Chapter 1529: Lightning (Part 2)
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Saleen definitely would not have acted right away. He needed to wait for the situation to stabilize. Furthermore, he had a suppressed Heretic God to deal with. He intended to use that god to train his lightning skills further. If he were to only be able to rely on equipment to cast lightning skills, taking out the Lord of Glory would have been more difficult.
It was also quite a pain that the Lord of Glory had left so many doubles behind, and leaving any one of them alive would invite trouble.
Killing the Lord of Glory was just the start. Saleen intended to wipe out all god creatures in the divine kingdom. That was not something that could be done in just a day or two. Such a genocide would probably require decades to see through.
The god creatures and the humans were on opposing sides, and Saleen had no choice. He chose to stay behind at the frontlines, getting ready to take on the Lord of Glory at any given moment. Guffen the frost dragon was required to take the Star Shuttle patrolling near the divine kingdom’s gates every day. With the frost dragon taking over guard duty, any high level angels that appeared occasionally were made short work of.
Guffen did not launch any aggressive attacks and simply harassed them constantly, giving Saleen time to do what he needed to do.
Saleen’s original plan was to first head to the East Sea. However, since he had acquired a level 18 divine persona and there was also the Heretic God’s power of the Source to work on, he became reluctant to leave his teacher’s side.
In that world, the only person that was more powerful than Saleen that Saleen was able to trust was Jason.
He lent his magic amplifier to Jason while Saleen took his time to work on the Heretic God’s divine persona in the Hall of Gods. Initially, he would not have been able to do so, but he discovered yet another trick to the Ring of Cosmos.
The divine persona of the Heretic God was submerged in Aqua Fulgur, which enabled Saleen to conjure balls of lightning in the Aqua Fulgur, using his soul power, to continuously bombard the divine persona, extracting the power of rules from it.
The balls of lightning would gain a bit of the Heretic God’s power of rules with every bombardment. While the process was slow, it was like reeling silk off of cocoons. The divine persona would eventually be emptied as the process went on.
On the other hand, the Heretic God was unable to do anything about it, and had to simply let Saleen do what he wanted with it.
Saleen had only conjured balls out of the Aqua Fulgur to bombard the divine persona with at the start. In later stages, he picked up an increasingly big number of complicated techniques, enabling him to attach Aqua Fulgur to lightning runes before stacking them together, forming complex balls of lightning.
Complexity with the balls of lightning had gotten increasingly terrifying, so much so that at the very end, Saleen was able to craft thunder dragons using the lightning runes on the balls. The thunder dragons coiled around each other, and the energy released from them caused the level 18 divine persona’s stability to falter.
Saleen followed up with attacks that were more intense on the divine persona, which in itself were flawless. Cracking up a level 18 divine persona was a task that even level 18 mages needed a lot of time to accomplish.
Saleen started up the magic array in the Hall of Gods, trying to cut down as much of the time needed as possible. Due to Nailisi having killed a large number of god creatures and refined massive amounts of divine crystals out of them, Saleen saw fit to just use the divine crystals to keep the magic array running, and that saved him a lot of high level magic nuclei.
Saleen’s stores of magic nuclei began to run rather short, so it was fortunate that the mages from Alchemy City showed up at the frontlines one after another, joining the fight. Saleen’s mages retreated, as the pressure at the moment was light.
Rafel and the Winged Skull were sent to the Oceanic Ice Block in order to hunt for more magic nuclei.
Saleen stayed within the Hall of Gods to perfect his lightning magic.
The Heretic God’s power of the Source was all stocked within the divine persona, which was not a good thing to do. However, if it were to leave the divine persona, all of its power of the Source would end up being absorbed by the lightning around it.
“How about we work together, mage?” The Heretic God took the risk and released a bit of power of the Source, trying to communicate with Saleen.
Saleen blasted that bit of power of the Source with a ball of lightning unhesitatingly, absorbing it into the ball lightning.
“Most of your powers were taken by Myers. What makes you think you can negotiate with me?” Saleen extracted the Heretic God’s power of the Source and began analyzing it.
The Heretic God was frustrated by the attack, but since Saleen actually talked, it saw no choice but to release another bit to communicate with Saleen. The mage’s attitude was obvious enough, and having a fair exchange would have been utterly impossible.
“Release me, and I shall tell you how to deal with a level 18 god.”
“Aren’t you a level 18 god yourself? Speaking of which, I’m going to reduce you to nothing soon enough.” Saleen did not absorb that bit of power of the Source of the Heretic God and took to chatting with it instead.
The Heretic God thought that it was worth a shot and replied immediately, “I had my powers sucked by Myers when I was critically injured, and I’d return to the pinnacle of level 18 in time. If you want to take her on, you’ll need my help.”
“Your help?” Saleen pondered for a bit and continued, “Your divine rules don’t allow you to comprehend concepts like friends. Everything that is not you, you are compelled to destroy.”
“That is just how things are eventually. I still need followers, and I still need a goal.” The Heretic God dared not play any tricks and told Saleen solid truths, in order to avoid rousing any suspicions.
“Hehe…” Saleen chuckled and released another ball of lightning, blasting the power of the Source completely.
“What are you doing, mage!?” The Heretic God asked furiously.
