Badge in Azure

The fully-armed soldiers of the temple corp selected one-hundred Caucasus people and nudged and shoved them into the magic array. One of the Caucasus people tried to resist, but what he got in return was the tendons of his limbs being cut by four half-swords.

The Caucasus warriors had no choice but to enter the magic array obediently, including the one whose tendons had just been cut.

A white-robed mage came to Sika’s side and whispered, “All the magic arrays have been opened. You can question them now.”

Finally, Sika opened her eyes and asked slowly, “Let me ask all of you, who amongst you are unaware that the Caucasus people outside of the city have tried to threaten me?”

There was silence in the magic array. The Caucasus people were well-aware of the power of the Lie-detecting magic array. They would be found out immediately if they lied.

“Very well, all of them have been found guilty.” Sika waved her hand for the one-hundred people to be brought away to a room below the platform.

Another one-hundred Caucasus people were sent into the magic array for the test and Sika asked the same question again.

What disappointed the Caucasus people on the platform the most was that all of them had admitted their guilt. Such disappointment could easily translate into rage. The Caucasus warriors knocked against their own armor and shouted, “Kill them!”

At first, only ten or so people were shouting, but as Sika determined more and more of them guilty, more than one-thousand began to call for their execution. Soon, it escalated to tens of thousands of them.

Within a short span of less than an hour, Sika had found one-thousand, four-hundred, and fourteen people guilty. All of them were aware of the news outside of the city and were supportive of the plan.

Amongst these one-thousand, four-hundred, and fourteen Caucasus people, not all of them would have supported the southern Caucasus people’s plan with concrete actions, but it was no longer safe for them to stay.

Sika almost felt like stopping, but the emotions of the Caucasus people had been stirred. She had no choice but to continue with the plan and said, “Soldiers, are you willing to pledge your loyalty to me as your only Caucasus King?!”

Sika’s voice became louder. The effect of a sound amplification magic array had allowed her voice to become deafening in the gigantic arena.

“I am willing!”

“I am willing!”

“I am willing!”

There was almost a rhythm in the way the Caucasus warriors were responding to Sika.

“Are you willing, from here on, to never go back on your pledge, never give up on your honor, and never give up on your faith?!”

“I am willing!”

“Are you willing to fight for me and expand the Caucasus territories?!”

“I am willing!”

The mages looked on disinterestedly, even though they had a part to play in making it happen. They were not surprised by the Caucasus people’s reactions, in fact, they did not even feel any sense of achievement. They were the mages, and everything was under their control.

The noble families, on the other hand, were quite emotional. Saleen’s women were a princess and a Caucasus King. The soldiers under the command of the Caucasus King were the cream of the crop.

Metatrin Kingdom was becoming more and more powerful. The next step would be to join in the power struggle for the Mainland. Without striving for more power, most of the noble families there would never be able to progress into top-tier noble families.

The education that they had received since youth had allowed the noble families to realize that the world was changing. The Holy War started by the Holy See had opened up opportunities for everyone. Now, other than hope, there was another clear path that had appeared ahead of them and that was to follow Saleen.

Sika stood up and took out her weapon. She raised it in her hands and spoke to all the Caucasus warriors, “Let us not forget this day, for that will be equivalent to treason. From now on, the tenth of April shall be Judgment Day.”

This final sentence was something that Sika had included on her own. She detested such things.

Sika stepped down from the platform and left the Metatrin area while being surrounded by the crowd. Guya, who was standing beside the platform, saw Sika departing and said to Renee beside her, “This Regent is finally becoming something.”

“If you were up there, you would do much better than her,” Renee replied casually.

“Me? His Highness, Saleen, would never want me.” Guya looked towards Irene, who was on her other side.

Irene shrugged her shoulders and said, “Our Excellency is now Princess Lex’s husband. With Sika also watching from the side, please leave me out of this.”

The three Duchesses discussed Saleen, but all of them were actually fond of him. They were the founders of new clans, so they were not constrained by any rules. It would be acceptable for Saleen to make them his mistresses. Unfortunately, their rivals in love were so powerful that they did not even want to try.

Sika returned to the temple in a wagon and before long, those captives were also brought back to her. On the plaza, Sika said to the one-thousand, four-hundred, and fourteen captives, “I will give all of you one last chance.”

Without the sound transmission magic array, a few Caucasus captives stubbornly said, “What you are doing is going against the Caucasus people…”

With her cudgel in her hands, Sika knocked it against the ground a few times and the few Caucasus people that were about to speak up found their legs soften. It traveled up their calves and almost instantaneously, they turned into a pile of dust.

“Cut the crap. You are facing a Priestess. Be respectful.” Sika looked at the rest coldly.

Amongst the remaining captives, those that were more knowledgeable were able to realize what technique Sika had used. They quickly began to plead for their lives.

