Badge in Azure

The pope no longer had any mind to spare for other matters and went straight to talk with the three great head inquisitors of the tribunal. Fifty-thousand elite wardens and a large number of black-robed high priests were mobilized, before the head inquisitors had a grip on what was going on.

The pivotal council did not lack for high priests, but a considerable number of the high priests in the war were tasked with propagating the faith in the church to stabilize the rear. That was different from how things were usually done. Famine broke out within the Tanggulasi Empire. The nobles’ support for the war was low and nobody was willing to offer food supplies.

The army of the tribunal was independent from the Holy Army’s chain of command, and it was a sign of splintering within the Holy See. The splintering was only postponed indefinitely due to the holy war taking place. Unless the Holy See was able to unite the mainland, the tribunal was reluctant to go on with such internal friction.

Declaring war against the vassal duchies of the Cloudflow Empire was a show of the tribunal wanting a piece of the cake. The plan with Titan Duchy went bust however, when the pope went negotiating with the Cloudflow people, and the tribunal was without saying, reluctant to just halt the war.

The case with Lonestar City had the pope swiftly reaching a deal with the tribunal. The pope was still in command of the line at the Qin borders. The two-hundred elites scrambled by the tribunal moved at the rear of the front lines, making their way straight for Laiyin Duchy.

While the tribunal had mobilized two-hundred-thousand elites in name, there were actually fifty-thousand Blood Knights and one-hundred-thousand Savior Army troops mobilized beside the declared two-hundred-thousand. The total count of the mobilized army to Lonestar City was three-hundred and fifty-thousand strong.

The Holy See gained control of most of Kroraina. The highways within Kroraina were advanced, and the three-hundred and fifty-thousand strong army was able to march at the rate of over six-hundred miles per day almost every day. Such a speed would have been deemed to be fast in Tanggulasian standards. When Saleen was back recuperating at Metatrin City, the army of the tribunal had almost reached Lonestar City.

The Holy See was able to do little about the spies planted by Lex at the northern defense line at the north of Bitterwater prefecture. The spies who remained in Kroraina informed Daliang City of the mobilization of tribunal forces, which Daliang City delivered to Metatrin City in turn. Saleen had no choice but to start fretting over things upon hearing the news.

It was a pity that both the Kingdom of Metatrin and Bitterwater prefecture did not have such strength in numbers. Mobilization of a one-hundred-thousand strong army was something that neared the limit of their forces. He was required to also leave behind some of his forces to guard against any attacks from the sea as well as the area surrounding Huoxing City. The army in Daliang City was also unable to simply wade through all those obstacles to aid Lonestar City.

Saleen knew well that the two-hundred-thousand strong mobilized by the tribunal was just the beginning. He had never expected the Holy See to move against Lonestar City. He had no choice but to think of something to crush the massive invading force.

It was a certainty that he had attracted the attention of the Holy See. Pope Theisio would not mobilize such a large force from the tribunal otherwise. Saleen had learned a great deal from Nicholas and was very clear of the relationship between the tribunal and the pivotal council and knew well that such a course of action meant that the Holy See had begun seeing him to be more than just some king of some small kingdom.

Saleen had no choice but mobilize two-hundred Wings of an Elf and one-hundred metal flyers from Metatrin City when his army set up camp.

The metal flyers were also something reverse-engineered by the Sregl Island mages. The flyers differed from the metal flying monsters of the grand duke in the sense that their means of assault laid within their alchemy crossbows, which made them resemble the Wings of an Elf in that case. The metal flyers carried large amount of bolts and were heavy, and their defensive capacity was inferior to the Wings of an Elf’s.

Not even sorcerers would not have approached the metal flyers without hesitation being strafed by the alchemy crossbow bolts. Having sorcerers bringing the flyers along when attacking enemies would have increased survivability exponentially.

Subtle changes were seen in the rules of the war. Professionals began to fight amongst the common people. The rules established painstakingly by Alchemy City were utterly broken, and no one cared about the city’s opinion in that.

It was fortunate that the power of the mainland was seeing exponential increase and yet the number of sorcerers remained few and far between. The rate of swordsman advancing to swordmasters grew by more than ten times, and the rate of mages advancing into the ranks of grand mages was also increased by more than three times. The threshold at advancement into sorcerer rank however, did not see many changes.

Sorcerers serving under Saleen were basically based in Metatrin City. Newly developed sorcerers were handpicked by Jason and sent into Six Element Space of interdimensional spaces. All sorcerers qualified for such treatment shared two specific traits: first of all, they were trustworthy mages. Second, they were of average talent, and had no hope of ever advancing into grade-10.

Mages of better talents were all told to remain behind with Jason and were sent into towers of sorcerers. Their rates of advancement were sped up by using massive amounts of magic nuclei.

While the Six Element Space was a good place on its own, it was nonetheless somewhere ancient mages used to perform alchemy. Speeding up the rate at advancing to grade-9 was but a convenient byproduct. Such methods of advancement were less than ideal, as the understanding of rules and soul power would have proven difficult when advancing to grade-10.

The very reason why Saleen mobilized two-hundred Wings of an Elf and one-hundred metal flyers was because there were still too few sorcerers around. Such flying devices proved very useful still at killing infantry.

Saleen had never thought of having the flying army fight head on with the main forces of the enemy. They were meant for killing scouts and patrols, as well as picking off scattered forces.

