Badge in Azure

Chapter 1432: Terrible Defeat (Part 1)

Black holy light shimmered on the Inferno Spear for the first time. That was Rafel using divine spells at full potency, bringing her Divine Might to bear from all those years ago.

The spell originated from the Metal God, of whom Rafel was a favorite angel. It was the Metal God who had allowed her the privilege of learning Divine Might, a rarity among the gods. Rafel was also one of the very few angels capable of using divine spells after the god she served had perished.

Fundamentally, if Rafel had wanted to she could have taken her master’s mantle and become the next Metal God.

But the journey would have been arduous, and there was probably no way she would have actually risen to that level. Becoming a human might would have allowed her to advance a lot faster instead.

Why did she refuse to leave? One reason was a concern for her metal angels. But there was also another reason: She couldn’t figure out what she really wanted from Saleen. That idea was born out of a hunch that he could give her what she was looking for.

Rafel had pulled out all stops by then. She’d never heard of the Lord of Glory. From the aura emanating from his double, that god would have advanced to level-16 long ago and become a middle god if this had been ancient times. It was probably because of his inability to gather enough believers that he remained stuck at his current level, despite conquering one divine kingdom after another.

Believers were the key to allowing the Lord of Glory to open the gates to advancement. Evolving his divine persona alone would not have allowed him to become a middle god.

Rafel’s judgment had been sound: The Lord of Glory was indeed only at level-15; however, judging from his combat prowess alone, even level-16 gods would not be able to beat in him in battle.

He had defeated many a god at his level and wrecked many divine kingdoms of middle gods. He had to seal his power at level-12 during the double advent, but that had little to do with his double’s combat prowess.

When a god advanced as far as the Lord of Glory had, the number of rules that had to be mastered was rare even among gods.

While it was pointless to fight greater gods through sheer numbers of rules mastered, the battle before their eyes was one where knowing a huge number of rules would have given him an absolute edge.

The black shimmer on the Inferno Spear was that of Metal Cutting. However, at that time it was able to accurately cast onto the Lord of Glory’s double, which was three cubic meters.

The black color resulted from countless thin metal threads shining. Those threads tore space apart while attempting to kill the double.

He was unable to move: That part of him in Myers Mainland had to exist only at that set of coordinates. The saint’s stone house that had been protecting him had totally disintegrated and crashed to the ground. Because he was stark naked, the double was unable to carry out a single piece of equipment.

Power that cut space was capable of sending the Lord of Glory’s double into spatial turbulence bit by bit. Rafel had served gods before and knew they were hard to kill. What she was doing was weakening the double’s power.

The eyes of the Lord of Glory’s double peered through the space of Metal Cutting, glaring at Rafel squarely.

“Evil angel, I’ll kill you and wash away the insult I suffer today with your blood!”

He couldn’t tell that Rafel was an angel. Even though he was a god, he could still be harmed by an angel. That more than qualified as an insult. The wars of the gods were always fought by angels serving their respective gods. A god being damaged by an angel was unheard of.

Rafel shuddered; Saleen couldn’t help noticing. He then asked with a mumbling voice, “Do you know how long it would take for that thing to fully advent?”

“Hours!” Rafel answered.

Saleen then charged without hesitation and pointed at the shadow of the Lord of Glory. The attack from his finger blew off the double’s head off, causing divine power to scatter. It was as if Saleen had hit a real body.

The Crystal Finger was a skill invented by Raphael specifically to fight gods. The Lord of Glory’s curse was broken. Rafel was relieved. She knew why Saleen did what he did. It was as if she had returned to the time when she was protected by the Metal God.

“Now that we’ve shut him up, everyone attack—and give it all you’ve got! If we didn’t stop him from getting here, then we’ll need to leave before he gets here.” No one objected to Saleen’s proposal.

No one expected the Lord of Glory’s double to be so powerful. Despite having been showered with all sorts of astonishing skills, the double still seeped into Myers Mainland, trying to get a tangible body transferred there.

Half an hour passed and Nicholas had run out of scrolls. All scrolls capable of harming the shadow were used up. Nicholas was sent back to the magic amplifier by Saleen.

The Shackles of the Fallen could no longer process more divine power and yet Nailisi dared not consume any of those powers. She was afraid of becoming a god herself after consuming such power from a god. It was not impossible for a luoluokaluo to become a god after all. If she were given a divine persona, her chances of becoming one would have been even greater.

Given how loathsome her master found gods, there’s no way Nailisi would have gone that far.

