Chapter 1453: Target, Black Dungeon (Part 1)
Saleen listened to what that old man said and knew that he was anything but a devout believer. However, that old man was actually formidable, as he was already at the pinnacle of level 12.
The rules at Black Dungeon Island seemed to have been somewhat looser than that of the entire mainland, making advancement comparatively easy.
Saleen pulled his power of the soul out from that compound and stopped his observation. He did not try to try to find the head warden, and had simply scanned the area of the entire Black Dungeon Island for a bit, memorizing the terrain and all dangerous spots to be found there.
Rafel looked at Saleen with a concerned look. His eyes were affixed at the spectral imagery and had been standing there like a log for half an hour.
It was incredibly rare to see Saleen standing for half an hour without flinching at all. Rafel was worried if anything had happened to Saleen. She too, knew that the table was something very terrifying. At the very least, as a G.o.d creature, she would not have dared to try to use it herself.
Saleen observed the Black Dungeon Island. The G.o.ddess peered far away from the corridor on the mountain.
That divine beast, which had grown all of a sudden, laid silently by the G.o.ddess’ side.
A hint of lethargy was seen in the G.o.ddess’ eyes. She asked without even turning her head around, “Tell me, Wurin. Would that mage obey me?”
The divine beast shook its head. It did not like to speak, as it hurt its throat.
Myers sighed. She had already searched the divine beast’s memories regarding Saleen the mage, finding him to be someone difficult to control. There was no way around it, as mages were never people who were easy to control to begin with.
The only way to control mages was through equivalent exchange.
For instance, Saleen had over 100 thousand mages serving him. However, other than the appeal of his own powers and forces, he still needed to be of actual benefit to the mages, before they became willing to do his bidding.
If he were to give them nothing, the mages would have simply left. They would have rather trained on their own and not lift a finger to help him out.
Myers wanted to kill Saleen very much, but he knew that if he were to do so, that her own religion would have soon crumbled. It was a bad deal.
The G.o.ddess took out a wooden figure from her red bangle at that thought, having it hover in the air. She poked at the wooden figure’s brow with her slender finger. The wooden figure’s eyes spun and leapt from the air to the ground, turning to look like the G.o.ddess itself.
“Wurin, bring my figure double with you and make a trip to the imperial city. Check the cemetery of those heroes for a bit.” The G.o.ddess ordered. Saleen had been to the Imperial City of the Abyss and he brought the divine beast with him when he was there. However, the Imperial City of the Abyss shut many things out, preventing her from extracting any images from the divine beast’s memory.
She needed to have her own figure double check things out personally, before she was able to find out what the state of that cemetery had been.
She was a G.o.d, and there was nothing else she could have done to mend the relations.h.i.+p between her and her old friends. If they were to see them again, they would have met as enemies.
I wonder if those people…
The G.o.ddess of Myers sighed yet again. She never thought that becoming a G.o.d would have brought such catastrophic consequences to the mainland itself. It was not wrong for those people to want her dead. However, she was already doing all she was able to, in order to fix things. Furthermore, she deemed that her life and death had to be decided by her own hands, instead of by the decisions of others.
Even if she were at fault, she would have only accepted being put to sleep yet again. She would have never considered being killed by others.
Furthermore, the state that those former friends of hers were in, probably meant that they would have wanted to eat her. Heh. Heroes, what a joke!
Wurin, the divine beast, laid flat on the ground and let the figure double of the G.o.ddess rode on its back, before flying away. The G.o.ddess became the only being left in the temple.
It was only then that she took out a sphere and threw it into the air. The sphere was a hollowed out metal construct, s.h.i.+ning when it hovered before the G.o.ddess, forming spectral imagery.
It was a plane map of even higher level. The places that it controlled far exceeded the table that Saleen took away.
I knew that guy was greedy. The G.o.ddess smirked and looked rather gleeful like a little girl. She knew what Saleen was like from the divine beast. He would have definitely wanted things from her before leaving. As such, the G.o.ddess placed the table around and made a show of looking into it, prompting Saleen to ask for the table.
However, it never occurred to Myers that while the plane map that she was currently using was of higher level, that table was nonetheless a level 18 equipment and furthermore, one that allowed for lowered requirements when used. Saleen did not actually lose anything.
After she was resurrected, she was only able to use the things she had in her bangle. All equipment found within were of level 18. There was not even a single piece that was of lower level.
The G.o.ddess would have never bothered with such calculations. While level 18 equipment was still rare even in ancient times, but someone like her would have been able to take any that she fancied without problems. As such, the G.o.ddess thought that she was the one who had one-upped Saleen, that her calculations worked.
If Saleen were to know what was going on in the G.o.ddess’ head, he would have definitely died of laughter. He would have never felt regretful or vexed of not being able to get better equipment for himself. Such requests would have been best if he was able to get what he asked for, yet it did not matter at all if he was unable to get anything still.
Saleen had to face the Lord of Glory one way or another. Even if the G.o.ddess of Myers were to refuse helping him, there was still no way the Lord of Glory would have spared him.
Rafel saw Saleen turning around and putting the table away. She then asked, “My lord, are we going to head to the Black Dungeon?”