Saleen had the demons and his War Drum of Fear for dealing with densely packed main forces.

The War Drum of Fear was capable of telling friend from foe. Under Saleen’s control, only enemies would have been affected by the power of the drum. That was where the true worth of the drum laid. Human skin war drums of the black magicians ran the risk of jeopardizing one’s own forces, and it was for that reason that it never became popular.

While Metatrin City was very close to Lonestar City in terms of distance in a straight line, getting to and from the cities required taking long detours. While the distance between Lonestar to Titan Duchy, where the tribunal mobilized their forces, was almost twice as long, travel was made easy by having large highways all the way between. They had a head start by more than a week’s time. Saleen had no choice but to speed up, hoping to make it to Lonestar City before the army of the tribunal.

Five-thousand troops garrisoned at the nameless fort north of Lonestar City. When Saleen’s one-hundred-thousand strong army made it there, they did not bother entering the fort. Instead, they simply left behind some equipment and went straight for the Sikenqinyan camp.

Saleen’s army was one-hundred-thousand strong and half of them were elite troops. Assaulting a camp of a little more than twenty-thousand strong was a piece of cake. The northern camp was set up with the intention of defending against reinforcements from Metatrin City. Intelligence was completely cut off from there, and the furthest news was able to reach was to the fort at the north. When Saleen departed from the nameless fort, he sent out one-hundred Wings of an Elf to kill off patrols and scouts along the way.

Having suffered a grave injury, Jola needed months to recuperate. Saleen brought only Nicholas and Sharman by his side that time. Sharman’s speed at advancement was far more terrifying than Jola’s. She was at the pinnacle of silver grand swordmaster status. She was still young and advancing into grade-9 proved difficult for her nonetheless.

Saleen’s loss of elemental creatures was considerable, yet not one of his twenty-four ancient warriors were hurt. Saleen felt safe having those twenty-four around him. He had Crystal Finger and Eye of Lightning at his disposal for close quarters combat, and his family badge at ranged combat. Unless he were to run into more than two grade-10 professionals or someone like Grand Duke Iron Blood, who was surrounded by a group of grade-9 professionals, he had simply no reason to think much of the two-hundred-thousand Sikenqinyans nearby.

The increase of power across the entire plane changed more than just the fates of professionals who were few and far between. How war was waged would have gradually resembled how it was done in ancient times. Without professionals around, an army, no matter how large, would have posed a threat little more than a colony of ants.

Saleen had only informed the army in Lonestar City just a short while before. Hearing that Saleen was coming personally, Aini gathered one-hundred spirits and went right for the main camp at their doorstep.

There was an elite force of four-hundred-thousand strong at the main camp, and one-hundred-thousand among them were main forces of the empire. The strength of the army of spirits laid within its numbers. It went without saying that a spirit army of one-million strong was able to make short work of elites numbering at only tens of thousands, yet when numbers of both sides were even, spirits would have hardly had any edge over humans.

Despite having only one-hundred-thousand at his disposal, what Aini was doing was simply creating an opening for Saleen, preventing the Sikenqinyan main camp from reinforcing their forces at the north. It was fine for Aini to do so given that he had no idea what Saleen was capable of anymore. He was after all, only a grade-8 sorcerer. While plant spirits were powerful, summoning an army of one-million strong had yet to be possible at the moment. The amount of death energy he was able to provide was far from enough to keep so many spirits around him.

While Nailisi was excited, she did not bother with any of those. She knew that her master had the War Drum of Fear and elemental creatures at his disposal. Those two would have proven invincible against any regular armies.

It was impossible for Saleen’s one-hundred-thousand strong army to simply line themselves up in a row. Two temple guard battalions were stationed at the front, followed by three battalions of main forces. The battalions were spaced out and went striking at Sikenqinya camps separately, in groups of ten-thousands.

Saleen paid no heed to strategies. What he was worried about was the might of the tribunal. As such, he summoned twenty-four Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers and thirty-six Vermillion Knights, when they were two miles away from enemy camp.

The sixty elemental creatures summoned were made to be as large as they could have been, each towering at one-hundred yards tall. The Sikenqinyan mercenaries fell first when the elemental creatures got within enemy sight.

Thousands abandoned camp and fled, and all of them were able to see their enemies clearly. The elemental creatures moved slowly, following behind the temple guards to keep the march in line. Saleen gave his enemies ample time to flee, as assaulting a scattered camp would have made it far easier for him. There would have still been more than a dozen sorcerers in the camp and fighting all of them head on would have cost him a good number of elemental creatures.

Sixty one-hundred yard tall elemental creatures trampled the place in a line, and the resulting psychological trauma was huge, especially in the case of the Vermillion Knights. They were literally covered in flames, leaking out from the cracks of their armor. Their heat was felt far away, and yet another group of troops turned and fled more than one-hundred yards away.

The elemental creatures easily kicked the walls of the camp down. Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers went smashing about with their magic warhammers, and the enemy was able to do next to nothing to stop him. A graze would have easily killed conventional troops, while high level swordmasters would have been able to hold off for a short while. Ranged weapons in the camp fired to no effect. Be it alchemy crossbows, catapults, or magic cannons, none were able to do any harm to those elemental creatures.

The Sikenqinyan camp was thoroughly bloodied in less than a minute.