filled the air. Huge bones started emerging from the ground before converging into one, effectively surrounding Saleen and the others. The bones had formed a squarish wall, with dozens of ferocious jagged skulls moving inside and outside the bone walls, each of them spitting out black mist.

They were constructing a bone cage! Saleen thought in alarm.

Looking up, Saleen saw dozens of ginormous skulls hovering above them threateningly.

Daniel dispersed the death flames and shielded Sika and Saleen with a green flame instead. The skulls that were spitting black mist were unable to get any closer to the trio. Alas, the three of them were still stuck in the bone cage.

Was this the best idea that Daniel could think of? At the moment, yes. The bone cage was too difficult for him to destroy on his own. Even with Saleen’s help, it was possible that they would not be able to make it out. He could only delay the onset of attacks of their enemies in the hopes that Saleen would somehow regain enough strength to help him. After all, he was just a grade-3 mage. Asking him to defeat all of the evil spirits on his own would be a pretty tall order.

He could not see what was happening outside the bone wall. The only thing he could do was have the death flames stop the bleeding from Sika’s wounds.

“Saleen, can you still move?” Daniel said as he forced himself to completely relax. Inside the bone cage, he at least had the opportunity to commit suicide and avoid capture by the people of the Holy See. Once a necromancer like him died, he would be teleported back to the death dimension via the death flames. If that happened, even the people from the Holy See would be unable to do anything about it.

However, that was a last resort. Nobody knew what happened after a person ended up in the death dimension. Not even necromancers themselves knew.

“Still alive,” Saleen wheezed. Using his still mobile left hand, he retrieved the jade vase from his demonic ring and held it tightly.

“Get Sika…… to drink this…” he gasped.

Understanding Saleen’s words, Daniel immediately picked up the jade bottle. He opened it and gave it a sniff before carefully pouring out a drop and tasting it. No, he was not about to sabotage Sika’s chances of survival. He was just afraid that Saleen had given him the wrong thing in his delirious state. Mages, after being afflicted with severe injuries, were unable to think and process things clearly. Taking out the wrong magical objects was just one of the many things they could potentially do. Sometimes, they could even cast the wrong spells.

Seeing that the magic liquid was not harmful, Daniel took out a stoneware bottle and poured two drops of the magic liquid into it. After diluting it, he poured the solution onto the deep wound on Sika’s back.

Almost instantly, Sika stopped convulsing. Daniel carefully raised Sika’s head and poured the remaining contents down her throat.

Sika’s current injuries would be best treated with divine healing. The magic liquid could play a huge role in curing that injury. However, to cure it completely, the amount of magic liquid needed would be far more than the two drops he had administered.

The bone cage had cut off all contact with the outside world. Saleen was no longer able to control his fully constructed puppet. The puppet was very powerful. In fact, it could actually fight on its own without needing Saleen to control it. However, that would require the activation of the magic nuclei. Without Saleen’s commands, the fully constructed puppet simply stood outside the bone wall like a block of wood, its red eyes slowly turning back to black and indicating that it was deactivating.

Nailisi rushed over hurriedly. Fortunately, she did not lose contact with Saleen and had sensed his life force, signifying to her that Saleen was still alive.

She felt a little sad. Her owner had risked his life just to preserve Sika’s. If she had been the one injured, her owner would have certainly given up on her by now.

At full speed, an evil spirit charged towards Nailisi, bringing his gleaming sword down towards her back. Before the weapon could even reach the level of her shoulders, Nailisi’s tail sprang out and wrapped itself tightly around both of the evil spirit’s hands. With a firm tug, her tail lifted the evil spirit up and suspended him in front of her.

As she looked into the pitch-black eyes of the evil spirit in front of her, she was suddenly overcome with a sense of rage.

I’m an imp! I’m not like you and I never will be you! Nailisi thought furiously as she bit down furiously on the evil spirit’s head.

The fully constructed puppet, which was carrying a halberd, had many wounds inflicted upon it by its assailants. Even in its pitiful state, it was still able to carry the barely conscious winged skeleton. The winged skeleton had lost its wings after defeating a few evil spirits on his own. If not for Nailisi, the winged skeleton would not have made it. Although the winged skeleton could move on its own, it had been overwhelmed by the sheer number of evil spirits it had needed to face earlier, three of which were mages.

After doing a detailed scan of the bone cage, Nailisi concluded that the trap had no weak points. Furthermore, even if they had wanted to explore its potential weak points, they were prevented from doing so. The black mist that was emanating from the top of the walls was very corrosive. Even evil spirits who were unlucky enough to draw close to it had their faces burnt off.

As what seemed like hundreds of Ahrimans closed in on the gang, Nailisi turned around and faced her back towards the bone cage. With a “pop” sound, another head appeared on Nailisi’s shoulders. At the same time, her body started to elongate. She was showing her true form.

Although her human form did not diminish any of her abilities in terms of strength and speed, her demon form was more suited for battle. Her tail swung to and fro wildly and all four of her limbs were in contact with the ground. The most chilling part of her transformation was likely her eyes. The edges of her azure green eyes glowed a bright gold.

In the meantime, the fully constructed puppet, which had used up the energy from its magic nuclei after slaughtering too many evil spirits, began to power down as the red orbs in its eyes began to dim. The other fully constructed puppet, the one not holding a halberd, however, had been activated. Holding its axe, the puppet charged towards the evil spirits.

Now, you might be wondering how that fully constructed puppet had managed to move, given that Saleen no longer had any control over his “pets”. The answer was simple. Nailisi. She had successfully rebooted the puppet. Seeing that she had accomplished her goal, Nailisi’s lips curled up slightly into a small smile before laughing, her expression looking a lot like Saleen’s in that moment.

Hmph! Whatever Master Saleen can control, I can too! Nailisi thought haughtily to herself.

The soul bond was not just a contract with restrictions. In fact, Nailisi was not really clear about the nitty-gritty portions of the concept at all. Naturally, she would have no idea of the fascinating aspects of the soul bond. All she knew was that whatever skills Saleen possessed – keen senses; mental strength; soul variation frequencies, etc. – would be hers to keep as well.

Defeating the evil spirits was not a very difficult job. They never operated in sync, had no clear battle strategies, and were unwilling to work together. Unless they had been comrades in their previous lives, their lack of cooperation tended to be the norm in the realm of evil spirits. If not for the fact that the fully constructed puppet’s agility was compromised because of its overly bulky structure, it would not have had a hard time trying to dodge their attacks.

Upon sensing Nailisi’s presence, Saleen calmed down slightly. He knew that he could count on Nailisi to delay whatever the bone cage had in store for them. Lex had already found the black deacon and would be able to save them soon.

Each time a battle concluded, Saleen would reflect on either his actions in battle or his next move. This time, he was questioning himself. Had he been too reckless this time? If the assassin had been a human, that knife would have missed him. If he had not had his family badge, his demon suit might not have been able to withstand the impact of the blade…

As many what-if scenarios flashed through his brain, Saleen mentally slapped himself. You shouldn’t even be thinking about this! You did it to save Sika! You had no choice! Saleen scolded himself.

Like Saleen, many people would have to sacrifice something in order to save another. It was not a matter of choice, because there was not any to begin with.

Adjusting his breathing, Saleen began inspecting his injuries.