Chapter 974: The Patience of Mages (Part 2)
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The devil suit had its own unique use. The stone statue soldiers were not as powerful as elemental stone statue soldiers, but they could control their own size. If the elemental stone statue soldiers were to shrink themselves to two yards in height, then they would only be left with their elemental cores. Although their offensive abilities would remain the same, their defenses would weaken tremendously. It was just like a warrior losing all their armor.
Nicholas heeded Saleen’s suggestion. Nailisi put Gray Memory away as well. Although it was a powerful weapon, it was also very demanding on her mental strength. She pulled out her Sword of Rules instead.
The disadvantage of the Sword of Rules was that any target it struck would be completely useless. When the transparent creatures were killed by the Sword of Rules, their souls would be smashed. Even the blood soul tower would have a hard time restoring them. Any equipment that was damaged by the Sword of Rules could never be repaired again. It’d be easier for someone to make new equipment rather than try and restore one destroyed by the Sword of Rules.
Gray Memory would only destroy souls, but at least the materials that were left behind could still be used. The Sword of Rules was clearly a piece of equipment built to destroy.
Saleen kept monitoring the other end of the corridor. He noticed that the 32 grade-9 creatures had doubled in number!
That should’ve been impossible! Saleen looked carefully with his elemental eyes again and discovered more grade-9 creatures that had just appeared, but they turned out only to be images. If his elemental eyes had not advanced, he would not have been able to tell the difference.
That was because each image’s movement was exactly the same as the original creature. Such similarity even extended to traces of elements on the surface of the images.
Saleen laughed coldly. The images might have some combat abilities, but they were no match for the images of his devil suit. The images could not even move independently. That just proved that the person that created the images might be of a very high grade, but their combat experience was nowhere near the level of Joey.
All of a sudden, Saleen saw something that took him by surprise. 32 souls were infused into the 32 images. The images became livelier and no longer moved the same way as the original bodies.
When Saleen’s second batch of stone statue soldiers was created, the number of grade-9 creatures on the other end of the corridor had already reached 128, and half of them were images.
Through her connection with Saleen, Nailisi realized that something was amiss. Just as she was about to charge into the corridor, Saleen stopped her.
“Let it continue. I want to see how many grade-9 creatures it can create!” Saleen decided that he would not attack the corridor anymore. He commanded his 12 stone statue soldiers to retreat and gather together at the narrowest part of the corridor.
Saleen had learned about the rule of balance of energy before, so he knew that there was nothing in this world that possessed unlimited energy. It did not make sense for their opponent to be able to create grade-9 creatures.
A mage must think and study anything that was not logical. That would be how one could discover an entirely new field of study. Saleen’s original intention for coming there was not to look for a temple anyway. He was feeling terrible after the ma.s.sacre in the city, and he just wanted to get away from everything for a while. He was still young, and he started off as a commoner. Compared to Lex, he was less able to accept such events.
On the other side of the corridor, the number of grade-9 creatures was increasing, but Saleen became calmer. He refused to believe that the grade-9 creatures could continue to multiply. If that was the case, the person multiplying them was truly invincible.
Even the ancient humans were not capable of having all their soldiers advance to grade-9. Grade-9 soldiers were considered the cream of the crop back then. Saleen was not afraid of being outnumbered because Nailisi still had 100,000 demons in her Purgatory of Devils.
There were now 256 grade-9 creatures at that point, but half of them were images. That was when Nailisi felt more at ease. She could not help but admire her Master’s patience.
“Nailisi, do you understand now?”
Nailisi shook her head so Saleen continued, “I don’t believe our enemy can continue a technique like this for an extended period of time. Let’s rest here for a while…”
He said that on purpose so that the person on the opposite side could hear it. Indeed, immediately after what Saleen said that the grade-9 creatures went berserk and more than 10 of them entered the corridor. The six stone statue soldiers charged forward. That batch of stone statue soldiers would be the first to disappear. More than 20 minutes had pa.s.sed and there were already 18 stone statue soldiers in the corridor and the fourth batch was about to appear anytime.
Saleen displayed the patience of a mage. The six stone statue soldiers were easily defeated by the monsters, while only three of the monsters died in the exchange. Even though Saleen was losing his stone statue soldiers at a ratio of two to one, he continued to wait patiently and refused to attack recklessly.
The second batch of stone statue soldiers charged forward to stop the grade-9 creatures. Saleen did not even bother to give commands to those stone statue soldiers. Instead, he secretly summoned 36 elemental stone statue soldiers that were all 20 yards tall. The G.o.ddess’ temple was such a towering monument to be able to hold them, an ordinary house would not be able to contain the elemental creatures.
The 36 elemental stone statue creatures split into two rows. Nailisi stood in front of the corridor with a s.h.i.+eld in her left hand and a sword in her right as she waited for the corridor to broken through.
