Badge in Azure

Chapter 1074: Area of Doom (Part 2)

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

When Saleen turned and looked behind him, his heart sank. He saw that the ground within ten miles of the cemetery was packed with statues.

These statues were not like the parasite puppets, as they consisted of many types of beings, all of which had been shackled there with the Fossilization spell. They all had awful expressions on their faces, which had been frozen at their moments of death.

Many parasite puppets crashed onto the statues when they fell to the ground. None of these parasite puppets were capable of self-restoration, so it seemed as if they too were going to be fossilized.

Saleen scanned the place with his Elemental Eye, analyzing the identities of the statues. He was only able to figure out the identities of a few of them, and he discovered that one of them was a heavenly angel!

Those tall figures, which had holy prose coursing through their bodies, were true oracles. Saleen also saw that some of the statues were high level beings, which seemed to be pseudogods. In short, all of the fossilized beings around the cemetery had something to do with the gods.

As magic arrays lined up at the top of the eggshell, Saleen roughly counted and saw that the the place was filled with statues in the hundreds of thousands as well, maybe even more. If they were to be counted together with the statues that were surrounding the cemetery, they would have easily numbered over a million!

These million of godly beings all seemed to have been hit by a Fossilization spell at the same time, thus explaining their current states at the moment. Fossilization was not a spell that would truly turn real people into stones. Under most circumstances, those that were hit by the Fossilization spell actually died of asphyxiation, as they were unable to breathe.

Fossilization spells usually lasted for three to five days, but the high level spells were capable of keeping a person fossilized for over a year, which was enough to asphyxiate even a pan turtle!

At that moment, the magic lights shone down and the parasite puppets that were caught between the statues moved their claws, putting their bodies back together. What was even more terrifying was that the statues began to move!

“He who defiles the dead shall repent in the Area of Doom!” The voice in the air sounded solemn and heavy as it reverberated throughout the eggshell.

“Run!” Saleen yelled.

He was able to see the passage at the very top of the eggshell, which was over 30 meters in diameter. However, countless statues around the passage seemed to come alive at that moment, flapping their wings and hovering in mid-air as they peered down at the scene below them. The expressions of the statues still remained pained, while the weapons in their arms broke off the stone-like shell and revealed their metallic colors beneath.

Upon seeing this, Sika was unable to sit still. So, she summoned a huge beast and leapt onto it before calling Saleen. When Saleen heard her, he unleashed 12 Tempest Dragonmights and had them follow the 12 sorcerers. He then called Gusion and his men, who all leapt onto the back of the huge beast.

The huge beast took flight, while the 12 sorcerers cast Wind Travel with great haste. They brought their people and followed right behind the huge beast, charging at the exit at the top of the eggshell.

There was more than one exit. In truth, there were about 1,000 caves where the eyes could see at the top of the eggshell. But, Saleen was able to see the edge of the cave that he left a magic mark on when he fell.

Regardless of what the Area of Doom actually was, it had not been activated for tens of thousands of years. This meant that its energy would have been greatly diminished.

With the power across the entire Myers Mainland weakened, Saleen was able to tell, according to the Principle of Crystal Coffin, that he would be able to keep himself alive, at least as long as he was able to leave before the Area of Doom was completely activated. However, if anyone was greedy enough to still think of taking something from the cemetery, then no one would be able to leave the place alive.

Saleen dared not overextend himself, so he had Sika take the lead with her weapon in hand instead. Meanwhile, he and Gusion protected th e onesat the rear. The sorcerers flew hastily together with the huge beast, and none of them needed to charge at the forefront.

Suddenly, an oracle pounced on them from above and headed straight for Sika. The huge beast kept its head low as it flew, while ramming untold numbers of fossilized gods along the way. The longsword in the oracle’s hand was over ten meters long, which looked rather incongruent with its body size.

Sika did not even bother looking around before she started swinging her staff at whatever came at her. The sorcerers behind her all heard something like metals exploding at this moment. As they looked up, they saw that the oracle had been thrown back, then toppled over two dozens of its brethren.

Skills and attributes were all meaningless in the face of Sika, as any enemy that dared to appear before her had to contend with her staff, and said enemy always paid dearly for it. This oracle was no different.

The oracle had only been awakened moments ago, so its power was far below the pinnacle when it was being fossilized. Even if it was actually at its pinnacle, the oracle would have been inferior to Sika in terms of sheer strength.

Most importantly, Sika’s power was almost completely unrestrained in this space. Also, her weapon was on par with the Lance of Order in terms of material quality.

If the staff had not been crafted using her priestess’ skills, the weapon would have been so heavy that no one would have been able to lift it. In fact, Sika might as well have been flinging a small mountain about, as no gods were able to withstand any of her swings.

At that moment, the scales at the huge beast’s back raised up and wrapped themselves around the legs of everyone on it, stabilizing them. The scales on its neck raised up as well. As the beast flew, sharp noises of air being cut were heard coming from between the scales.

More and more gods awakened, their forms still being fossilized ones. However, their maneuverability was no different from that of a figure’s.

The fossilized gods at the top of the eggshell all had twisted, terrifying expressions in their faces as they leapt from the eggshell and headed straight for the beast that Saleen was riding. The huge beast was about a hundred meters long, and most of its length consisted of its tail and neck. Its pair of wings were wide open and it was flapping hard, swiping the fossilized gods down to the ground.

