Chapter 1467: Sacrificial Piece (Part 1)
Saleen discretely suppressed the potion’s raging power as blood streamed out of his nostrils and mouth. That was not a disguise but the result of bodily injuries from an intense shock. He was also bleeding internally, which he had no intention of stopping. He wondered if the general would be fooled by these realistic-looking injuries.
Seeing all that blood irritated the general. The growth of Saleen’s power of the soul was much slower than he expected, and from this, he deduced that the man before him had no talent.
Hmph. So the only reason he advanced so fast was because of luck bestowed by Myers! It was Saleen’s ma.s.sive wealth, not his stealth, that allowed him to ama.s.s an a.r.s.enal of powerful equipment. Man, why did I even bother with such a loser mage…
Those thoughts kept swirling around in his head; Little did the general know that a divine beast was prowling around the cemetery chanting peculiar syllables from afar, casting a powerful divine spell.
Riding atop that divine beast was a tiny figure taking in everything that was going on in the cemetery.
What the general didn’t know was that his judgment was affected. He then kicked Saleen out of his grave. Upon seeing him, the grandmaster, who was waiting outside, said, “24 contracts; here you go.”
Saleen took the contracts and saw that he needed to sign them with 24 heroic spirits.
The contract itself, though, was fine. Saleen put on his Ring of Cosmos and began writing his signature on each one. He felt a powerful force stirring deep in his soul—the power of the 24 contracts signed.
Saleen laughed: After putting on the Ring of Cosmos, his power of the soul reached unfathomably high levels. Signing those 24 contracts was a breeze. He could have easily signed 240 of them—and doing so would not have affected his advancement.
Saleen’s ultimate goal was to have those heroic spirits work for the general. If he wanted to advance further, he would have no more power of the soul to spare, if it had not been for the ring.
This is because mages were only allowed to sign a limited number of soul contracts, and Saleen had some reservations about the whole business. He made a point of only signing a follower’s contract and kept strict count as well. If the burden on the soul became too heavy, a mage would be unable to advance.
Watching Saleen, the grandmaster quipped, “Don’t forget what those 24 contracts are for. Just do your job. If those heroes die in the fight, you’ll die too.”
“Do what you gotta do,” Saleen said. “Myers will come looking for you people anyway.” Then he turned on his heel and left.
The grandmaster kept watching Saleen’s back. He had a bad feeling in the pit of the stomach. He wasn’t an astrologer and his powers were limited by the cemetery, so he had no means of calculating what Saleen was up to.
The divine beast, on the other hand, immediately saw that Saleen was about to emerge from the cemetery and quickly ran off. It kept smacking itself on the side of its head.
That was because Saleen glanced at him from afar and saw that his eyes filled with murderous intent. If that little beast hadn’t ratted him out, Saleen would have been put on the defensive before the G.o.ddess of Myers. G.o.ds had their principles too. Saleen had gained little from resurrecting Myers precisely because of that divine beast.
On the other hand, Saleen was trying to scare the beast. He was not at all surprised to see that it had shown up the Imperial City of the Abyss. While the place was little more than a blur on the plane map, Myers would have known what was in there.
They were, after all, people from the First Dynasty. Since the general knew about Myers, she surely would have known about the general.
After leaving the imperial city, Saleen let the powerful ones near him leave his magic amplifier and kill their way out of the Oceanic Ice Block. As the powers across Myers Mainland rose, the magic beasts on the Oceanic Ice Block grew increasingly strong—and increasingly terrifying. If Saleen hadn’t been at such levels, it would have been impossible for him to come and go as he pleased.
Things were simpler for him then. For one thing, Saleen could cast Dance of the Lightning Snakes, a magic spell that could be used in tandem with the 24 thunder dragons. The area within a one-kilometer radius was well within his range of attack.
Some magic beasts in the sea looked much bigger from a distance. But low-level magic beasts like the red krill traveled in schools. When calculated in such an area, millions would have been considered a small number.
The big ones were left for Rafel and the others; Saleen targeted the small ones. One attack is all it took to have the lightning warriors concentrate on selecting magic nuclei out of the dead beasts.
Jola and the others wondered why Saleen was suddenly being greedier than usual. With his wealth, he didn’t need to hunt for magic beasts. So why was he wasting time on this when there were so many pressing issues in Myers Mainland waiting to get sorted out?
Saleen remained cool and calm. He didn’t bother taking on the Lord of Glory on the way home but headed for the cemetery of the giant instead. Lightning magic chords manifested after he advanced, giving him greater certainty in bagging that Lightning Moon.
Now the secrets of the Lightning Moon were within his reach. One look at it gave him all the answers he needed to grab it.
Those who created the Lightning Moon long ago probably never expected someone capable of being trained in lightning magic.
This type of magic could only be exploited by people of special bloodlines, and Saleen was one such person. He wondered if the Metatrin clan was too back in the day.