“We shall wait for a bit. I need to get some preparations done. Let’s head back to Nature City.” Saleen had three level 18 scrolls with him, giving him a good bit of confidence in killing the head warden. However, he knew that if the head warden were to be of the same level with the Lord of Glory, then he would not have been able to target him. He would have had to use all three scrolls, if he were to have a shot at taking out someone of such high level.
As such, he needed to bring ample numbers of holy masters with him before heading to the Black Dungeon Island, as well as some equipment that he had acquired in the past.
Those equipment were left behind to collect dust because no one had been able to use them. From the current looks of things, however, Rafel seemed to be the one capable of using them.
Saleen left the Floating City behind and let the Violet Angel guard it when he returned to Nature City. He took Rafel, Jola, Sul and Nicholas with him. She did not take Eleanor with him, as she was basically staying with Sika at all times, making her look like a true family member of the Metatrin.
Saleen no longer needed Eleanor to work for him. Her proficiency at archery was high enough at present, making her capable of standing on her own. It would have done her little good if he were to take her with him out on adventures.
The Nature City had to be firmly guarded. Saleen left trusted people to guard the place while he brought the Baldur’s Gate, which had huge number of enchanters living within, as well as Bug Angel Warriors and his demon army.
Saleen did not depart immediately and had instead created magic maps for everyone. The magic map consisted of only one place seen on the plane map—the Black Dungeon.
Saleen used the power of the Book of Gaia within the Baldur’s Gate, creating a s.p.a.ce that looked exactly like the Black Dungeon Island.
Every single detail, down to every tree and every blade of gra.s.s seen, was copied by Saleen.
The greatest benefit of having advanced to level 13, was that he became able to use the six G.o.dly items found within the Baldur’s Gate, inside Baldur’s Gate. His power of the soul had completely matured, enabling Saleen to gain new powers to back him up.
Saleen had everyone, including the troops that he was about to bring to the Black Dungeon Island, to begin familiarizing themselves with the environment of the island. He brought holy masters of the Nature Faith inside and let them get familiar with healing the demons.
While the situation seemed rather awkward, it was fortunate that demons were in the Temple Knights Corps from the very beginning. All within the Nature Faith knew about that, and the believers had little fear of the demons.
Saleen went on to modify equipment for Rafel. He dared not summon the Winged Skull and Nailisi for the time being. He was still unfamiliar with how the G.o.ddess worked. If she were to actually kill off Nailisi and the Winged Skull, there was nothing he could have done to stop her.
Even if he were to dismantle the Nature Faith, he still would not have been able to just kill off the G.o.ddess.
He was no match for the G.o.ddess in a single match as well.
Saleen had once acquired equipment resembling puppets in the G.o.ddess’ temple, but that thing was actually a set of armor. Saleen did not know how to use it back then, and he finally did at the moment. It was something meant for angels.
The angel armor was something that only angels would have been able to use.
It would have been rather awkward for Rafel to wear the angel armor of the G.o.ddess of Nature, so he took to doing slight modifications using Water Flame Alchemy. It had once been something beyond him. As he came to possess the Eye of Souls, Saleen’s Water Flame Alchemy became something else altogether, enabling him to modify intricate equipment without making them lose their original attributes.
Saleen reworked Rafel’s spear as well. It was rather unsuitable for her to continue using the divine powers of the G.o.ddess after all. Saleen took out six level 18 element.i.te with great reluctance and crafted elemental conversion arrays on it, enabling her to convert the divine powers in the spear into something suitable for her own use.
The so-called divine powers were actually a compounded version of elemental powers. Saleen’s act was actually rather wasteful, as the only benefit that came from it was lengthening Rafel’s combat duration, preventing the case of sucking her stamina dry with just a single move, like it had been in the past.
The spear finally had a name as well—Silverline.
That was a name given to it by Rafel. Saleen felt too lazy to name her gear for her. Both the Silverline and the Inferno were Rafel’s main weapons. Saleen did not forget to install a Thunder Dragon Blaster on Rafel’s angel armor.
Saleen’s own Thunder Dragon Blaster was very powerful, but all other counterparts had their fired lightning icicles severely weakened, in terms of lightning attributes in them, because of a lack of ample Thunder Dragon bones. The one that Rafel carried with her was different. Saleen used large number of high level Thunder Dragon bones to craft the weapon, enabling it to break a good many types of energy s.h.i.+elds.
Unless it was to go against the likes of the G.o.ddess of Myers, who mastered many rules, it would have been best otherwise to simply evade such attacks, or block the attacks using G.o.dly items.
The Violet Angel did not like the fact that Saleen did not bring it with him. It looked for Saleen again and again, even pleading in tears in hopes of fighting by Saleen’s side.
Saleen agreed to it in exasperation. He needed to work on his family badge and had little time to spend dealing with that thing.
The Violet Angel was overjoyed. As the Floating City was effectively controlled by the G.o.d of Magic Net, it served little more than a makes.h.i.+ft commander at times. It thought that it was better to be at Saleen’s side, as it would have meant that it was able to stay near Rafel.
Saleen spared no time himself. The believers of the Nature Faith had began cleaning up the entire Tanggulasi Empire.
He did not give the order to attack the empire’s capital and the emperor did not surrender as well, seemingly knowing what Saleen was thinking.
All believers of the Nature Faith stopped hundreds of kilometers outside of the capital, letting the regime maintain the last bit of dignity it had.