Badge in Azure

Chapter 1464: Returning to the Hall of Gods (Part 2)

The general slowly emerged from his grave, flashing a smile at Saleen.

“I need to get to the Hall of Gods,” Saleen stated his request first. If the general were to not agree, the news he was about to tell him would be of little use to the man.

The general stared at Saleen for three seconds before taking out his badge and throwing it to Saleen.

“So, what’s the news?”

“Myers has resurrected.”

The general’s narrowed eyes quickly widened. Thousands of graves in the cemetery were in an uproar by then. All sorts of heroic spirits climbed out of their graves and gathered around the general’s grave.

While those heroic spirits showed little fear of or respect for Myers, the news of the resurrection startled them. Even the general could barely maintain his composure. That’s why he stared at Saleen in a nervous manner–as if Saleen was the resurrected goddess herself!

“Her resurrection took place at the center of the Purgatory Dessert. I assume none of you can make it there, but I can show you the image of her and me.” Saleen knew that plane coordinates didn’t work within the Imperial City of the Abyss. After all, the city seemed to have vanished from Myers Mainland.

Saleen said this as he projected the process of him attacking the goddess using magic. The way he recorded the images was different—he was using lightning skills. Not even the goddess had actually been aware of what Saleen was doing during this attack.

Saleen attacked the goddess without hesitation just so he could set up the meeting on that day. The general had no idea how much time Saleen was able to spend in the Hall of Gods. Neither did he realize that Saleen had advanced to level-13.

Saleen needed to advance to level-14. What’s more, he had to make sure the three weapon spirits advanced as well. Only by doing so would he get the chance to head back to the cemetery of the giant to claim the Lightning Moon.

He wouldn’t allow any unforeseen circumstances to occur this time. If he were able to claim the Lightning Moon, he could use many skills in his Book of Lightning. By then, not even the Lord of Glory would be able to withstand a lightning strike from him.

After reading the magic spells in the Book of Lightning, he knew that to be free of regrets in the future, he had to master the book completely. Every single skill in that book looked very tempting to Saleen.

Further, the badge was something left behind by his father. He wondered if his family had secrets enabling him to train in the lightning magic running through his veins.

He hardly kept anything to himself and had attempted to impart lightning skills to others. Except for Eleanor, not even his teacher and Truman had mastered those skills. Eleanor’s mastery was not of a high enough level: it only enabled her arrows to boast better penetration and be imbued with anti-magic properties.

The grandmaster looked at the projections over and over. Saleen then let out a tiny cough.

“Get going.” The grandmaster had actually forgotten about the trade.

Saleen took out the things he had prepared and placed them before the general. It was not really necessary for him to make the trade, but he felt uneasy having the seeds on his person. If the goddess ever found out about this, she would probably retrieve them at any moment.

“What do you want?” The grandmaster was still watching the magic projection.

“Level-18 scrolls. The kind I can use.

“I only have level-17 ones.”

“That’ll do.” Saleen was thrilled. Level -17 or level-18 made little difference to him. Both would work well against the Lord of Glory. All he needed was something to overpower level-15 gods.

The grandmaster didn’t play any tricks on Saleen this time. He took out a yellow scroll. It looked huge, almost three times the size of normal books.

Saleen glanced at the magic rope on the scroll and saw that it looked proper. Secret magic inscriptions were written there, detailing the scroll’s contents.

Level-17 earth magic was contained within. He found that useful enough. Its effects wouldn’t be diminished when dealing with the Lord of Glory, who was of light element.

Saleen took the level-17 magic scroll while looking at the grandmaster. He had prepared three sets of items. The grandmaster was exasperated, taking out two other level-15 ones before Saleen was satisfied and left.

It was rare for the grandmaster to not get pissed off. Then again, the news that Saleen had brought him was of great importance.

Everyone knew what Myers was like back in the day. She had been one of the top mages. After becoming a god, she was still capable of using magic. Further, she could access the source of that main plane where they were after achieving godhood and was many times more powerful than other advent gods.

So long as Myers Mainland stayed intact, the powers of Myers would be inexhaustible.

Despite being of a similar level, it was nearly impossible for the general to kill Myers. It was fortunate that Myers hadn’t yet advanced to adequate heights. If those people ever left the Cemetery of Heroes, they would be able to kill that god, who had once been their friend.

What if we just leave her alone? Shall we let this main plane crumble hundreds of millions of years later then?

Everyone was wondering if this was the best course of action, especially the grandmaster, who was very keen on the lifespan of the plane. He had been to many planes before but never bothered to find out if they still existed. But things were different with Myers Mainland, for that plane was his home.

The general sighed and said, “When Saleen gets back, I’m going to sign a contract with him. Get 24 among you people to help him out. Allow him to gather everything the goddess needs. We shall leave the cemetery in due time thereafter.”

