Badge in Azure

Chapter 1346: Hammer (Part 1)

Those two abominations wore golden armor and seemed to have grown scales all over their bodies. Their armor lacked visors, revealing the abominations’ greenish-black skin and short tusks.

Gosh, they look hideous!

The Winged Skull evaluated the level-10 abominations and found that the higher the level, the more closely an abomination resembled a human. Those two were level-10 abominations, and they appeared to be almost human.

Speaking of which, spirits weren’t considered good-looking, but the Winged Skull’s aesthetic was that of a human. While the Winged Skull was quick to judge others’ appearances, it never once considered how it looked.

The length of the Reaper Scythe grew yet again. Its skill was greatly augmented by the souls of the 1,000 abominations it had absorbed. A huge black crescent moon formed on the blade and spun in the air while heading straight for the abomination on the left.

It split the creature in half down the middle, the two pieces falling to the ground. That abomination’s powerful armor was pathetically weak before Reaper Moon. The wings behind the Winged Skull flapped frantically after launching the attack, coming before another abomination without missing a beat.

That abomination smirked coldly as an enormous flame appeared before it. The Winged Skull charged straight into the flames.

Among the abominations’ unique skills, Flames of Hell was the one they were most versed in.

It was therefore hardly surprising that its comrade had died: the Reaper Moon had become way too powerful after absorbing all those souls. Its skill continued to fly nearly 1,000 meters after killing that level-10 abomination. Not a single one in its path survived.

That Reaper Moon wasn’t part of the Winged Skull; it was a capability of the equipment. After that attack, the Winged Skull had to kill tens of level-10 abominations before it could be used again.

After all, the souls of weak abominations were of no use whatsoever.

The Winged Skull felt itself plunging swiftly into another space as it charged into the flames. A safe zone several meters wide formed naturally around the Reaper Scythe. The Flames of Hell were unable to penetrate the weapon’s range of attack.

Countless fire elemental creatures appeared with the Flames of Hell. The ones that were not far away eyed the Winged Skull: Of course they were itching to attack—but they did not dare!

The Winged Skull chuckled: The God of the Underworld was a potent being in any versions of hell, but the will of the Reaper Scythe alone was enough to repel any hellish creature, unless it was just another God of the Underworld.

The Flames of Hell had originally been a dominant skill. If beings were plunged inside, they would not only have to fend off literal flames of hell that could never be extinguished but also have to battle the creatures in the fire.

The difficulty was that the flames couldn’t get near the Winged Skull at all. The creatures of the flames resorted to looking at the scene from afar.

As the pupils in the Winged Skull’s eyes turned, the blood-soul towers appeared. All the fire elemental creatures were frightened enough to run for their lives once the blood-soul towers were seen.

That space was a created one. Those creatures could have been resurrected as they were killed, enabling them to keep tangling with the enemy. That space had boundaries; it wasn’t so vast.

A specter of the Winged Skull on the blood-soul towers was enlarged over 100 times, and a booming voice singing its praises echoed from the blood-soul towers:

You are a great being. You are the unending light. Darkness is your disguise and you are our god, our will, our everything…

The souls killed by the Winged Skull were first absorbed by the blood-soul towers when the Reaper Scythe wasn’t around. Other than those two powerful souls, there were hundreds of thousands of other common souls in the Winged Skull’s blood-soul towers.

After being wiped clean of their memories, they knew one thing only: the Winged Skull was their everything. They sang its praises around the clock, imbuing it with even more power.

After the power from the blood-soul towers was unleashed, another Reaper Moon appeared on the Reaper Scythe.

The Winged Skull turned its eyes at a single direction after the Reaper Moon was conjured before unleashing the skill without a care.

The sea of flames was cut in half. The abomination that cast Flames of Hell sensed that the flames were cut apart as soon as the Winged Skull entered it. A huge crescent moon flew out and bisected that abomination.

Its soul was directly absorbed into the Reaper Scythe. There was no escape.

The Winged Skull took one step forward after the flames were broken.

Sighing, it thought to itself…if only I could master the skill, they could have controlled Reaper Moon’s flight until it dissipated. The Reaper Moon cut down untold numbers of abominations as it continued its flight before ramming into the stone wall, stopping only after shooting over 100 meters into the wall.

After seeing those two level-10 abominations die, the remaining abominations no longer barricaded the Winged Skull. Instead, they charged at the Winged Skull.

Rafel was too powerful. Because the abominations were never ones to pick on someone their own size, they chose the Winged Skull, thinking the skeleton was an easy target. How wrong they were.

Snickering again, the Winged Skull appeared with a huge meteor hammer in its other hand.

It had a diameter of six meters. When used by giants, the weapon looked puny, but the Winged Skull was a little more than two meters tall. How ridiculous it looked to see someone that short dragging around such a huge ball connected to a long chain.