“Priestess, we surrender!”

“Surrender?” Sika laughed and said, “You cannot surrender nor leave this place. You can only choose either for your souls to be dissipated or to become my Souls of Nature.”

The Caucasus people’s expressions were awful when they heard Sika’s question. It was unacceptable for Caucasus people to have their souls dissipated but becoming Souls of Nature was not much better either.

‘Souls of Nature’ was just a more indirect way of describing what it really meant, which was enslaved souls. In other words, they would become the source of the Priestess’ soul power.

“I get tired very easily now and I don’t have a lot of patience. I will give all of you ten seconds,” Sika said and raised her weapon. When she turned the few Caucasus warriors into dust with her cudgel, it was clear that the rest would end up the same way if they chose not to become her Souls of Nature.

After ten seconds, Sika was satisfied and returned back to the temple. She was going to prepare to convert the souls of the warriors. With that, the third magic beast soul could be awakened, and she would not have to continue to remain in her current state, where the power that she could borrow was minimal.

The trouble in the city had been settled. Over at Daliang City, the battle had reached its climax.

The Cloudflow soldiers outnumbered the men of Bitter Water Prefecture, but the latter had the city wall and more equipment on their side. After the sorcerer had attacked, he did not appear again. Nevertheless, the magic towers in the city dared not be complacent. All of them were fully prepared for a new wave of attack, so they were unable to divert their attention to provide reinforcements for the battle on top of the city wall.

Lex was in command of the battle on one side of the top of the city wall, but she was not involved in the actual fighting. She was afraid that her movements would attract unnecessary attention. The magic tower nearest to the city wall only had seven stories, so it might not be able to repel that sorcerer’s bombardments.

The magic heavy-armored foot soldiers invented by Saleen were the most effective in battle. A few times when the enemy managed to make it all the way to the top of the city wall, they were repelled by the heavy-armored soldiers. The low-level mages took turns to rest and boost the heavy-armored foot soldiers with spells so that they could continue to fight for a longer duration.

Behind the Cloudflow soldiers, a mound of dirt began to rise up from the ground until the head of a machine was revealed. The head of the machine was like a human’s, except that its eyes were blood-red in color. Its soul flame danced, giving the face a very strange look when complemented with patches of metallic skin.

After it tunneled its way out, the winged skeleton crawled out from the hole behind it.

The bone castle was not involved in the battle. The winged skeleton could not take it and decided to bring along the mechanical soul to spring a surprise attack on the rear of the Cloudflow army’s site outside of Daliang City.

The mechanical soul was able to tunnel its way through without making too much sound. The winged skeleton followed mechanical soul by crawling for more than twenty miles before finally arriving at the surface.

The winged skeleton was pleased to find that the Cloudflow foot soldiers were not scattered nor wandering around. He began to summon spirits of the dead and unleashed the middle-level spirits of the dead stored within Green Spirit.

It was clearly a site for the reserves as there were about five-thousand foot soldiers with half-plated armor that were waiting to move off. Half-plated armor was worn when attacking the city. Although it sacrificed the defense of the lower body, it could lessen the weight of the armor and also increase the defense of the upper body.

That type of army was most afraid of melee attacks. Once they get tangled up with the enemy, the weakness in their equipment could be easily exploited. Of course, the winged skeleton knew that. He specifically summoned the more agile skeleton archers and the undead soldiers from the death dimension.

There were too few death knights, but they would suffice. The winged skeleton summoned more than one-thousand spirits of the dead in total before organizing them into their formations. Then, they charged at the rear of the site of the Cloudflow foot soldiers.

The distance was about eight-hundred yards to a mile. After the winged skeleton boosted his spirits of the dead with spells, the spirits were able to sprint at full speed towards the campsite.

At a distance of fifty yards away, a few skeleton archers launched their attacks. Then, the undead soldiers became berserk and tore a huge hole at the rear of the campsite.

The winged skeleton’s war axe had already been destroyed, so he was now wielding a giant war axe that belonged to his jade skeleton. This war axe did not store any death magic spells; it was simply made of materials of high quality and was stable and sharp.

There was only one mage in the entire campsite. It looked as if Cloudflow really had far fewer mages compared to Qin. A foot soldiers’ campsite of five-thousand would have included at least five mages and there might even be a grand mage.

The mage was the first to detect the presence of the spirits of the dead. He quickly chanted mantras while the soldiers around him nervously surrounded him. The winged skeleton smiled slyly. He leapt into the sky with his giant axe in hand. The wings behind his back spread open, drawing a curved outline in the sky.

Boom!

The winged skeleton swung the giant axe downwards heavily. The axe’s target was the mage, who had yet to complete his spell. He could only look up at the winged skeleton in despair. When his hands moved out of position, the spell failed, and a counter-reaction occurred instantaneously.