Badge in Azure

Chapter 981: Playing with Fire (Part 1)

Chapter 981: Playing with Fire (Part 1)

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

Saleen reached out with his hand and took the Divine Baby Girl’s head, throwing it into the dimension stone, where everything inside was cut off from the outside world. As such, she had no more tricks left to play.

Furthermore, Saleen even threw the Star Gathering Needle into the girl’s divine fire! And... Everyone knew that a level 19 Star Gathering Needle was more than enough to suppress a weakened divine fire!

Saleen turned around and looked at Nailisi, who was on the ground. Nailisi gritted her teeth and clung to the ground, while her body wiggled and she returned to her imp form. While both physical forms had nothing to do with each other, they shared the same soul nonetheless. As such, when the Divine Baby Girl threw her down, it had severely injured both her soul and her devil form.

Saleen was regretting this immensely, as he knew that now that her soul was injured, it would impede her growth. Furthermore, there was no telling if Nicholas was dead or alive. Moreover, that adventure of his had caused two of his followers to be injured, and that weighed heavily on Saleen’s mind.

“Nailisi, how are you feeling?” he asked, clearly concerned.

Nailisi wore a forced smile as she said, “I’m fine, master.”

Saleen looked at the altar on the other side of the crack and started to ask, “Can you...”

“I can, master,” Nailisi said, completed his thought as she went and picked up the weapon that she had thrown on the ground before putting it away in her bracelet. She then went up to the crack, stepped onto the seawater instead of the solid ground, and headed toward the altar.

In that moment, Saleen felt Nailisi’s pain. He even felt Nailisi using her own life force to repair her soul. As the soul bond between him and Nailisi was damaged, he knew that Nailisi could have simply shrugged herself free from his control.

Saleen felt very bitter inside. He saw that piles of level nine creatures were sprawled all over the place, yet he was in no mood to pick them up. Instead, he returned right away to the magic tower.

When he got there, he saw that Nicholas had already sat up and was leaning against the wall and panting heavily. It was clear that he wanted to say something, but Saleen waved his hand and stopped him.

He then pulled the Divine Baby Girl’s head out of the dimension stone and asked, “Nicholas, can this be of any use to you?”

Saleen looked at Nicholas’ wrinkled face and refrained from taking out some magic liquid to heal him. After all, his was not the kind of damage that magic liquid would have been able to do anything about.

Nicholas was dumbfounded. What lied within that head was the most previous divine fire, after all, from which all powers of that Divine Baby Girl had been derived! Thus, the value of that divine fire far surpassed the entire body of an angel of fear. In Saleen’s perspective, that would have served well as being something to trade with those ancient souls in that Cemetery of Heroes.

“I understand.” Saleen smiled and said. Even though Nicholas had not uttered a word in reply, Saleen could read his face perfectly. “I can’t craft a Blood Soul Tower, so we’ll have to wait for Nailisi to return. Hopefully she can help you.”

As Nicholas heard what Saleen said, something welled up inside him. It was not exactly a feeling of being deeply touched, but was one of a comforting warmth at the very least.

“My liege...” Nicholas began to thank him, murmuring weakly.

“I know.” Saleen did not let Nicholas continue.

The contract between him and Nicholas was rendered null. This was due to his soul having exceeded the limit of level nine. He would not have been able to sense something changing so deep within his soul with such clarity otherwise.

It was about half an hour later when Nailisi returned. She had gone to sweep along the outside of the tower. That was so typical of her personality. She would always put her own troubles aside, regardless of how messy those troubles were. Similarly, she would never let herself be troubled when it was time to be happy!

While her soul sustained serious damage and her lineage would not be able to evolve for a very long time, she knew that the second space of the 12 Notes of First Purgatory had been perfected. Thus, she was confident that she would not have been rendered utterly helpless if she were to encounter a half-human, half-god creature as she was making her errands outside.

