Badge in Azure

Chapter 782: Only Bandits would be Happy (Part 1)

Chapter 782: Only Bandits would be Happy (Part 1)

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

Nailisi transformed into her devil-form and crushed more than twenty angels with her Devil’s Trample. Almost the entire holy zone was within her attacking range.

Nailisi had already expected to get her foot pierced. The holy priest’s divine protection was too powerful, like a nail that was stuck in the ground. Nailisi stomped vigorously, only damaging her foot in the process. Nailisi did not care. This elderly holy priest was not an opponent she could easily deal with. She had to find a way to get him into the Twelve Notes of Purgatory. By the time both of them were connected through flesh and blood, the holy priest would have no chance of escaping.

The hole in her foot held the holy priest in place while the Twelve Notes of Purgatory opened and pulled both him and Nailisi inside.

There was no light whatsoever in the Purgatory of Darkness. Nailisi raised her foot and was about to reach for the elderly holy priest.

“Separate!” Although the holy priest had found himself in the Purgatory of Darkness, he remained calm. He cast a divine spell and escaped from Nailisi’s foot to land on the ground. The light of divine protection was still present, but he discovered that beyond the one yard of light, there was only darkness that knew no bounds.

“Old fellow, I know that you can determine my location, but what’s the point? You are just like a magic lamp now, standing there without any place to hide.” Nailisi’s voice rumbled like thunder in the darkness. The ground in the Purgatory shook violently as well.

“You...” The elderly holy priest’s words got stuck in his throat. He realized how strange the dimension was. The darkness was boundless and could not be penetrated even by holy light. The worst thing was that this place no longer seemed to be on the Myers Mainland. Of course, this was only a hallucination. The Twelve Notes of Purgatory was not something that could open up into other dimensions, otherwise there was no way two people could be pulled in so easily. What the Twelve Notes of Purgatory could do was to negate the power of the Lord of Glory.

“That’s impossible, right?” The injury in Nailisi’s foot was slowly healing. She took out her weapon, a shield of more than eighteen yards, and placed it in front of her. The holy priest would be able to lock onto her location if she was not careful. If so, he would still be able to attack any parts of her body with accuracy.

The elderly holy priest became silent. He had thought that he had already given the demon enough respect, but it looked like he was in big trouble. The dimension should be a weapon from God that was replicated by humans. Nevertheless, just because it was a replica did not mean that it was not powerful. At the very least, he could not detect any power of worship.

A grade-9 holy priest would be able to make use of the power of worship in other disciples in order to recharge himself. It would be just like grade-9 mages using minimal energy to cast low-level spells. This was because grade-9 mages were able to directly absorb the elements in the dimension to replenish their magic chords. The effect might not be significant, but it would still be able to prolong their fighting abilities.

Grade-9 holy priests treasured the power of worship greatly. It was a gift given by the Gods. The elderly holy priest would have been able to use divine protection for multiple hours without any care because there were millions of disciples on the Myers Mainland. Within these few hours, divine protection could be maintained at an optimal level.

It was different now. After entering this dimension of darkness, the divine protection could only be maintained by absorbing energy from himself. It would no longer be able to leverage energy from the millions of disciples.

“Old fellow, you can beg me to spare you. If you are willing to submit to me, I will spare your soul. You should know that demons have plenty of ways to torture souls.” Nailisi exerted mental pressure slowly, but surely. Her foot was still in pain, so she was in no rush to fight. If she returned to her original form, her foot would no longer be injured, but she would also have no fighting abilities left.

“Submit to you? What a pathetic little thing. What do you take the Gods for?!” The elderly priest did not attack immediately. He was analyzing the dimension, trying to find out what rule it was made of instead. If he could not find a way to leave, he would be stuck there forever even if he was able to kill the demon. Losing the support from the power of worship guaranteed that he would starve to death there eventually.

“God? What are Gods? The mages said it best. Gods are like vampires. They suck everything from living creatures then return them a little in a fake act of generosity, just like the banks of empires. Everyone saves their gold coins there for tens of years just to earn interest that is so low it is pathetic. On the other hand, these banks will use the gold coins for loans and busines. That is what Gods are like!”

“Foolish creature. Gods represent eternity!”

“Eternity? Hehe, in that case, the Goddess of Myers is eternal as well, right?”

The elderly priest did not know how to counter Nailisi’s question, so he could only say, “The Lord of Glory is the only true God.”

“The only true God? That’s interesting. In that case, why do you want to know about the Goddess of Myers’ temple? You wanted to loot it, didn’t you? She left behind quite a bit of treasure, which explains why I was able to advance into a devil!”

The elderly holy priest flipped through his book uneasily. This dimension was extremely solid. If he wanted to break it down, it was possible that he would have to do it with his life. This was a matter of courage. If he was unable to leave the dimension even if he sacrificed his life, his soul would be trapped there and he would not be able to go to heaven.

