Badge in Azure

Chapter 305: Allowing the Enemy to Escape (Part 2)

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

As long as Banchajanna was willing to knock his six weapons together, he would be able to kill the many swordsmen on the ground below. The absolute power suppression by the six powers from the death dimension would cause even the black bishop to be injured. However, Banchajanna had only used a standard high-level death spell, the Nothingness Flame, to incinerate the swordsmen.

While seated on Banchajanna’s back, Daniel heard Saleen’s cries. He pondered for a moment, and realized that he should not let the leader of those swordsmen escape. Thus he commanded, “Banchajanna, go and kill that man in the black robe!”

Banchajanna replied coldly, “Go and do it yourself.”

Daniel fumed. If he had been able to kill that holy master in the black robe, then he would not have needed to put up with the three kings. Usually, Daniel was tolerant. However, at this point in time, Daniel exploded with rage and said, “Fine, I will go.”

After finishing his sentence, Daniel jumped off of Banchajanna’s back and charged towards the black bishop.

Banchajanna, on the other hand, was feeling depressed. That old man in the black robe had a god’s imprint on his body, which was different from all the other lowly swordsmen. If Banchajanna killed him, there would be endless trouble in the future. To Banchajanna, the Holy See was not really a threat. The real threat was the god behind the Holy See.

He could kill those unimportant people. In the event that more enemies arrived, he would simply escape back to the death dimension with his two brothers. The god would definitely not traverse the planes to avenge the deaths of those lowly swordsmen.

However, this old man in a black robe had a god’s imprint, which meant that he was acknowledged by his god as a true believer. If one wanted to kill this old man, he would have to remove the god’s imprint at the same time so as to avoid being tracked down by the god. Now that Banchajanna was on the human plane, his abilities were reduced by one grade, so there was no way he could remove the god’s imprint.

Furthermore, Banchajanna was not Saleen’s subordinate. He would not care about Saleen’s future. Banchajanna just wanted muddle along life right now. It would be best if he could find some traces of Shanglan, but if he could not, he would also not want to go against a god over a human.

This was not tens of thousands of years ago when humans had possessed the power to resist the gods. Banchajanna might not have been as intelligent as Judikaka, but he would not do such a stupid thing either.

In order to avoid detection, Banchajanna would have to pretend to be Daniel’s summoned creature. But if Daniel died, where could he go to look for a second death mage? As a result, Daniel had only just jumped off of Banchajanna’s back when Banchajanna used his tail to pull Daniel back. Then, Banchajanna cast a grey shadow which caused Daniel to be stuck on his back.

“Let me down!” Daniel was enraged. However, his voice could not even pass through the grey shadow no matter how loud he yelled. Then, Banchajanna simply went about killing the swordsmen as though he were obeying Daniel’s commands.

The black bishop did not know about the conversation which had transpired between Daniel and Banchajanna, so he became quite terrified. His men were all the elites from the inquisition, even though they were not very high grade. However, if all of them gathered together, their sword auras would be so powerful that even a golden grand swordmaster would be injured. Even though that death creature in the sky had no wings, it could still fly. That metal-melting nothingness flame had caused the black bishop’s trusted subordinates to be obliterated without any chance for resistance at all.

The black bishop did not know that Banchajanna had the intention of letting him escape, but he did not want to carry on fighting at this point in time either. He might have held some more tricks up his sleeve, but he could only withhold his skills for now.

“Let’s go.” After finishing his sentence, the black bishop took out a holy scroll from his ring and opened it.

With a flash of white light, the black bishop and his dozens of swordsmen disappeared into thin air. Seeing that the black bishop had escaped, Saleen became very furious. If Banchajanna had attacked the black bishop, he would not have been to use the scroll so easily. Now that the black bishop had escaped, Saleen’s newly constructed city would no longer have any peaceful days. Should Saleen give up such a great foundation?

The black bishop was also a ruthless man. His son was dead and he had abandoned his two-hundred-strong group of subordinates, escaping with only dozens of black armor warriors. Such a loss was massive, and he had done so without any hesitation at all. Of course, it was Banchajanna’s power which had left the black bishop with no choice but to escape. If Banchajanna had concentrated all of his attacks on the black bishop, the black bishop could have only used his divine spell to fly, and he would not even have been able to use his holy scroll.

Teleportation scrolls were extremely rare holy scrolls. Once such a scroll was used, the user would be transported to a relatively safer place. The coordinates, distance, and direction could not be determined though. During the usage of this scroll, one could not be disturbed. Otherwise, their body would be torn into particles the size of an elemental atom by the power of space when the divine spell failed.

When the remaining swordsmen saw that the black bishop had abandoned them, they lost all their morale simultaneously. Banchajanna was flying in the air while these swordsmen did not have the ability to fly. Furthermore, this was not the Tanggulasi Empire, and they did not have any weapons to deal with air assaults. Hence, these swordsmen were simply waiting to be slaughtered.

At this point in time, Banchajanna suddenly stopped his attacks. The swordsmen immediately seized this critical opportunity and fled in all directions. These swordsmen had been living in the north for many years, so they were very familiar with the terrain. Unless Banchajanna went all out to try to kill them, many of them would be able to escape to safety.

Saleen helped Nailisi get back on her feet. Then, he looked up to stare at Banchajanna, his face as black as thunder.