“Are you trying to negotiate with me? If so, I’ll make you pay for every line you say. Be direct, or you shall suffer considerable losses.” Saleen finished and released yet another ball of lightning, destroying the third whiff of power of the Source and absorbing it.
The Heretic God was exasperated. What he did right there and then was to simply use its desire to escape for his own benefit.
Furthermore, it was entirely possible that Saleen was lying, and that he had no intention of letting it go at all. If the Heretic God were to continue talking to the mage, it would only lose more of its power of the Source.
However, a mage like Saleen could not have comprehended just how massive its power of the Source was. If the Heretic God were to simply use its power of the Source for chatting, it would have been able to keep chatting for hundreds of years and still not see any noticeable drops.
A level 18 god, even when robbed of most of their power of the Source, would still have remaining stores that were beyond the comprehension of a level 15 mage.
The Heretic God continued to release bits of its power of the Source at that thought in order to continue to communicate with Saleen.
“Mage, I take it that you don’t want to see any gods appearing on Myers Mainland, yes?”
“Indeed.”
“I don’t want to see that either. My rules compel me to drive all living things to extinction, including spirits. I shall see to it that there is nothing left anywhere other than my own divine kingdom.”
“You sound normal for a god.”
“…”
“Mage, if you keep my divine persona intact and do not continue to attack it, I shall tell you the weakness of level 18 gods.”
“I know that. It’s the secret of the chaotic void.”
The Heretic God was surprised, but it continued, “The chaotic void still has star charts. I was able to get there because I acquired a star chart. Kill me, and you’ll never get something like that again.”
“No problem. I’m an astrologer. If push comes to shove, I’ll just advance my proficiency at astrology. I still have a level 18 Star Gathering Needle with me. Do you have any interests in trying it out?” Saleen said nonchalantly.
Saleen controlled the Aqua Fulgur using his soul power, and crafted a vast starry sky around the Heretic God’s divine persona.
The Heretic God was dumbfounded by what Saleen just pulled, and immediately regretted having divulged something that was so important. It had been only able to escape in the chaotic void back then because its pursuers were humans or gods, and none had been willing to get near that place.
It valued its star chart more than its own life, so it had long melded it with its power of the Source, making it unable to separate the chart from its being. If Saleen had asked for such a chart, it would have only needed to give Saleen a fake one, and no one would have been able to tell. The Heretic God was even capable of crafting magic blueprints that looked exactly the same as the one it had acquired back then.
However, seeing how Saleen crafting that starry sky around it, the Heretic God was able to immediately see the intricacies within, even though they were just constructs crafted using the power of Aqua Fulgur. That starry sky had very orderly rules. The distance between the stars and the trajectories of their movements were so precise that no one who did not know how such things worked would have been able to craft it.
The rules of the stars were just as intricate and profound as that of magic. Saleen claimed that he was an astrologer, but the Heretic God had not believed that initially. However, what it was seeing at the moment convinced it otherwise. If Saleen were an astrologer, he would have been able to extract the Heretic God’s memories once he was completely done. Even if the star chart acquired was blurry, there was still a possibility of finding the treasure in the depths of the stars.
That was where the source of the chaotic void lay. If he were to acquire such powers, Saleen would have been able to even kill a level 18 god.
The Heretic God dared not venture into such a place itself, but that was not to say that the astrologer would be the same. If Saleen were to acquire means above that of a level 15 astrologer, he would almost be able to get to the core of the chaotic void and acquire that location’s secrets.
“Heretic God, it’s about time I stop. The only reason I bothered talking to you was to absorb your power of the Source. Just give me some, and I’ll be able to calculate countless possibilities with it. You may be a level 18 god, but your rules are rather one-dimensional.” Saleen chuckled.
The Heretic God realized that it had fallen into Saleen’s trap. Saleen was only a level 15 mage, and from the Heretic God’s perspective, he would have never been able to deduce its weakness. However, Saleen had over a million enchanters working for him. Not even the frost dragon would have been able to beat a million enchanters doing calculations at the same time.
Furthermore, the enchanters had no need to worry about magic chord drain when doing such calculations. Under the huge magic net, the enchanters would only need to use their mental powers.
“You know that curses are pointless against me. I need time, Heretic God. If you’re willing to give me your divine persona, I’ll consider letting you keep a bit of your power of the Source, thus giving you a chance at resurrection.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“I need time, and I’m unwilling to keep going back and forth like this with you. You only have this one chance. If I fail on Myers Mainland, I will retreat, and the only thing I’d have left to do is to completely drain you. By then, your only value to me would be to serve as a piece of material for my equipment.”
“Let me think about it, mage.”
“Fine, go on and think.” Saleen did not continue to communicate with the Heretic God, cranking up the strengths of his attacks at the divine persona instead. Electric snakes, thunder hawks, lightning ravens, and thunder dragons were used to conjure hundreds of thousands balls of lightning, which all blasted at the last line of defense of the Heretic God. What Saleen meant to do was obvious—if he were to succeed in breaking the divine persona, then there would be no need for further negotiations at all.
He had no intentions of giving the Heretic God too much time to think. The longer he let that god think, the greater the possibility of changes happening.