Saleen’s mindset has influenced Nailisi, who had regained her composure. By nature, demons were creatures with patience as they would sometimes take half a month to stalk prey.
Four batches of stone statue soldiers had been defeated by the grade-9 creatures. A blue humanoid creature charged out of the corridor and went straight for Saleen with a slender sword. The sword was bubbling with powerful elements and was almost glowing with something similar to sword aura.
The elemental stone statue soldiers on both sides of the corridor attacked with their magic war hammers. One of them struck air while the other accurately smashed the grade-9 creature’s head into pieces. Nailisi attacked with her Sword of Rules and deflected the creature’s sword. Then, with a sweep of her skeletal s.h.i.+eld, the grade-9 creature was cut into two at the waist.
Unlike the stone statue soldiers, Nailisi had a lot of combat experience. Although the monster no longer had its brain, its sword aura had yet to dissipate, so Nailisi knew it would continue to attack.
Even after being cut into half, the lower half of the body leaped up and tried to pounce on Saleen. Nailisi stepped on it and sent it into the Purgatory of the Fallen.
“Master, its weakness is in its heart,” Nailisi reminded Saleen.
There was a flash of blue light in the corridor. A humanoid creature suddenly increased its speed, das.h.i.+ng past the pair of magic warhammers guarding the entrance of the corridor and was in front of Saleen in an instant. All of a sudden, a Midnight Fang appeared in front of Saleen. The Midnight Fang’s elemental dagger stabbed straight into the humanoid creature’s heart.
Nicholas was taken aback. His fallen staff fell to the floor and gray light filled the entire temple. The third humanoid creature that dashed out of the corridor immediately slowed down and by doing so, it was immediately smashed into minced meat by the magic war hammers.
Nicholas’ gray light had caused the humanoid creatures to slow down by more than twice their original speed. Saleen’s elemental creatures’ speed did not seem to be affected though. All the grade-9 creatures that managed to reach the zone that was lit up by the gray light were all smashed to death by the elemental stone statue soldiers. On the other side of the corridor, the mysterious being could not take it anymore.
“Blasphemers, all of you must die!”
The moment Saleen heard that he burst out laughing. “You are the real blasphemer. Do you really think you are Myers?”
The ground of the temple trembled violently as if there was an earthquake. Saleen remained calm as he made the six elemental stone statue soldiers expand their bodies. They transformed into thick pillars while Saleen and the rest took cover under them.
“If you are Myers, then who do you think this is?” Saleen unleashed a gigantic fireball, which floated into the air and lit up Nailisi’s face. Nailisi had based her appearance on the image of the G.o.ddess of Myers. Saleen’s enemy seemed to be aggravated by what Saleen did. After a loud and high-pitched scream, Saleen saw the collapse of all the grade nine creatures in the temple. They turned into hundreds of beams of blue light, disappearing into the darkness.
“You blasphemers…”
“Master, what is it saying?” Nailisi’s voice was louder and she could tell that the creature inside was not totally sane. If it was provoked a little more, it would definitely charge out and fight Saleen.
Huge rocks began to crumble as the corridor widened gradually. The two temples were more than a thousand yards apart and magic was the reason why they could see the other end clearly. The thousand-yard long corridor had been destroyed and a crack that was more than 20 yards wide appeared right in front of Saleen.
If not for the six elemental stone statues turning themselves into huge stone pillars, Saleen and the rest would have been buried alive in the temple.
Saleen calmly increased the number of Midnight Fangs he had out to 36, and they patrolled the surrounding area. The body of a Midnight Fang was different from other elemental creatures because it could conceal itself in any shadows. That was its natural ability. The falling rocks had no effects on the Midnight Fangs. The way they attacked was to unleash their full force in a single strike.
There were only six elemental stone statue soldiers left to guard the opening of the corridor. The others were surrounded Saleen, ready to block the enemy’s attack. Saleen was secretly thankful for his elemental badge. If he had brought along the ancient warriors instead, he would have had been forced to take on a more pa.s.sive approach.
The crack grew bigger, revealing a bottomless pit. The top had already collapsed, and seawater was already seeping in. In the blink of an eye, a huge hole appeared on top of the crack and due to the high pressure, seawater instantly gushed in and collapsed the temple.
“That’s pretty powerful.” Saleen teased as he could already see what was happening at the temple opposite them.
A mile away from them was a gigantic main temple.
The altar of the main temple was surrounded by 24 pillars with a naked woman bound to the middle. Twenty-four chains pierced through her body and each of them was tied to a pillar.
The woman was wriggling frantically as if she could feel no pain. The 24 pillars were simply too st.u.r.dy, and they showed no signs of crack despite the violent trembling of the altar.
Saleen looked closely at the woman and she looked exactly like G.o.ddess of Myers.