Badge in Azure

The number of transparent creatures seemed to be endless. The creatures went charging at Saleen’s party twelve miles away, and there were more of those creatures flooding in from outside the temple.

The tallest among the transparent creatures was near ten yards tall, and looked very similar to humans, with a human face and limbs. The tentacles sprouting from the sides of their chests looked like appendages for breathing and were not all that powerful in terms of damage potential. Saleen had only found that he had the wrong idea about the creatures when the three-hundred spirits were being surrounded by them. The tentacles were directly stabbed into the bones of the spirits, attempting to suck out any flesh and blood found within.

The source of spirits’ powers came mostly from their soul flames, but their bones carried energies as well. When the tentacles were stabbed into the spirits’ bones, they were rendered numb by the toxins the spirits produced. Every spirit was clung with at least three transparent creatures. Nailisi simply threw both the spirit and the creatures clinging to them into her collection of purgatories.

Only the purgatory of devils was expanded among the collection. All the other spaces were only about a little more than a dozen square yards each. The space that Eleanor had spent time in was bigger than it used to be, but even with the plants within withered, it was still little more than thirty square yards. Nailisi threw the spirits in together with the transparent creatures. Having absorbed the bone marrow of the angel of fear just a while ago, the space exuded some rules, which quickly tore the spirits apart and absorbed their soul flames.

The transparent creatures suffered worse fates. Their bodies bloated like bubbles before blowing up. The blue fluids in their bodies were absorbed by the space, with which the space expanded itself quickly.

Saleen did not get himself into the battle. His body was surrounded by twelve Blue Ice Maidens, all of whom were compressed to the size of about twenty yard tall, and very capable of killing the transparent creatures with a single blow. Even those stronger ones among the creatures were no match for the Blue Ice Maidens.

Nicholas went killing without restraint. Every time his Staff of the Fallen was thumped onto the floor, gray lights shimmered within a one-hundred yard radius. None of the transparent creatures were spared, and all of their souls were sucked into the blood soul tower.

Nailisi and Saleen shared senses, which enabled her to see the temple faraway. She charged at the torrent of transparent creatures and was initially able to kill several of them. As her spaces grew, more and more of those creatures were able to be absorbed.

The speed at which the Twelve Notes of First Purgatory absorbed the transparent creatures grew, and Nailisi turned around instead. She did not dare venture too far away from Saleen. The Sensory Sharing between both of them had a limited range. The further they were apart from each other, the more mental powers Saleen had to expend to maintain it. Nailisi simply chose to stand her ground just a little more than a hundred meters away from Nicholas, leaving half of the creatures coming at them for Nicholas to kill. She herself kept bottling up the remaining half in her collection of purgatories.

The space within the Twelve Notes of Purgatory grew increasingly large, gradually reaching the size of about one square mile. Nailisi felt pleased with herself, as the space was indeed capable of absorbing souls like her blood soul towers. What made it even more powerful than the blood soul towers was that tangible matter was still able to be kept within, like the transparent creatures.

“Who is it? Who is it that killed my believers in cold blood!?” A sharp, high-pitched female voice was heard from deep within the temple. The voice shrieked, and underwater sands and dusts were roused. Saleen’s sight grew blurry. It was fortunate that his Elemental Eye was capable of seeing through the six major elements. The sands and dusts only blocked his vision momentarily, and Saleen quickly regained his perception of things.

Nailisi was afraid of seeing the woman who let out the eerie shriek coming out. She cut off the Sensory Sharing on her own and went up to kill more of the endless torrent of transparent creatures. She stopped leaving even scraps for Nicholas. Huge amounts of those creatures were bottled up in her spatial equipment, and then had their souls removed.

“My believers?”

Saleen felt strange hearing the female voice say something like that. The creatures all radiated powers bestowed by the Goddess of Myers. “So, it is the goddess herself who resides within the temple? Impossible. If the Goddess of Myers had been revived, there was simply no way I wouldn’t have found that out. If she hadn’t fallen from grace, my contract wouldn’t have come into effect.

Thump, thump…

The temple began to shake, and the sharp, high-pitched voice shouted in range. “Die, you defilers!”

Even Nicholas felt weird about what he heard. He was a fallen holy master himself, and that meant he was able to tell that those souls contained weak divine powers—powers bestowed by the gods. As the faraway voice reached his ear, Nicholas’ hesitations slowed his reactions. The few creatures that he overlooked quickly pounced on him but were quickly sucked into his fallen codex.

Nailisi went on a killing spree for a while, before returning to Saleen’s side and restored the Sensory Sharing.

The temple afar looked like it was about to collapse, when a huge head of more than a dozen yards radius, belonging to a huge transparent creature struggled to climb out of the gate of the temple.