Silence. Everyone went silent knowing that following Saleen meant relinquishing the chance of getting resurrected, of being stuck as heroic spirits for good.

But if Myers were to grow, it would only be a matter of time before the imperial city was discovered. If it came to that, Myers would be able to do whatever she wanted to everyone in the cemetery from outside.

That had nothing to do with vengeance; it was just a matter of principle. Those heroic spirits had once protected Myers Mainland, and the goddess was doing the same. But they did not share the same ideals. Myers had failed once and wanted to try again. The heroic spirits couldn’t afford to let her fail this time.

Their plane was their home. The heroes had been cooped up in the cemetery for far too long. Their passions had long cooled. At that moment, those cooled passions were being reignited, and there was simply no stopping them.

That was what Saleen wanted to see: While he admired the goddess a lot, he wasn’t about to allow her to doom the plane.

The heroes in the cemetery were thinking about what to do to help Saleen out. Of course, the goal of helping him was simply to enable him to help them fulfill the requirements of leaving the Cemetery of Heroes, even if that endeavor required a huge number of divine personas of the gods.

That was the first time Saleen was allowed to enter the Hall of Gods without a set time limit. After stepping inside, he summoned those of his own and set the divine persona on the magic array without hesitation.

That was something that would have happened in Myers Mainland. If he were in other planes, the difficulty of finding a divine persona would have made the odds of one in ten billion seem very probable. Huge numbers of gods had perished on Myers Mainland in the past. Regardless of how peculiar the places where the divine personas were hiding, it was only a matter of time before they would be discovered.

What good luck Saleen was having! At the very least, while there might be several people who had a piece of divine persona on their person, probably none was able to drain two pieces successively.

Saleen knew what purpose the divine personas served. The highest value to them was the rules within that could be extracted. If he were at level-15 now, he wouldn’t have hesitated to use a divine persona to enhance his powers. Being only at level-13 meant he still couldn’t make the rules within a divine persona as his own.

Saleen had no time to waste. After he was done setting up training grounds within the Hall of Gods, he began to work on his family badge. All three of his weapon spirits pulled out all the stops and took out the broken divine personas in preparation for advancing to level-14.

Only by getting to level-14 would they be useful to Saleen. Level-13 was no longer the ultimate, invincible level on Myers Mainland. Yes, Rafel was frustrated, but she managed to calm herself down once she saw Saleen patiently working on equipment.

She put the Inferno Spear together with the weapon Saleen gave her, and she began to fuse the pieces.

There were too many limitations to the Inferno Spear because it was not a weapon that the Metal God crafted her but for another goddess. Fortunately, the Metal God was powerful enough to comprehend the rules mastered by the goddess though. Despite the spear’s immense power, it was still ill-suited for her.

Rafel was working on the weapon to make it truly hers. The act symbolized her conviction to put the gods behind her and start anew.

Her indomitable spirit of always moving ahead of humans had gradually rubbed off on her. She came to believe that even without the gods she still had a vibrant life ahead of her.

Saleen was well-prepared this time. He spent more than a dozen years completing his work on his family badge, making it impossible for it to be taken from him again. The badge’s form was unchanged. But the contents of the Book of Lightning was completely imprinted on Saleen’s soul, down to every last detail.

There was one level-13 lightning skill, two level-14 ones, four level-15 ones, eight level-16 ones, 16 level -17 ones, and 32 level-18 ones.

It would not have surprised Saleen if that was all there was to it. There were corresponding training methods for acquiring level-19 to level-24 lightning skills inscribed on the last pages on the Book of Lightning.

Those lightning skills all cost power of the soul to use, as well as Power of the Source. Saleen had only seen this on the Goddess of Myers before. It was also found in some special skills, but too little of that was able to be mobilized.

Saleen took out huge amounts of bone crystals of the giant and fed them to the thunder dragons. All 24 of them would now possess great power in adulthood. He did not, however, use them in front of the Goddess of Myers for fear that she would become jealous and destroy the dragons.

All three weapon spirits had failed to get to level-14 even after 1,000 years had passed, and they were getting anxious. Saleen was unfazed. He continued to train in the skills inscribed in the Book of Lightning. The magic chords in his body began to vibrate at a frequency that would easily kill a true might by shaking down all internal organs to nothing.

Saleen, on the other hand, enjoyed the vibrations very much: they were a palpable sign of him having acquired the power of lightning.

It was no surprise that he was still unable to advance further despite having trained for another 1,000 years after rising to level-13. All six major elements of his had been thrown off-balance. He was only able to make the magic chords grow after advancing by using lightning skills, once he had developed lightning magic chords.

Without an understanding of lightning rules, advancement would be impossible; it would also be impossible for his magic chords to continue growing.