Badge in Azure

The Cloudflow warships on the Separation Sea were not standard naval ships. They had flat bases which stabilized them while attacking, but their speed could not catch up to the three skeletal warships that were escaping.

The winged skeleton felt someone searching. It was a very powerful person using mental strength. The ship had to dive past one-hundred yards down before the feeling disappeared.

The Cloudflows navy’s rage was beyond the winged skeleton’s imagination. Another ten or so warships arrived and began to surround the medium and small skeletal warships in a circle, intending to destroy them. A black shadow flew from a warship that was almost two-hundred yards long. It seemed to be searching for something in the air.

If the winged skeleton had not dived deep underwater, he would have been able to see this human with the use of death magic.

This was a mage wearing a black robe. On the robe were two rows of magic symbols. It was a grade-8 mage!

Another two gigantic flying magic beasts then flew from the deck. On the back of these two flying magic beasts were two warriors who were clearly upset. These two men caught up with the mage and flew in circles.

“Grandmaster, have you found it?” The two warriors were armed with short pikes. The blades of these short pikes were half a yard long and golden in color.

The grade-8 mage pointed and said, “Over there, there are three of them!”

The two Cloudflow warriors leapt into the sea and dived underwater. Their bodies were protected by their black sword aura, so even their clothes remained dry. What the grade-8 sorcerer discovered was diving combat vessels. Three diving combat vessels were diving at a depth of about fifty yards. The winged skeleton had wanted to let these three vessels find an opportunity to commit kamikaze.

The magic array on the alchemy ship detected ripples caused by powerful energies. The winged skeleton was filled with regret then. He did not wait for the two Cloudflow warriors to approach the diving combat vessels before ordering the spirits of the dead that were on board the warship to continue diving.

The diving combat vessels shut down the magic arrays and dived straight down to the bottom of the lake. The winged skeleton rushed out of the pan’s turtle alchemical boat and quickly hid the three warships. He expended a lot of his mental strength and he could feel his soul flames dim drastically. He dared not stay nor try to fight those two Cloudflow warriors. The sorcerer on top was still looking for him. If he engaged the two warriors, he might not be able to handle the sorcerer’s attack at the same time.

The winged skeleton had to take the risk and protect his diving combat vessels because he was afraid that they might be taken by Cloudflow.

The sorcerer in the air immediately realized what the winged skeleton did. Without hesitation, the sorcerer dived into the water. Everywhere around him turned into a swirl of air current that was shaped like an arrow. This swirl of air current increased the sorcerer’s speed underwater drastically as he chased after the winged skeleton.

The winged skeleton passed through a teleportation portal and entered the pan’s turtle alchemical boat. He did not mind engaging the sorcerer, but he was also worried that the alchemical boat might be exposed and he would no longer be able to use it to spring a surprise attack on Cloudflow in the future.

The pan’s turtle alchemical boat immediately dived beyond two-hundred yards and escaped towards the east. The mage did not dare to dive too deep because the two warriors would not be able to follow. The sorcerer could sense that the thick death aura his target carried was disappearing with alarming speed.

The sorcerer came up from the water raging. The two warriors floated up as well.

“Grandmaster…”

“Say no more. Go back and help the soldiers.” The sorcerer was upset and flew towards a skeletal warship. All of a sudden, the skeletal warship shot out more than ten alchemy arrows. The grade-8 sorcerer’s face turned stern and a wind dragon suddenly appeared and blew the arrows away.

The sorcerer was now directly above the skeletal warship. He took out his magic staff and a gigantic fireball was sent crashing downwards.

This was the ground-element Guidestar spell and not a Fireball spell. The core of the fireball was heavy and solid. It was more than one yard in diameter and was heavier than fifty-thousand pounds. After an ear-splitting crash, the fireball created a crater that was more than three yards in diameter in the middle of the medium skeletal warship.

The winged skeleton did not know where to run to. This sorcerer’s fury knew no bounds and he was venting his anger on these warships that were still launching magic stone artillerie. He had already used up the grade-8 spell in his magic staff, yet he was still not appeased. He began to fly to another skeletal warship.

Three large skeletal warships had already escaped. The remaining warships were made of ordinary materials and would never be able to withstand the fury of the grade-8 sorcerer. The sorcerer cast six grade-8 spells in a row and destroyed six skeletal warships. Finally, he flew back to his own warship.

Once the winged skeleton left, the remaining skeletal warships were no longer commanded by spirits of the dead that possessed intelligence. The way they battled became mechanical and predictable and they were vanquished by the Cloudflow fleet in no time. Even though these spirits of the dead found themselves in the lake after being attacked, they continued to swim towards the Cloudflow warships to attack them.

The Cloudflow navy rarely encountered such situations. The crossbows on the ships began to shoot at the surface of the lake in all directions, but many spirits of the dead still managed to get close enough to the warships to climb onboard. The mages had no choice but to get involved and began the second round of battle.

At that point in time, there was only one troop carrier left. Countless Cloudflow soldiers sank with their troop carriers while more than fifty-thousand were still afloat. Among these fifty-thousand soldiers were more than two-thousand undead soldiers. Once the Cloudflow lifeboats approached, the undead soldiers would go berserk and start killing people. Large patches of red covered the surface of the lake.

When the winged skeleton returned to the gigantic crystal on the alchemy ship, he took half an hour’s time to recover his mental strength. Although his spirit space was sufficiently large, the amount of mental strength he used up when retrieving or storing items was many times more than a mage.