As she returned, Nailisi’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets when she saw Saleen taking out the Divine Baby Girl’s head. She was utterly shocked!

“Nailisi, split this thing between yourselves, then help Nicholas craft a new Blood Soul Tower. I’ll get him a Scepter of the Fallen,” Saleen said as he tossed the head to Nailisi.

The Divine Baby Girl’s physical body was not powerful, and it was actually not all that different from those of her believers. What was truly precious lied within her head. There were divine crystals and divine fire within it, which would have been enough to make up for all of Saleen’s losses.

Saleen left Nailisi alone while he silently took out the few divine branches that he had left with him and crafted a Scepter of the Fallen for Nicholas. Nailisi then said, while having her back toward Saleen, “Master, that thing about the Three Kings...”

Saleen had not recalled that he still had three scepters that had been left by the Three Kings with him. All of those were great resources, which had such a high-quality hardness that even his Water Flame would have trouble destroying them. In fact, one would only need to fix a Blood Soul Tower upon one of them, and a perfect Scepter of the Fallen would be complete!

The scepters of the Three Kings had nothing within them. However, this was not an issue, as what gave the Three Kings their power was the broken jade that was buried deep within their soul flames.

“Alright, in that case, let’s go!” Saleen took out a scepter and handed it to Nailisi. He then took control of the Magical Element Tower and caused it to hover above the huge crack.

Currently, they were within the very depths of the underground. When the Divine Baby Girl had struggled to break free from her chains, she had caused the entire templed to collapse, making it easy for Saleen to escape.

The Magical Element Tower rose slowly, floating in seawater as it went. Saleen did not want to stay in that pile of rubble any longer, even if they could have found many construction materials worth taking within it.

At that moment, Nailisi pulled at Saleen’s sleeve. Saleen acknowledged her and took out a bottle of bone marrow from the angel of fear, then handed it to her. Nailisi had used up all of her own without telling anyone, having merged them with the purgatory of the fallen.

Her soul still hurt, and as golden electrical sparks flashed on her finger, Saleen was startled. He had never seen Nailisi use a skill like Lightning Protection. He was relieved to discover that Nailisi was capable of controlling electricity, and he secretly congratulated himself for not having gotten on Nailisi’s bad side in the past.

As a layer of green energy wrapped around the Divine Baby Girl’s head, Saleen’s blue electricity was wrapped around the outside of that layer of green energy.

Everything was crackling with energy. At that time, Saleen knew that only Nailisi would be able to handle the head, as no one else could even touch it.

Nailisi felt very touched. The injury she had sustained in her soul was worse than Saleen knew. With the head of that Divine Baby Girl, however, she would at least be able to heal her wounds. As for the matter of whether she would be able to evolve, that would have to wait for a later date.

Divine fire was not only useful to the gods, and Nailisi had learned what Saleen had learned back in the Cemetery of Heroes. When humans were conquering the gods, they were doing it for themselves.

Divine fire was something that was capable of strengthening one’s soul, boosting one’s power, and extending one’s lifespan. As for a divine persona, that was useful for crafting powerful equipment, and the body of a god possessed only the highest grade materials.

Saleen knew that it would have been akin to wasting 99 percent of its energies for the divine fire to be used by Nailisi in such ways. However, Nailisi’s injuries needed healing, and there was nothing else that he would have been able to do.

So, Nailisi extended her hand to Saleen and said, “Ring of Gifts.”

Saleen then handed Nailisi the ring. She took the ring, then pressed it to the head’s forehead.

She did not fear the electricity that Saleen had left on it. This because the electricity was so weak that it would not have even been able to compare with the golden electricity that was currently wrapped around her hand.

When the Ring of Gifts was pressed on the forehead, that layer of green energy was absorbed by the ring in an instant. The layer of green energy that was on the surface of the Divine Baby Girl’s head was a power of the nature goddess, which meant that there was no difference between the two.