Nailisi was feeling uneasy as well. Ever since she entered the Twelve Notes of Purgatory, she could sense how powerful the book in the holy priest’s hands was. Without that book, the elderly holy priest would not have been able to continue using divine protection since it would use up the power of worship. Without the replenishments from the church altars and the disciples’ worship, divine protection would definitely be able to squeeze a holy priest’s energy dry.

After entering the Purgatory of Darkness, neither of them had attacked yet. Instead, they were just staring at each other in the dark. The holy priest would not be able to rely on his eyes while Nailisi would be able to sense every slight movement of her opponent without even using her eyes. In the Twelve Notes of Purgatory, Nailisi’s senses had expanded to every corner. In this dimension, nothing could be hidden from her.

When the holy priest and Nailisi suddenly vanished from the battlefield, there was little reaction from the demon army. The demons had been in the Twelve Notes of Purgatory before, so they knew exactly where Nailisi went. On the other hand, the iron knights of Bitter Water Prefecture were only focused on charging ahead into the enemy’s territory, so they did not have time to think about Nailisi.

Six regiments of heavy-armored knights charged towards the south amidst the demon army.

The two death mages knew about the twelve Notes of Purgatory as well, so they remained calm. They led more than four-hundred death knights to bring up the rear so that they could seek out the enemy’s soldiers to kill them and absorb their souls.

The demon army charged forward in waves. The opposing army was completely outnumbered on the battlefield.

The two grade-8 holy priests led more than one-thousand wardens in watching the battle from afar. They had a bad feeling about it. They could no longer sense the aura of the elderly holy priest. It was as if he had completely vanished from Myers Mainland.

After battling for so long, the demon army looked like they barely incurred any losses. On the other hand, the blood knights were easily slaughtered and trampled upon by the demon army and heavy-armored knights as if they were grass. This was because blood knights were not spirits of the dead and no one was around to command them anymore.

The army attacking Sanlian City consisted of only twenty-thousand men, but they still had the upper hand against an enemy of more than one-hundred-thousand men because of the situation they were in. The two grade-8 holy priests did not dare to activate their core power against the demon army after the elderly holy priest had disappeared. They were already thinking of retreating. After all, even if they were to be defeated, the responsibility would not fall on them.

The elderly holy priest was more powerful than the two of them combined. If the outcome of the battle could not be turned around even by the elderly holy priest, then it was close to impossible that they could do anything.

The width of the battlefield was less than ten miles and tens of thousands of people were tangled up in the madness of killing each other. The air stank of blood and gore. The two death mages were the happiest. The energy that they had absorbed was a few hundred times more than on a normal day. The battlefield would always be like heaven to death mages.

The only pity was that the corpses could not be used to create undead soldiers. The enemy soldiers had all been boosted by divine spells, so if they were to be turned into undead soldiers, they would disintegrate automatically, explode, or turn into ashes.

Even so, the death mages would still make use of the soul strength of those who had died to create a number of grade-1 vengeful souls. The blood knights would never be able to go to heaven even if they died fighting for the Holy See. Even though their souls had already been corrupted long ago, the death mages were still able to make full use of them.

Grade-1 vengeful souls were only able to deal damage to warriors below the level of swordmasters. The main purpose of their existence was to ensure that the death mages’ mental strength would always be full.

Nailisi stared at the elderly holy priest in the dark. The injury on her foot was slowly recovering and the huge bloody hole was already shrinking, leaving behind a hole in the metal war boots.

The elderly holy priest was unable to detect any loopholes in the Purgatory of Darkness with his senses. He had no choice but to take a risk. He flipped open the thick book in his hands and began to chant a prayer. Nailisi would never allow him to use any powerful divine spells. With her heavy shield in hand, she leapt over and smashed it into the ground with force.

“Death!” The elderly holy priest could sense Nailisi approaching and stopped chanting his prayers. Instead, he pointed at Nailisi with a finger. He knew that he would not be able to complete casting any powerful divine spells in time, so his main aim was to lure the demon closer to him. Only when the demon was near enough that the divine spell that was cast instantly would be at its most powerful. This was the same as magic spells.

He forgot, however, that Nailisi was now in her devil form. She had two heads and four arms. When she smashed the huge shield down, the divine protection stood steady and a hole appeared in the metal shield. The holy priest was unhurt. A beam of gray-white light shot out of his finger and hit one of the heads of the devil.

This head turned into ashes instantaneously. The gamble had paid off as one of the devil’s head had fallen. Nailisi could feel a tremble deep in her soul. Fortunately, she was able to sense which direction the old fellow was going to attack from, so the head that he had managed to shoot down was actually just a decoy.

The elderly holy priest looked like he had aged another decade. He could sense that the divine spell had worked. Suddenly, three huge devil palms had blocked off his paths of escape and each of them held a shining divine crystal.