Badge in Azure

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

The mountains and rivers stretched over 10,000 kilometers and the number of magic beasts was huge. Saleen and his people became more clever and picked a magic beast that was only about level ten to fight, thinking that such a weak beast would not be much of a problem.

The magic beast they targeted looked like a crocodile. It was floating in the water, stalking its prey.

Dante cast the huge net from the sky, ensnaring the magic beast right away. Saleen saw that the surface of the magic beast’s body gushed with a massive flow of energy, mixing with water element. The body of the magic beast seemed to melt into the water, allowing the beast to escape the net.

The huge net had always been incredibly sturdy. However, after having been used in multiple battles, all the lightning patterns that Saleen put on it had been wiped clean.

The nameless net had only one rule—resilience.

Saleen tried multiple ways to figure out what made the net so resilient, breaking a good amount of equipment while he was at it. However, he failed to break the net down. He was reluctant to cook the net with his Water Flame, fearing the potential loss of destroying the net completely.

The crocodile-like magic beast was only level ten, yet it had shrugged free of the net without any problem. That meant that the magic beasts in that space possessed some form of special ability. If they had relied solely on physical strength, not even level 16 magic beasts would have been able to tear the net apart.

Saleen remembered the lesson he had learned while fighting the last one, prepping his lightning icicles beforehand and firing them right away, freezing the entire section of the river.

The crocodile-like beast intended to retaliate after getting free of the net but was frozen in an instant. It intended to shake free of the ice, but lightning crackled within the hard ice, rendering it limp all over.

Saleen and the others sighed breaths of relief. That was how things were supposed to go with level ten magic beasts.

When the hard ice was cut up and put on shore, the beast was still alive, glaring at Saleen and the rest of his people while frozen in the ice. Saleen took a good look at the peculiar creature with the ice between them.

Cracking noises were heard from its three-meter-long tail, making its bones feel like they were about to break and hurting the magic beast intensely. Saleen gave up using sealing skills, as he was unfamiliar with the rules of the space and there were many things out there that baffled him.

Some basic rules would have stayed constant in most planes, such as the rules concerning power.

All of them circled and observed the magic beast, not finding anything out of the ordinary. It was indeed a level ten beast. Its power of the Source remained meager, but it was still capable of bursting with a huge amount of power. Furthermore, it seemed that the magic beast was also very long-lived.

It was a pity that there were no humans in the world, or they could have tried to communicate with each other.

“Bing, do something.”

“Yes, master.”

The Winged Skull lifted their Reaper Scythe and brought it down on the beast. Both the hard ice and that beast were cut into two. It seemed like not every magic beast had such resilient bodily structures, and that put Saleen at ease.

The Winged Skull then dissected half of the magic beast’s body and tried to take a piece of the magic nucleus from it. However, it was still an irregularly shaped solid thing found in the magic beast’s head. It looked like half of a peanut’s shell.

The energy within the piece was nowhere near massive but was very condensed. Furthermore, the piece also had a large number of runes on it. The natural runes were very orderly, emanating seven-colored lights.

“Seems like none of the magic beasts in this world have a magic nucleus. I wonder how this thing would compare to a magic nucleus.” Saleen took the second piece, but he dared not probe it with his power of the soul again.

“Master, this doesn’t look like a valuable piece. Would you mind letting me taste it for a bit?”

“Hmph!” Nailisi cut Dante off and summoned a demon, snatching away the solid piece taken from the brain of the magic beast and throwing it to the demon and saying, “Eat it up.”

That demon ate the dangerous thing obediently. All the dangers that Saleen expected to show did not appear. That demon moaned comfortably instead, and its power grew quickly.

It was a level nine demon. While it was loyal, it was of low status, so Nailisi used it as a guinea pig instead. It was a common thing to do on the demon plane, and not even the demons of lower ranks thought that anything was strange about it. That was because if the experiment was a success, the guinea pig demon would rise in rank, becoming a supreme demon.

While the rate of change in the level nine demon was not all that fast after eating the peculiar piece, it became a supreme demon half a day later. Saleen and the others took the opportunity to kill over 30 magic beasts.

The supreme demon’s level stabilized at level 12.

Nailisi smirked as she clapped at the supreme demon’s shoulders, saying, “You’ll answer to me from here on out. Give me a second. I’ll give you a new name.”

“Thank you, my lady.” The supreme demon was overjoyed. Level 12 supreme demons served as commanders in her demon army, although that particular supreme demon had not risen to the rank of general yet.

“Don’t thank me just yet. Eat this.” Nailisi took another piece and shoved it to the supreme demon.

The supreme demon ate it without hesitation, beginning to use its powers to digest it.

The second experiment was a success as well. While the supreme demon did not grow to become a devil after eating that piece, it got to level 13. Level 13 supreme demons were the ones who commanded a whole legion in Nailisi’s demon army.

Leaders of the demon army needed to be strong, not for killing enemies, but keeping their underlings in line.

If a leader were weak, the demons would not obey their leader, and serious problems in the army would quickly arise. The supreme demon advanced again and felt overjoyed. It knelt at Nailisi’s feet.