The rate at which Rafel’s divine crystals were consumed baffled Saleen. He only came to know how costly it would have been to use high-level divine spells. The reason Rafel didn’t use such skills was that she couldn’t afford to. She would have never brought those skills to the fore when dealing with low-level enemies.

The Inferno Spear was flipped and thrust, with every strike bringing the power of rules to bear. At the same time, she cast Metal Cutting over ten times. That head of the Lord of Glory slowly coalesced again. Rafel attacked that part of the double specifically since she was afraid of the Lord of Glory’s curses.

Saleen was still recovering his magic chords. Such battles were highly complex games of calculation to him.

He had to pay careful attention with his Eye of Souls at all times to see how broken the Lord of Glory’s double had become. While Nicholas was deducing the amount of time it would take for the Lord of Glory to advent, Saleen didn’t dare lower his guard.

The power of the Lord of Glory exceeded his expectations. Even if everyone attacked in a frenzy, it wouldn’t be enough to kill the double.

The case before their eyes was very peculiar: The Lord of Glory obviously had some special properties, as he had to advent as a shadow and transfer his powers over bit by bit.

After three hours of attacking, the Lord of Glory’s demeanor switched from angry to calm. His head had been destroyed three times by Saleen’s attacks, but they coalesced each time. That was not his weakness. His weakness was having to steer clear of Saleen’s and the others’ attacks after his head was destroyed.

Saleen’s lightning territory had also limited how much of those abilities were capable of being used. The only thing the Lord of Glory’s double knew was that a spirit, a demon, an angel and a human mage were attacking him.

He was wondering if the Myers Mainland plane had regained its former glory.

The Lord of Glory’s double switched into high gear. He had to advent and see for himself what happened to Myers Mainland. If things went against him, he would take his divine kingdom and get out of that place, abandoning his believers.

That was his only alternative. The humans on Myers Mainland back then had been too powerful. Even if the gods had set up a trap and made Myers a god, it hardly changed anything. What was more vexing was that even after becoming a god, Myers still chose to side with humans and attack the divine kingdoms.

Myers Mainland had once been the most frustrating, headache-inducing main plane the gods had to deal with. It was there all the time, yet no one ever attacked it. The Lord of Glory had only dared to sneak his double onto the mainland after the Goddess of Myers perished, thereby establishing the Holy See.

The Holy See manipulated the powerful beings throughout the mainland and had them kill each other, splintering the place until, finally, they controlled an empire. Even so, the empire had not expanded its territory for 1,000 years. Believers had to stay within the empire’s boundaries, as those priests were not allowed to propagate the faith in other empires.

“Everyone, look out!” Saleen cast his Quickcloud and shrouded everyone within.

Tens of thousands of tiny white holy prose appeared on the Lord of Glory’s double’s chest after he was attacked for several hours. The holy prose spun maniacally and unleashed light of power’s penetrative abilities.

Saleen cast Water Shield that had a diameter of over ten meters, enough to cover everyone. The light punched through the Water Shield without harming any of those powerful professionals.

The surface of the Water Shield was filled with lightning-magic patterns.

“Die, mage!” The Lord of Glory’s double became tangible all of a sudden. Saleen did not see what had happened. Level-10 astrology had a success rate of less than ten percent to calculate what a level-14 being was doing.

White armor developed on the Lord of Glory’s body while a scepter appeared on his left hand. He gripped a ball of light about the size of a fist in his right hand.

The double brought two godly items just to kill Saleen. There was no way he would be able to take them back to the divine kingdom: he just had to leave them behind.

Thousands of dazzling beams exploded from the ball of light in one direction—at Saleen.

Metal Cutting was immediately torn apart, and the Winged Skull’s body began to foam, spilling outside the Water Shield’s protection.

Saleen could only weaken attacks like this; he couldn’t completely defend against them.

“Die already!”

Nailisi manipulated the Shackles of the Fallen and charged. The ball of light on the Lord of Glory’s hand flashed and disappeared right before her eyes.

Look out!

All 24 chains of the Shackles of the Fallen dropped; Saleen saw the scepter the Lord of Glory was holding penetrate Nailisi’s heart. Before she had a chance to react, she was struck by an enemy from behind.

“Nailisi!” Saleen sensed from the depth of his soul that his connection with Nailisi had been severed.

The Lord of Glory killed Nailisi?

Saleen’s mind went blank. He claimed he would protect her. Did he fail her?

The Shackles of the Fallen retreated into the 12 Notes of the First Purgatory and dropped to the ground inside. The Winged Skull hooked it with its scythe and took the collection of purgatories back.

The Lord of Glory’s double didn’t bother with the skeleton. He flashed again and went behind Saleen, Nailisi’s blood still dripping from his scepter.