The gods were being controlled by the Area of Doom. While they had immense hatred for the King of Glory, who had fossilized them, their bodies kept swinging their weapons at the humans who had intruded into the cemetery.

Saleen calmly cast one ice bullet after another and did not bother using any powerful skills. He simply made do with what he had, while swatting off the incoming fossilized gods. After all, in a place where elements were incapable of being extracted, even high level magic would not have been very powerful.

The gods had been fossilized for tens of thousands of years, and their souls were still intact, thus doomed for eternity. The King of Glory had been using the gods to mourn his brother, who was a nameless giant.

Saleen had only relaxed for a bit after flying more than three miles. The space still followed the rules of Myers Mainland, which meant that those who awakened the earliest were all fossilized gods of lower powers, while those very powerful oracles and fossilized gods with higher levels than pseudogods didn’t even flinch!

No one knew how long it would have taken for them to be revived, so Saleen dared not stay any longer. As he started to depart, the 24 figures served as escorts at his flanks, chopping off any fossilized gods that they missed in half.

Their huge halberds were quickly broken, and Saleen took out new weapons from his Starline Ring, throwing them at the figures to use. The figures’ bodies were littered with wounds.

Saleen was incapable of retrieving them, so the injuries upon those figures’ bodies continued to be incurred, each of them growing increasingly severe. Six figures were thrown off when they reached the height of eight miles up in the air, as they were no longer capable of maintaining flight at such an altitude.

However, Saleen suffered no heartache over these lost figures, as Gaine had crafted almost 100,000 of them for Saleen’s use. What made Saleen ache in his heart was the thought of the souls within the figures’ bodies.

Those ancient warriors had lost their physical bodies already, and if the figures were destroyed, it was only a matter of time before their souls were destroyed as well. Regardless, Saleen was unable to do anything about losing these six figures.

As for Sika, she simply charged forward without a care. In her estimation, there were probably about a million of the fossilized gods at the top of the eggshell.

Those of them that awakened quickly all had powers that were at level eight or nine. If it had not been for Sika’s ferocity, Saleen would have had no way to escape with the sorcerers.

The sorcerers from Golden Plains were all frightened. Luckily, they were able to take the ones they had brought with them and use wind magic for attacks, thanks to some support from the Tempest Dragonmights. The 12 level nine sorcerers took turns striking, but there were still soldiers and grand mages falling off as they went.

Sika continued swinging her staff at the front, sending powerful fossilized gods flying all over the place like toothpicks. At the same time, Gusion was swinging his Dragon Slaughtering War Flag on the other side and did not seem to be under much pressure. As such, he easily swatted to the ground any gods that the ancient figures missed.

Also, since he had the power control of a golden grand swordmaster, he had increased stamina, as this allowed him to conserve every bit of energy and not let it go to waste. While the war flag had lost its capacity as a magic weapon, the sturdiness of its material still made it a very powerful weapon nonetheless.

The serrated edges of the war flag easily cut the fossilized gods apart. At the moment, the flag was wrapping and constricting, smashing several gods into broken pieces.

“You dare to run?” An angry voice was heard in the air.

As Saleen took out his family badge, he saw a huge fist coalescing above him. The fist then became increasingly tangible before it started punching toward them. The fist had a diameter of more than 500 meters, and it was even capable of crushing the temple in Saleen’s Metatrin City!

Saleen unleashed the power of the badge without hesitation, and a thick bolt of blue lightning rumbled heavily as it was being cast. Hundreds of thousands of blasts of dynamite seemed to have exploded continuously from within the badge, and the first one that was coming from above was quickly hit. It had been destroyed by Saleen’s lightning attack and was now breaking into numerous and chaotic flows of energy!

Sika rushed the huge beast onward and streaked through these messy energy flows. The huge beast opened its mouth in glee and absorbed all of the extremely pure energy into its body. Saleen’s badge absorbed it as well, but due to the rush, the energy that was absorbed by the badge was far from being enough to recover the spent energy within it.

The huge beast arrived right outside the cave in a jiffy. It then folded its wings and swooped inside the cave. The beast’s claws were incredibly sharp, allowing it to easily cling onto the cave’s walls and climb up them. The beast’s climbing speed was no slower than its flight speed.

There were no longer any fossilized gods found within the cave, but there were still many parasite puppets scattered about. The beast crawled over and stomped on untold numbers of these parasite puppets along the way.

Saleen turned around and saw that the 12 sorcerers behind him were struggling to keep up. There were only about 30 people left around them, most of whom were mages.

While all of them had wanted to climb onto the beast as well, its tail kept wagging, keeping them doing so. The best clearly cared nothing for their lives, as it did not cease its tail-wagging, even when some of them actually got near it.

At that moment, Saleen saw that there were a huge number of fossilized gods that were flooding into the cave behind the sorcerers. These fossilized gods were moving somewhat faster than the sorcerers. The power that was being provided by the Tempest Dragonmights was massive, shrinking their bodies until almost nothing was left of them but their elemental cores.

The sorcerers watched in terror as Saleen lifted his arm and a pale silver light appeared on it. Immediately thereafter, a piece of black equipment that looked like a snake-like magic beast shot out, cradling Saleen’s arms with its four incredible talons. The magic beast then opened its mouth and shot out a blinding blue bolt of electricity!

Is Saleen trying to kill us all and run away on his own? the sorcerers wondered as they watched the scene in awe.