Nailisi’s mind ran into overdrive at the scene. That huge thing was indeed a powerful thing, a creature of grade-8 or grade-9. It would be beneficial for the growth of her purgatories to gobble up more of those things.

Saleen cast Water Shield, and projected his voice using magic. “Nailisi, Nicholas. I have no idea what that thing inside the temple is, but the temple is now ours, so try not to wreck the place too bad.”

Saleen was able to tell that while that creature inside was powerful, it was unable to leave the temple. He had signed a contract with the goddess himself, and that thing was restrained by the temple. That meant that the contract between him and the goddess was of higher status than the monster with a female voice.

If that monster was to attack him, it would be akin to breaching the goddess’ contract. The temple would have restrained her for it. Saleen stopped worrying about his predicament after thinking through what was happening for a bit. There had been tens of thousands of transparent creatures killed by then, and yet the monster did not come out to face him. It simply kept yelling inside the temple.

If yelling was useful, there would not have been any need for magic.

“Having one such temple hidden here means that there would have also been another one in the barren lands north of Metatrin. Just why was the goddess building temples in such remote places? It wouldn’t have helped spreading the faith in the least. Is it to say that the goddess knew that her time was almost up, and had so set up such measures in response? It is not entirely impossible. I myself became more capable of sensing danger once I became a sorcerer. The effect was even more apparent when the power of my soul was enhanced. According to descriptions by the grandmaster’s group, when Myers became a goddess, she was at least a being of grade-16 or higher. From the looks of the divine tree seed that I acquired before, the goddess might have reached grade-18. No surprise that a grade-18 god was able to predict the future then? Didn’t that Gaine predict that I would return to the Imperial City of the Abyss too?”

Saleen thought of yet another problem at the same time. “If the goddess was able to foresee her doom and was unable to do anything to prevent it, is it to say that the fate that astrologers spoke, was something that even gods would have been incapable of changing? If that was the case, what about my own fate?” Saleen remembered the two Star Gathering Needles in his possession. “If I’m able to reach levels higher than grade-10, won’t I be able to see some hints of fate?”

The creature with a high-pitched voice began to chant holy prose, and the transparent creatures that were attacking Saleen began to retreat. It seemed that the monsters themselves were able to tell that large numbers would not have been enough to overwhelm Saleen.

Saleen felt strange. Those creatures were easily capable of dominating an area of the sea. How were they able to accomplish such a feat while being so weak?

Being of huge numbers meant that the creatures made excellent nourishment for the Twelve Notes of Purgatory. Nicholas was also in dire need of souls to enhance his abilities. Despite having killed so many in the battle of Ironwall City, Saleen dared not let Nailisi and Nicholas do their thing. It was one thing to kill civilians. Having their souls absorbed would have caused mass panic among the nobles of the mainland.

The very reason the black magicians were so overwhelmingly powerful was because they had the backing of Dark Sky Devil. They were eventually vanquished, due to having caused too much fear, and allowed people to develop a will to resist them that was inextinguishable.

Saleen took out the dimension stone and Ring of Gifts, then put them on. He proceeded to chant the four holy prose that he was most familiar with, causing a green light to shimmer above his head, like he wore a really bright lamp on his head.

The transparent creatures all had blue blood and body fluids, which glittered in the dark in the depths of the ocean. Seeing the green divine light on Saleen, some creatures ceased listening to the summoning of the female voice from within the temple and turned around to pounce on Saleen.

While the Ring of Gifts had little divine power in it, the power housed within was pure, which was more appealing to the creatures than the summoning from within the temple. More than one-hundred-thousand creatures flooded at Saleen again, and Nailisi went to open her purgatory spaces in haste and began her killing spree anew.

The gate of the temple was completely blocked by the giant head. The huge transparent creature was unable to make it out.

“How did you come to possess my ring?!” The voice from within the temple shouted, causing a powerful sound wave to surge, making it seem like the seawater nearby was boiling.

“Your ring?”

Saleen thought the creature was probably having a mental breakdown of some sort. Even the double of the goddess would not have survived her fall. Just what was that thing? How did she dare think herself to be Goddess of Myers? From the looks of it, she was really buying her story.

The voice howled away, and Saleen was able to truly feel the stability of his soul. His mental powers remained largely unfazed, and he only felt that the creature who thought itself to be the Goddess of Myers was not all that powerful, at least compared to Joey or Fycro.

“Nailisi, Nicholas, hurry up. I’m going to see what that thing is for myself,” Saleen hurried his followers.

“My liege, I can’t go any faster…” Nicholas could not help but tell the truth.

Saleen saw that every time the two of them attacked, more than three-hundred creatures were wiped. That was generally fast enough, but the number of those creatures was just too great. If they were to be all wiped out, it was really going to take quite a while. Thinking that, he took out his War Drum of Fear and thought, “I have yet to try out the second way of attacking with this thing here. Hopefully it won’t disappoint.”