Nailisi recalled all her dead underlings and then looked at that loyal demon, but she did not dare to give it a third piece.

It would cause problems sooner or later. The demon had advanced twice, a fact that spoke volumes of its luck.

She sent that demon back into the Purgatory of the Devil. Nailisi summoned another demon and continued to use the pieces for the experiment. Dante yearned to have one of the pieces for itself, but Saleen had forbidden it from eating them, and Dante was unable to do anything about it.

Dante cursed from high up in the air where nobody could hear it, not at Saleen but Nailisi. However, despite it being powerful, it dared not do anything against Nailisi. She had Lightning Protection all over her, and Dante was trained to the highest point possible. That made its lightning attacks almost useless against her, but it was unable to do anything against her using other methods of combat.

“Damn you, imp. I swear, one day, I’m going to eat you up alive!” Dante swore to himself.

Despite all the cruel thoughts, it had no intention of betraying Saleen. All its resentment stemmed from its attempts to compete with her for Saleen’s favor. However, it would never put such thoughts into action. It knew that Nailisi had some type of ability that enabled her to gain the powers of the ones she ate.

If Nailisi set her sights on Dante, Saleen might have been willing to hand it over to the demon. As such, it was very guarded against her.

The experiments continued and over 100 magic beasts were continuously killed. Sixty demons had already advanced to become supreme demons, and one of them had even advanced to become a devil.

Saleen felt he had done enough, becoming quite skilled at hunting the low-level magic beasts, meaning that it was time to take on the ones that were of higher levels. It was only then that he let everyone take a break.

They went to take on a level 16 magic beast next.

Dante was still casting the net from above, while the three on the ground ganged up on the beast. The second level 16 beast looked like a monkey, and the monkey-like magic beast was unexpectedly powerful. The net was unable to contain it. The monkey-like magic beast then attacked furiously after escaping the net.

Hundreds of elemental attacks were unleashed, striking everyone so hard that they lost sense of direction. They ran for over 1,000 kilometers before the monkey decided to give up the pursuit.

Saleen and all of his people wore bitter smiles after that monkey left. It was the first time they had encountered something that ferocious after getting to their current levels. It was not that Saleen would not have been able to kill that magic beast, it was just that it would have been costly to do so and it was not worth it. Getting injured in such a place would have required a lot of time for recuperation, and that would have delayed their escape.

However, Saleen was somewhat able to figure out the order of things in the space—there was no order.

The magic beasts of the space sported combat prowess unbefitting of their levels. There were some magic beasts below level 13 that had proven to be a pain in the butt, but there were also level 16 ones that had proven to be easy targets.

It was a good thing that numbers were not a problem for Saleen. He simply sent the lightning warriors out to carry out the hunts instead. If the lightning warriors encountered a beast that ended up being more than they were able to handle, the lightning warriors were sacrificed. Dante was able to resurrect them anyway. Saleen and his people would only take on the ones that they seemed to have a shot at actually defeating.

Saleen gathered a huge amount of magic beast materials within days, so he began to quiet down and study the pieces found in the brains of the beasts.

The pieces were hard, but unlike magic nuclei, they were unable to be cut or polished. Huge amounts of power were lost once they were damaged.

Saleen took to working on them with his Water Flame instead. The runes within the pieces were gradually dissolved and the energy within lost. Very little of the energy within was capable of being extracted by the Water Flame, so much so that the amount harvested paled in comparison to Saleen’s magic nuclei.

He did not dare to eat the pieces, but Nailisi was willing to do so. She took her human form and constantly gobbled up the weird pieces.

Nailisi’s human form had always seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, making her a half-baked mage. The consumption of the weird magic nuclei allowed her level to advance rapidly. Saleen was not concerned for her, as her luoluokaluo blood allowed her to absorb even powers beyond level 18.

The worst outcome that could have resulted from her ingesting weird things was her falling into hibernation, and that was still better than all of them not being able to do anything.

If her human form were able to reach level 18, she would be able to protect everyone when they left. Saleen was keeping himself busy by continuing to analyze the uses of the pieces gained from the beasts’ brains.

While Saleen was busy finding ways to escape the Ring of Cosmos, a battle erupted in Holy Rock City.

Hundreds of mages led an army to take down the four gates and began to hunt for nobles within the city. The mages all came from Golden Plains. They would not have been much of a problem on their own, but many nobles from the city agreed with them. The nobles deployed their armies to take out the guards around the city, before having the royal palace surrounded.

Prince Safilos took his men to the royal palace as soon as the fighting erupted. His residence would not be able to resist enemy attacks. The royal palace was the safest place to be in the entire Holy Rock City.

Lex sat across her uncle at the magic tower of the royal palace. Both of them chatted nonchalantly.

“Uncle, there are people in the city who are against us. Isn’t it time to take them out?”

Safilos nodded. Purple-reddish glow was seen in his eyes. His full head of silver long hair billowed without wind, a phenomenon conjured by his insuppressible sword aura.