The winged skeleton did a quick calculation and realized that he was only left with three skeletal warships. It was unlikely that any of the spirits of the dead that would be meeting the Cloudflow fleets head-on would be able to survive.

Both sides suffered heavy losses. He managed to sink a Cloudflow warship while his own fleet was practically destroyed. The remaining three warships would not pose any threat to Cloudflow.

The winged skeleton could only hope that the three jade skeletons would be able to find a way to escape. Creating warships only required sufficient materials and money. On the other hand, it was pure luck that he managed to create jade skeletons with intelligence like them.

After being taken by surprise, the Cloudflow fleets ensured that there were no more loopholes. the winged skeleton had no intentions of springing another surprise attack. There was no way the entire fleet only had one grade-8 sorcerer. There would be a grade-9 sorcerer too. The winged skeleton was anxious to return to his bone castle. The caste would be able to utilize its most powerful defense if the winged skeleton was around.

After traveling for five-hundred miles, the winged skeleton tried to summon his jade skeletons. To his pleasant surprise, all six jade skeletons were still alive. They were all hiding in the sea not far away from him.

Just as he guessed, the fleets led by the other three jade skeletons had been destroyed, but they managed to sink four of the enemy’s warships before that. In response to the winged skeleton’s summoning, the six jade skeletons swam to the pan’s turtle alchemical boat.

After they got onto the pan’s turtle alchemical boat, the winged skeleton saw that three out of the six jade skeletons were covered with cracks. Their bones, which should be stronger than iron, were almost crushed by an unknown weapon. The winged skeleton did not bother asking any questions. Fortunately, the three of them were smart enough to ensure that their soul flames were still well-protected despite the state of their bones.

The winged skeleton threw the three jade skeletons into the spirit pool for nourishment before taking the pan’s turtle alchemical boat back to the bone castle at full speed.

Back in the bone castle, Saleen’s scouts kept delivering news from the port. Many Cloudflow armies had started to appear at the Separation Sea’s port. Saleen had no idea how the winged skeleton was fairing, but more and more warships were approaching the port.

The remaining one-thousand men in the small town beside the shore had finally retreated to the bone castle. When the Cloudflow fleets approached the shore, they did not attack the small town immediately. Instead, they waited for the people in the town to retreat totally before stationing their own troops there.

The Cloudflow navy was ferocious on their warships, but were extremely cautious once they reached land.

Saleen could not figure out what was happening. He had no idea that the winged skeleton had created many undead soldiers in the Separation Sea that had severely injured the soldiers that were deployed for reinforcements. Cloudflow would not launch any attacks until their grand mages and sorcerers arrived.

No one was more anxious than Mu En. He was staying in a magic tower that was temporarily built and was eight stories high. All those serving him were spirits of the dead and this was driving Mu En mad.

Finally, on the dawn of the second day, Mu En was invited down from the magic tower by spirits of the dead. The winged skeleton had returned.

Saleen gathered all the people around him, including the four generals from Bitter Water Prefecture. The meeting room in the bone castle was huge and dim. It had windows that were narrow and long. There was a huge magic array on the ceiling and the surface of the ground was smooth like mirror. The magic array on the ceiling reflected onto the ground and the only spot where it did not reflected was a round table.

The winged skeleton did not speak a word. He instead took out the image stone which he had used to record and placed it on the magic array in the center of the round table.

Mu En was still the winged skeleton’s spokesperson, except there was no need for him to talk too much this time. The magic images displayed all the scenes of violent battle on the Separation Sea. When they saw the Cloudflow troop carriers being sunk, the Bitter Water Prefecture generals were so engrossed that the veins in their necks looked like they were about to pop out and their eyes beamed with excitement.

Very soon after, the Cloudflow warships arrived to provide reinforcement and that was when the images were cut off. Mu En began to describe the rest of the battle on behalf of the winged skeleton.

For this battle on the sea, the winged skeleton activated one-hundred and fifty-six warships and only three survived. The pan’s turtle alchemical boat did not appear in the images so naturally, the winged skeleton had no reason to bring it up.

On the other hand, only five Cloudflow warships were sunk. The disparity in losses made it difficult for the men of Bitter Water Prefecture to smile.

Although it was outstanding for them to sink eighty-three troops carriers, their defences were vastly different from those of the Cloudflow warships. Almost the entire Metatrin fleet had been destroyed. If Cloudflow was to deploy even more soldiers there, would Bitter Water Prefecture be able to stop them?

Saleen knew all this, but he also knew that morale must not be shaken, so he said, “Each Cloudflow troop carrier can carry five-thousand men. Eighty-three troop carriers have been sunk and less than half were be able to escape. Subsequently, another half of them were killed by my fleet on the surface of the sea. In total, less than one-hundred-thousand Cloudflow soldiers will be sent to shore through the troop carriers. The Bitter Water Prefecture generals immediately looked more assured. Saleen continued, “The troop carriers carried not only soldiers, but also a lot of weapons and equipment. The weapons on the warships cannot be used off the ship. In other words, although the Cloudflow fleets have yet to be defeated, their plan has been stopped for now.” Saleen feared that he was not persuasive enough so he continued, “The news that Lex received previously was that there would be two-hundred to three-hundred Cloudflow ships on the Separation Sea. Now that we have destroyed more than eighty ships, the Cloudflow navy will not have any troop carriers for the time-being. It will not be possible for them to deploy any armies immediately.”