Banchajanna had intentionally allowed the enemy to escape. He knew that Banchajanna had his own thoughts, but if such power existed in his city, it would surely be an underlying disaster. Saleen retracted that blue light which was about to be launched from his blue eyes, as he restrained the impulse to kill Banchajanna. Even though Saleen had just grasped the power of lightning, he would not be able to defeat Banchajanna either way.

Saleen had to think of a solution to control the powers of the three spirit kings, or else his city could be destroyed at anytime without warning.

“Master…”

“Nailisi, let’s go back,” Saleen interrupted her. Nailisi must have been displeased with Banchajanna as well, since her mood was affected by Saleen’s emotions.

“I have captured a person back in the forest.”

“Bring him back with us.”

“That fellow is on the verge of death. We might not be able to bring him back,” Nailisi replied. She had torn open his ribcage. Since that man’s sword aura had been protecting his body, he was still not dead at the moment. Then again, how long could a person survive if their heart was exposed to the surrounding air?

With his eyebrows furrowed, Saleen pondered. He felt that the black bishop would not return to create trouble. At best, the black bishop would report this matter to the Tanggulasi Empire, and the Holy See would deploy more men. With that display of power by Banchajanna back then, the black bishop would not stay in the north anymore.

Now that the black bishop had escaped, Saleen would not have any more leads even if he managed to extract some information from that assailant. Saleen did not bother acknowledging the presence of Banchajanna. He simply went into the depths of the forest with Nailisi. The barbarian named Conan was still atop the tree, keeping watch over that dying assailant.

“You shall conduct the interrogation.” Saleen did not want to interrogate the assailant personally. He knew that Nailisi was better at such activities.

“Master, we should let the winged skeleton do the talking,” Nailisi suggested. This idea was vicious. The winged skeleton was a spirit, and his interrogation abilities were not as strong. However, this assailant was a believer of god, and even though he was not of a very high grade, he could still relay enough information back to the Holy See. The message would be very obvious since the assailant had died at the hands of a spirit.

When the black bishop had been in the face of death, he had seen Banchajanna. Hence, no matter what kind of torture this assailant went through, it would be on Banchajanna’s tab. Nailisi’s trick of framery might not have been very sophisticated, but it was already good enough.

Banchajanna could not possibly go and declare his innocence, and even if he really did so, no one from the Holy See would believe him.

Torturing the soul of a believer was a serious offense. The Holy See’s code was not so easily tarnished. Knowing that Banchajanna wanted to stay out of this, Nailisi had intentionally done the opposite.

“Then we should capture more people.” After listening to Nailisi’s suggestion, Saleen felt a telepathic message in his heart. He knew that this idea was extremely unscrupulous, but it was just what he required at this moment.

“Mage Saleen!” Waves of shouts sounded from outside the forest. The mages from Sregl Island had finally arrived. Even though they were already rushing at full speed, they had come slightly later than Banchajanna, who had simply taken his time.

Saleen was overjoyed. These mages were the only ones he could rely on. Saleen really needed to recruit some real followers. A mage might have been powerful, but they would not be able to accomplish much on their own. By recruiting more followers, Saleen would not have to do so many things himself.

“I am here!” Saleen called out to the mages to get them to enter the forest. Banchajanna did not give a hoot. He simply carried Daniel on his back and flew away, not even bothering to land. If Judikaka had been here, he might have come down to explain things to Saleen so as to repair the frayed relations. If Diyabannersa had been here, he might have blown his top and killed all of the people from the Holy See.

Banchajanna was a little confused. He had killed dozens of people and scared the black bishop away. He had also caused cracks to appear in the relationship between Saleen and himself. To have such behavior, Banchajanna could either be considered to have low intelligence, or to be a person who only thought of his own feelings.

Saleen instructed the swordsmen and mages from Sregl Island to pursue the fleeing Holy See’s swordsmen. He even specified that some of the swordsmen needed to be captured alive. The three kings must never see these prisoners. Saleen had his own plan for the prisoners.

In some planes, there were more than one god, and the gods would try to snatch believers from one another. Whenever one party captured the believers of the other party, punishments would be meted out. When the believers were tortured, the god would be able to feel it telepathically. The swordsmen which Saleen had asked the mages to capture were not high grade believers. He did not need high grade believers anyway. These low grade believers would be the most suitable for framing Banchajanna.

If a prisoner was a high grade believer, a detailed message would be sent back to the god before his soul was destroyed. Such low grade believers would only be able to transmit vague messages back.

Saleen just needed to let the Holy See know that its believers were tortured by a powerful spirit.

Saleen did not have any worries in doing something like that. Anyway, the actions by these inquisition swordsmen were infuriating. They had captured the barbarians in order to produce blood cavaliers. All these actions warranted Saleen to torture their souls.

At this moment, Saleen was thinking of another issue as well. He was thinking of contacting Aini. According to Aini’s parents, Aini had become a death mage. Given Aini’s power in the past, he would not need much time to get to grade-5. Aini possessed knowledge of spirits and a mysterious contractual spell. He would surely have a way to deal with the three kings.

Saleen remembered that when he had been in Baron Cook’s castle, Walnut’s mercenary group had violated the contract. As a result, everyone within the mercenary group had fallen under Aini’s control. That type of power was extremely petrifying. If a contract could be designed to make the three kings fall into a trap, then they would have no choice but to work for Saleen in the future.

Today’s incident had made Saleen realize that if one could not control their own power, then their power would be meaningless no matter how strong it was.