Furthermore, that energy was massive, and it had at prevented her injuries from worsening. When Nailisi was done absorbing all of the energy with the Ring of Gifts, the bloodied mess of a head within it revealed itself.

Saleen then took the Ring of Gifts and searched it for a bit. The space within the ring was filled with the nature goddess’ divine power.

This meant that the Ring of Gifts’ true purpose was probably to store divine power instead of being used as a piece of space equipment. After all, there was no way a piece of space equipment that had been crafted by a goddess would have so little space within it.

After the divine power that had been protected the head was absorbed, the head began rotting. Nailisi’s golden electricity-covered hand then reached for the eye sockets of the head, causing the cracked socket to burst.

Nailisi’s finger then started to carefully pull out the Star Gathering Needle. By this time, the divine fire that was left on the needle had almost dissipated.

Nailisi muttered in a complex demonic tongue. Her body was no longer able to control Ultimate Shapeshifting, so she returned to her imp form. At the same time, tiny demonic runes flowed around her sharp, pointy nails. They were stacked in layers and numbered in the thousands.

She carefully cut the divine fire with her nails, which made it even weaker until it became two mere wisps of fire, which were smaller than the tip of her nail. Nailisi’s nails were completely melted by this point, yet she felt no pain.

It was a very difficult task to handle divine fire, and as she continued to do so, it went on to burn her fingers. However, Nailisi still felt no pain.

In actual fact, divine fire was the core of life force for the gods. Hence, even if her entire body was burned to the ground, she would not have felt any pain at all. This was a talent that was bestowed upon the gods, the power to burn all life.

Divine fire was also something that would have been able to spark again, as long as it was not entirely snuffed out. Moreover, that Divine Baby Girl was just a pseudogod. As this meant that she was a being that was lower than a demigod, that divine fire severely lacked the support of rules, and as such, it ended up being cut open by Nailisi via demon magic.

The price she had paid for all of this was simply a finger. A finger was something a demon could regrow easily enough, as long as its food supply was ample.

The only troubling thing about this was that the divine fire was still a level 13 existence, while Nailisi was only level nine, which meant that there was the possibility of recoil by the divine fire during the absorption process. If Nailisi ended up being swallowed by that divine fire, then the Divine Baby would probably transform into a new shadow.

A shadow of that Divine Baby would be at least a level ten being nonetheless. Then, if it was to run amok in the magic tower, there was little that Saleen would be able to do in order to deal with it.

Nailisi used the crudest, simplest means to go about her work. She let the cut divine fire suspend in the air. She then stuck it with the Star Gathering Needle and stirred the matter vigorously.

As she did so, she found a microscopic particle that was hidden within it, which was the core of that divine fire, the dormant will of the Divine Baby Girl. The very reason Nailisi was cutting the divine fire was to preserve that core in its complete form.

After all, no matter how much gratitude she felt toward Nicholas, she still wanted to save the best things for her own use. She would not be a proper demon otherwise.

She continued prodding with the needle again. As Nailisi was unable to control her senses, she was also unable to find the location of the core of that divine fire. So, even though she continued looking for the core, she had no luck finding it.

Finally, after she had poked around for about an hour, the needle coincidentally stuck into the core of the divine fire. The core instantly imploded violently as it was trying to avoid the needle’s attack.

But, soon after the tip of the Star Gathering Needle touched the core, the implosion of the space within the divine fire was forcefully halted, as if a bubble had burst. That same moment, Nailisi heard a clear pop.

The divine fire had bloated out all of a sudden, like a level ten magic spell was bursting. The constant temperature within the Magical Element Tower rose exponentially, and the clothes on all three of them were severely burned. Saleen clumsily threw an uncut level 12 magic nucleus into the magic power furnace, and only then did the temperature within the tower stop rising.

Nailisi stuck out her tongue like a child, while squeezing the bloated divine fire. The core of the divine fire was broken, and the golden electricity that was around her hand was no longer in danger of being burned by the divine fire.