But appearances were deceiving: as the Winged Skull began hurling the meteor hammer, the weapon’s long chain acted like an extension of it arm.

Even if the Winged Skull wasn’t so competent in close combat, few would have been able to stand in the way of something that big being flung around. Moreover, that was still a magic weapon, and there were six dragon crystals embedded within, forged into a compound magic array.

The function of that magic array was to imbue the weapon with bloodstones.

A huge trench was carved between the weapon and the abominations. No being was able to stay in one piece if it got in the way of that huge head being swept. Be it the abominations or the devices found in the underground city, all were quickly destroyed by the huge meteor hammer.

Rafel reveled in the sight of it all.

That was the skill of the array, like her Metal Storm that could tear everything to shreds within its range of attack. The true meaning of war lay with inflicting lethal damage in a wide area.

If her god had still been around, Rafel would have been able to cast tens of such skills. She would have destroyed those abominations in minutes.

Seeing the Winged Skull begin to eliminate the abominations out there, she stood guard at the edge of the black vortex and hurled her spears like bolts of lightning, breaking the black vortex again and again with her weapon.

Every time the black vortex was destroyed, it exploded, killing hundreds abominations in the process.

Rafel could suppress the way the abominations were emerging in an instant; however, her golden eyes peered outside and saw through layers of obstacles, finding over 100 vortexes like that in the underground city.

Even though the abominations had only attacked the city’s outskirts, they conjured a large numbers of portals. Things there were very different from then on in Highland City, as that portal had been a naturally occurring one.

The portals found in the underground city were being opened by powerful beings in the abomination plane instead. The narrow pathways would not have continued to expand. But then again, given their enormous numbers, the forces in the underground city were stretched thin and incapable of retaliating.

The Winged Skull’s huge meteor hammer was blocked by a blade wielded by a level-10 abomination. Before that abomination had time to start feeling smug, the weapon’s head exploded.

The force shot out from the magic patterns of the meteor hammer and inflicted damage greater than that of Wind Blades.

Bloodstones was expelled in the most focused ways between the magic patterns that were etched for one sole purpose: acceleration. The shockwaves from the explosion were swiftly turned into high-speed yet narrow air currents.

It was a force that would have eclipsed the sword aura of golden grand sword masters. The abomination had a stunned expression on its face as it body was sliced to pieces.

Shock was Rafel’s reaction. She recalled Saleen crafting a weapon like that for her as well but took it as little more than a joke: such weapons were typically used by beings below level-9 who knew nothing but brute force.

From the way things looked now, even if her meteor hammer lacked such force, it would have nonetheless had similar functions. Saleen never pulled any punches when crafting weapons for his people.

It seemed paradoxical to her now, as she had always taken him to be a pacifist.

A pacifistic mage had a knack for creating crazy equipment, for that’s how humans seemed to operate. A smile appeared in Rafel’s eyes at that the thought of that.

While the two of them were powerless to stop everything that came their way, they still had fun fighting side by side.

The Winged Skull’s meteor hammer kept generating explosions. After the bloodstones within exploded and the force shot out from between the magic patterns, the burst of air currents cracked the hardest, most resilient armors within several meters.

Not even magic armors could withstand the cutting power of the air currents.

Rafel had seen enough. She switched the blade shield out with a meteor hammer over ten meters long. She then swung it around in an experimental fashion.

The outcome did not disappoint: Numerous internal explosions took place within her weapon as well, bursting forth from between the magic patterns. The burst of air currents cut the abominations into pieces.

Things really had just gotten easier!

What Rafel didn’t know was that those weapons had been crafted by Saleen; the meteor hammer, however, was the Winged Skull’s brainchild.

That Winged Skull’s thought patterns, which were similar to those of mages, were capable of Spirit Alchemy after all.

With those two meteor hammers being swung, no abominations in the hall could say in one piece for long.

In frustration, Rafel quickly discovered that her Devil Possession Armor could not offer protection against the sharp air currents. If she wasn’t careful wielding the meteor hammer, she would have ended up injuring herself.

The Winged Skull’s armor, on the other hand, seemed able to defend against the air currents.

Rafel took time out to examine the Winged Skull’s armor. The outer layer of the armor was made of crystal and was packed tightly with magic patterns inside. Nothing significant was found, but when the air currents hit the armor, Rafel finally understand what happened.

The crystal layer on the outside shattered here and there when it met the air currents. The shattering blocked the air currents’ cutting power. It was not too difficult for something as hard as crystals to stop air-current attacks after they broke apart.

The magic patterns on the inner layer then conjured new crystal plates to replace the broken ones.

This type of armor also kept growing on its own. The Winged Skull could wield the meteor hammer with impunity since it had worn one such armor. The weapon could not distinguish friend from foe.

If the weapon’s head crashed into the Winged Skull, it would have fallen apart just the same.