Badge in Azure

Chapter 1505: Ascertaining Weaknesses (Part 2)

Chapter 1505: Ascertaining Weaknesses (Part 2)

“Myers, the Heretic God’s weakness is on the base of its tail!” Saleen immediately told the goddess about the weakness he had found.

“Right, acknowledged.” The goddess, however, did not inform the general or the grandmaster of the weakness. She was waiting for the chance. The power of the Source of the Heretic God was too strong. Even when trapped within her blood-red cage, the prison was still unable to completely sever the god’s connection with its believers.

The Heretic God was expending its believers’ life force and power of the Source. Even if the attacks were to be continued for an entire day, the Heretic God would have probably still been left alive.

Saleen thought for a moment and amplified the electric snake’s attacks, shrouding the entire cage in electricity, trying his best to sever the connection between the Heretic God and its believers.

The connection between that god and its believers was more mysterious than any magic. Any way that the mages had tried to isolate or block such connections showed only very limited success.

Saleen’s Eye of the Soul continued to monitor and determine the Heretic God’s movements. He gradually was able to catch up with the speed at which beings at such levels moved. If he were to keep doing so for about half a month, Saleen believed that his Crystal Finger would have been able to pierce the Heretic God’s weakness accurately, and that would have ended up halfway killing the Heretic God.

Both the grandmaster and the general were also trying to look for weaknesses on the Heretic God but said god simply moved too fast. None of them had skills that allowed them to stop time, which meant that they would not have been able to see through to the Heretic God’s weaknesses.

The general was getting frustrated. The enemy in the cage was but a sitting duck that he continued to hit, and yet the result was still dismal. If the Heretic God were to escape, the Cemetery of Heroes would have truly been done for.

They began to wildly conjure rule powers of the other five major elements, bombarding that Heretic God in a frenzy. The Heretic God finally showed signs of balking.

The attack it had thrown at Saleen earlier did not end up doing anything to the mage. Dozens of heroic spirits ended up being rendered unconscious instead.

That was what caused the Heretic God severe damage, and it still was unable to escape that blood-red cage.

The Heretic God was getting unusually irritable. The cage was causing it some sort of psychological trauma. It would have killed every single being known by anyone that dared to call it a monkey, and that penalty would have been considered light. If it were in a really bad mood, it would have destroyed an entire plane instead. Anyone who dared to use cages to ridicule its past would have stoked the anger of the Heretic God so much that it would have burned every place it treaded until not even air was left.

However, at present, its frustration only resulted in the aggravation of its injuries. A human warrior and mage both attacked it at the same time, and the resulting damage stacked.

There was a need to find a window. The Heretic God’s instincts told it to calm down. It would have only been a matter of time before it ended up dead if it were to stay inside that cage. The human mage was nothing, but the other two ghost-like beings were capable of powerful attacks. The power of rules they contained was formidable enough to damage its Source.

There was also the Goddess of Myers, who was maintaining the cage. She had yet to attack, but the name of the goddess nonetheless struck fear into the minds of gods. The number of gods that she had personally killed was well over 1000. She had killed more gods than even the King of Glory had.

The Heretic God had an ugly appearance instead of the usual elegant, dashing form commonly seen among gods. It had always worn either armor or some form of regalia in front of its believers in order to mask its original form. Despite being stark naked at the moment, the drop in combat prowess was only momentary.

The Heretic God had never actually had any need for equipment. Any equipment he would use was taken from others on the fly. If there was none to be found amongst its enemies, it would have made equipment on the fly using its believers instead.

The believers of the Heretic God were capable of being reduced to attribute-less matter, making them natural material storehouses for the Heretic God.

If there were not any believers around, then it would have resorted to using parts of its own body.

The Heretic God bared its fangs, and two tusks grew speedily out of the sides of its mouth. When they reached about a meter-long each, the Heretic God tore them out and held them in its hand, making them into a set of daggers.

Everyone other than Saleen was shocked when the daggers appeared. They then disappeared after appearing for less than a second. The Heretic God swung its arms around, and deafening hammering noises were heard reverberating from the blood-red cage.

Two breaks appeared on the cage, accompanied by a cracking sound. That damage was immediately mended, but there was one among the heroic spirits who was still awake.

That was the heroic spirit using their own life to mend the cage, and that irritated both the general and the grandmaster considerably.

It was especially so in the case of the grandmaster. He had failed to see that the goddess’ magic array was laid in such a way that the heroic spirits were unable to evade attacks like that, and that they needed to give up their life in order to keep the blood-red cage intact.

They were utterly duped by the goddess. The heroic spirits—over 90 of them—that they brought out of the cemetery were all powerful professionals above level 15. Even if they were actually able to kill the Heretic God, it was simply no longer possible for the ones from the Cemetery of Heroes to overpower the goddess.

The general and everyone else had known for a long time how cunning the goddess was, but they were still duped into fighting the Heretic God despite that awareness.

Saleen learned a lot from all that had happened. It was due to the contract between him and the goddess that he had to resurrect her, and as such, was chained to the goddess’ machinations. While he had gotten wealthy from it, it was an experience he would not have wanted to involve himself in ever again.

Such had been Saleen’s resolve, and that was what had driven him to begin destroying the temples.

Yet, the outcome was still him following the goddess around like a dog, coming all the way to the Imperial City of the Abyss just to put her plans into motion.

The goddess was someone who often strong-armed others to do her bidding, but everyone who worked with her usually got a lot out of it. That had been Saleen’s thoughts in the past. However, looking at how things ended up for the heroic spirits, he began to harbor doubts.