More specifically, what Saleen was using was Dance of Electric Snakes, a branch of the Dance of the Lightning Snakes. It cost him power of the soul instead of magic chords to use it. His power of the soul at present would only allow him to cast 24 level-15 magic spells at once, thanks to the Ring of Cosmos amplifying his power to unheard-of limits. Any mage would have advanced even with one-tenth of the power he had at the moment. But Saleen relied on equipment: that’s why he couldn’t advance any farther.
He was in a mystical state now. If his power of the soul advanced, he would have been able to tap into the Source’s power and.master all kinds of rules, just like the G.o.ds.
He wouldn’t have wasted another piece of divine persona should he be able to find another. He would have instead worked on the power of rules within, trans.m.u.ting them into his own.
The three weapon spirits had already become demiG.o.ds. Myers Mainland’s leveling was loosening and there were probably already level-13 professionals around, making it unnecessary for them to seal their powers. Those three demiG.o.ds had also put their powers to great use by killing many more magic beasts than Saleen did.
Saleen had also become familiar with his powers and didn’t need help from anyone else.
Saleen and his gang had practically committed genocide at the Oceanic Ice Block. Many beings had only risen to level-13 before dying without knowing what hit them. The unluckiest ones were the red krill. Those magic beasts had revealed their original ferocious nature after the mainland advanced twice. As level-9 pack animals, they were at the mercy of Saleen’s hunters.
Saleen was accompanied by more than a small team. His entourage consisted of about 2,000 people. More than were mages and none was lower than level-10. His greatest pride was a level-13 archer, and that archer was none other than Qin.
The chances of an archer advancing to higher levels were slim to none. As a result of Qin’s special skills, any target he Qin locked onto was doomed. At one point, his level was so low that Saleen never bothered to take him out. All he could do was to throw some equipment at the archer to help him train. He finally brought Qin to the Hall of G.o.ds on his second trip there.
The period of 1200 years allowed a level-10 archer to advance three consecutive levels, and the cost of magic equipment Saleen paid to make that happen would have almost allowed him to build a magic army consisting of 10,000 units.
But Saleen deemed it worthwhile. A level-13 archer at the pinnacle of its level would be able to attack anything beyond the range of Saleen’s sight, specifically over 120 kilometers away.
That distance was not their limit. Tests in the water proved that Qin’s arrow could hit targets about 400 kilometers away. That was already something that could have only been attributed to the power of rules.
Saleen’s only regret was that while he was busy killing his way out, no level- 14 magic beast was found.
Even magic nuclei of high-level magic beasts were best used when they were fresh. Other than the problem of energy dissipating, magic nuclei in storage for too long also suffered structural integrity decay. What Saleen had acquired before had been magic nuclei stored for tens of thousands of years. The stored energy was less than half of what they used to store. The strength was also inadequate for creating weapons.
The ability to create weapons out of magic nuclei was a specialty of the mages, but then again, such weapons were limited to a.s.sa.s.sins’ daggers or archers’ arrowheads.
Qin’s worst arrowheads were made of magic nucleus fragments.
Having failed to secure any fresh level-14 magic nuclei, Saleen let the 24 heroic spirits out instead. When those 24 who signed contracts with Saleen appeared, everyone else around him paled in comparison.
All 24 of those heroic spirits were level-15 beings and exuded thick, deathly energy. Any magic beast lower than level-10 died as soon as it touched the heroes. Any below level-12 suffered shocks instead.
Hundreds of skills Saleen had never even heard of were used. Not a single magic beast was left making a sound within tens of kilometers radius.
Everyone around Saleen went silent; they were baffled by the extent of the powers used, powers that would have allowed them to overrun any other empire. Despite the rise of power across Myers Mainland, only level-13 professionals were training hard here and there. None of 24 level-15 beings reached the peak of their powers when they were alive, despite being heroic spirits.
Saleen remained unfettered. Several lightning-magic patterns s.h.i.+fted deep in his soul. None of the 24 level-15 heroic spirits could peek into his mind.
The general had made some miscalculations. Regardless of how much time those heroic spirits spent with him, they couldn’t turn against or control him. His power of the soul exceeded all of theirs put together. The difference between him and them was an understanding of the rules.
Those heroic spirits were incapable of turning against him through sheer brute force alone.
He deemed it necessary to eliminate them as soon as he was able to. The Lord of Glory would no longer be a match for him once he got his hands on the Lightning Moon.
That reminded Saleen of the 24 heroic spirits; he had all his men return to the magic amplifier before shooting up to the sky all alone.
Hard ice quickly coalesced around Saleen. It was formed in an extremely orderly manner that time making it look like scaly armor adhering to Saleen’s magic robe.
Saleen was traveling faster than the fearsome speed of 3,000 kilometers an hour. Yet the ice on the surface of his armor did not melt.
Aided by the Comet Flash, he finally gained precise control of the speed and kept it within his limits.
Saleen’s alt.i.tude continued to climb until he was over 100 kilometers away from the ground. He continued to accelerate to the point where he felt that the powers of the earth could barely restrain him. If he were to accelerate any further, he would have aimed for the distant stars.