He wondered if the goddess would eventually get rid of him as well. If he were to master the Lightning Moon completely, he would have posed a serious threat to the gods.

No. It would take me an untold amount of time to catch up to her.

But then again, the goddess had helped him to work on the Hall of Gods. So long as he had a power supply that proved massive enough, he would have been able to alter the flow of time, and that would have enabled him to develop powers great enough to threaten the goddess within a short period of time.

Despite the messed-up state of mind he was currently in, his hands continued to work well. He fired off hundreds of electric snakes and took control of them in the immediate vicinity of the cage. After the beam of white light was shot into the Heretic God’s body, it was no longer able to create huge patches of black mist.

All five of them intended to cast their most potent attacks at the same time.

The general and the grandmaster did not want to see any more of their own being sacrificed, while the goddess was worried that the Heretic God would soon really be able to burst out of the cage. Things would have been fine if it intended to fight her to the death if it did break out. She was most afraid of it wanting to escape instead.

The Heretic God had entered the plane in a problematic way, yet the method it had used actually gave it an advantage in escaping. It would have been able to simply cast the body away and return to its divine kingdom. It would have regained its powers by just resting for one or two hundred years.

Options would have opened up for the Heretic God once the blood-red cage was broken. The goddess would have never allowed the Heretic God to do much, however. She was determined to kill the Heretic God, even if it meant having to destroy the Lightning Moon.

The Lightning Moon was wrestled out of Saleen’s control and returned to its place above the goddess’s head. Countless holy prose appeared on her hand, all of which were replicated projections.

Saleen was initially feeling irked about having the Lightning Moon taken away from him, but he quickly focused himself at that moment for fear of missing out on anything. He had even contacted Dante to inquire about the holy prose.

Both Dante and Saleen memorized them. Those were not scripts created by the Goddess of Nature; they were holy prose of a Thunder God.

The goddess did not know the meaning of those holy prose, as they were something stolen, enabling her to cast her most powerful lightning attack just once.

Both the general and the grandmaster were oblivious to what the goddess was doing. She had achieved impeccable mastery of the invisibility ability of the Lightning Moon.

Both the general and the grandmaster were giving their all to prepare their next attacks as well.

They had been using instant attacks up until then. Their next attacks were something they needed to prepare for quite some time. The Heretic God continued flinging its arms around. The others were unable to see the Lightning Moon, but not the Heretic God. Such invisibility ability was fundamentally an extension of its powers. Weapons crafted from its bones were capable of staying completely invisible, after all.

The Lightning Moon hovered above the goddess’s head. The runes in the goddess’s hand struck fear into the Heretic God’s mind.

It never expected the goddess to actually be able to command such terrifying objects or to be able to cast skills that should have belonged only to the Thunder God.

The Heretic God was a ferocious being itself and had killed a great many gods, losing only to a god once. Its eyes had been damaged by the Thunder God, robbing it of its sight for 120 thousand years.

The Heretic God was terrified. It did not want to relive those 120 thousand years of being unable to see anything again.

It became determined to run away, so much so that it was willing to give up ever coming to such a major plane again. Regardless of how brutal and furious the goddess had been, it was still utterly impossible for her to locate its divine kingdom.

No one would have expected that such a terrifying creature as the Heretic God would have wanted to run when facing the Goddess of Myers.

Fewer would have expected that it was an outcome that resulted from Saleen’s continuous use of Thundering Sound skills. Thundering Sound skills were not skills that shocked targets to submission right away. They were something that would continuously corrode the souls of enemies, causing them to fall under the skills’ influence without knowing it. That was the most terrifying thing about the Thundering Sound skills.

Only when the mental defenses of enemies crumbled would the Thundering Shock be able to deal the killing blow. Furthermore, there was no way one could have been immune to Thundering Sound skills unless the enemy in question was versed in such abilities as well. Level differences would have only diminished the power of Thundering Sound, but it would not have been able to nullify it altogether.

The Heretic God, subjected to pressure from the goddess and the others, was oblivious to what a mage like Saleen was capable of, resulting in it lowering its guard against him, which in turn enabled Saleen’s skill to work in secret.

Clanging noises continued to be heard as the Heretic God attacked the blood-red cage in a frenzy. One heroic spirit after another dropped to the ground, giving up their lives to maintain the cage’s integrity.

The general’s eyes were bloodshot, and the projection of a weapon was gradually seen on his left arm. It was a shield of a rusty red color and had 12 pointy spikes on the front.

That was the weapon that the general was most proficient in. It would have stayed intact so long as his soul remained. Every time such a piece of equipment was used, it meant that the general no longer could afford to run. He had to kill the enemy, as the loss of that equipment would have caused him considerable damage.

A magic book materialized in the grandmaster’s hand. As heroic spirits, only equipment that was the closest to them would not have been lost.

That magic book had 18 magic spells, with six of them being level 18 ones. They were all interconnected, enabling them to all be cast in one go.

Those spells were originally meant for taking on the goddess, but at present, he had to use them against the Heretic God. However, the grandmaster would not have regretted it, as the direction in which the Heretic God was attempting to escape was right in front of him.

The Heretic God did not dare to face the Lightning Moon, so the grandmaster misunderstood the Heretic God’s actions as the god intending to devour him and the general before taking on the goddess.

The weakness of the heroic spirits was that they were food that tasted great to the gods. The Heretic God’s injuries would have all healed once it had eaten up the heroic spirits before it.