Chapter 1473: Soul Armor (Part 1)
“Well then, Rafel. What kind of creature is this, and how do I ta it?” The only thing Saleen about that lifeform is that it had a weak soul before it was hatched.
“Technically, the creature wouldn’t serve as a steed but as equipnt, called soul armor, for steeds. The tal God had a hydra serving as his steed. When used in conjunction with soul armor, it provided additional strength to fortify him in battles against level-18 gods.”
Rafel impressed Saleen with her explanations of a soul armor’s qualities.
That creature could only have been born in the void and would only develop a soul when exposed to countless streams of energy. What Saleen held in his hand then was not an egg but a shell covering a dinsional space.
He had heard about the hydra, a level-18 creature of low intelligence that was unsuitable for use with equipnt. That was why it never confronted level-18 beings. When clad with the soul armor, however, it was reputed to fight ably against level-18 gods. This ant that its powers were boosted to match those of a god.
After all, level-18 gods were beings that contained terrifying equipnt in their hands.
After pondering the situation, Saleen concluded that he did not need a steed. As a mage, he had the ans to go wherever he wanted as long as he had powers of the elents at his disposal.
“The Thunder Dragon Bangle,” Rafel reminded Saleen.
“I have 24 of them!” Saleen reminded her in return.
“When a hydra runs amok, it splits into nine separate entities. A while back, the tal God took advantage of that to kill a great number of gods at the sa level,” Rafel answered.
Saleen sensed a tinge of sorrow in her voice but not an ounce of longing for her god.
Rafel hadn’t forgotten about her god. Rather, she accepted the reality and finality of his passing.
Saleen wondered...if I die, will Nailisi forget one day too?
When Saleen fell silent, Rafel changed the subject. “My lord, how about we just hatch it here? I think the ruins are done for.”
“The ruins are done for?”
“Definitely. You’ll only know for sure after forcing that thing to hatch. Pick a skull of a god of the highest level, my lord, and let the egg consu it.”
“Very well.” Saleen did as instructed. He picked up a piece of the most precious skull to be had that ca from a level-18 god. That god was thoroughly dead and its remains were incomplete. The skull was the only thing remained; its inner power was not sothing he could have worked on. Saleen gingerly wrapped the skull in Water Fla and placed it next to the tal egg.
The tal God’s frail soul had guts that were disproportionate to its current status. In one shot it sucked all the god’s mighty energies into the egg. Suddenly the tal egg cracked open, it’s parts looking like a cross between shark teeth and tightly packed razors.
Crack! When the thing opened its mouth, every tooth crumbled.
Rafel elaborated from the sidelines, “Soul armors are beings that conjure new weapons according to the material they consu.”
The tal egg contracted as if it was confirming Rafel’s words. New tal teeth ford when it cracked again. When those teeth chomped down on the food beside it, they made a shallow dent before breaking again.
“The power absorbed was inadequate, preventing it from conjuring harder weapons.” Rafel was patient. When the tal God was forcing the soul armor to hatch, she just happened to be next to her god and observed those changes.
Everything proceeded according to play while the skull was wrapped in Water Fla. Saleen sensed the power of that creature, also known as the soul armor. His Water Fla could do nothing to those broken teeth.
It was a matter of ti before that level-18 god’s soul was devoured, as the tal God was absorbing the energies in the remains while attacking.
“Working on soul armors is easy. Those creatures are parasitic, so you won’t have to do anything if one of them bumps into special creatures like the thunder dragons. The soul armor will make its choice on its own, and the thunder dragons will not separate from their host until it dies.”
The 24 thunder dragons took to the air and circled the tal egg under Rafel’s instruction.
The tal egg rattled violently as if it sensed the thunder dragon’s unique powers. Level-13 thunder dragons were too weak to take on a demigod; however, when there were 24 of them and their souls were interconnected, advancent was a real possibility. The lightning rules were irresistible to the soul armor.
After being tempted by the 24 thunder dragons, the tal egg sped up its hatching process.
Rafel foresaw that happening a while ago, so she left the tower early. Saleen ca out of the tower too but was still concerned about the thunder dragons. He reminded himself of how weak the soul of that tal egg was and realized that regardless of how powerful the soul armor might be, its soul would never rise to terrifying levels.
The reason is, it was a parasite: The creature it latched onto would have thought of ways to protect its soul too.
Technically speaking, the relationship was a symbiotic one.
Saleen saw a mystical side to living beings on that soul armor. It might have been able to consu powerful creatures because of its powers, but if it encountered a creature proficient in attacks on the soul, its days would be numbered.
Thunder dragons were not as powerful as soul armor, but they did possess lightning skills, the best thing for protecting the soul. Any skills related to soul-control and soul-destruction would have had their powers more than halved before lightning skills. Breaking protection of lightning would have required ten to 100 tis the usual cost of doing so.
Shortly after Saleen left the tower, it began to shake. Then it crumbled to the ground. Saleen saw all 24 thunder dragons take to the air. Each dragon had an additional layer of scales on its body, so different from the thunder dragons.
The 24 thunder dragons flew toward Saleen and nodded before heading straight to the ground.
The thunder dragons began to eat voraciously, right under Saleen’s baffled eyes. The hovering ruin in the void was a tal structure. The thunder dragons’ rate of consumption grew increasingly high, so much so that they eventually bit through the one kiloter-thick place.
Saleen saw another layer of armor form on the thunder dragons. The color slowly turned from transparent to grey and then dark grey. The more tal the thunder dragons ate, the darker the armor beca.
The ruin in the void looked unsightly from how the thunder dragons ate it, and they had only been eating for half a day.
The thunder dragons’ teeth turned black. Saleen did not know how to test their sharpness. That soul armor had no doubt chewed and digested the skull of the level-18 god. The thunder dragons and the soul armor had already lded, so the dragons had inherited such powers.
The soul armor would not have been able to advance otherwise.
“Well done!” Saleen saw the thunder dragons begin to get picky about what they ate. They didn’t bother biting any inferior tallic things left in the place. When called, the thunder dragons circled in the void before returning to the Thunder Dragon Bangle resting on Saleen’s wrist.
Rafel drew her sword and swung it at Saleen’s Thunder Dragon Bangle.
Being a mage, Saleen had good reflexes, yet Rafel was unable to evade that sudden attack.
A dent appeared on the edge of Rafel’s sword. That longsword, which was made from attribute-less granules, seed as if it was about to break.
Saleen knew what Rafel was up to when he was attacked. If unprepared, he couldn’t activate his territorial abilities. The Thunder Dragon Bangle was taking the brunt of Rafel’s attack all of its own.
Looking down, Saleen noticed a slight gash on the bangle, the result of the bangle deliberately concaving when attacked, thereby dissipating the force of the attack. It quickly reverted to its original form.
Rafel’s sword was not sothing to be trifled with. After Saleen acquired that vast wealth of the cetery of the giant, he ard Rafel to the teeth. The sword’s sharpness eclipsed any weapons Saleen’s subordinates wielded. Its hardness exceeded that of any other tal but rhenium gold.
If such a resilient sword were dented in battle, the damage could only co from the bangle’s defensive attack.
Saleen damaged the weapons of others by using Thundering Sound skills alone, but that could only be done when he was of a higher level and when the power difference was obvious. Rafel was only one level below him. Though that strike was an all-out attack, it still failed to damage the bangle.
From then on, the glaring weakness of his thunder dragons’ low defense was compensated for.
“My lord, have the thunder dragons start consuming more strong materials, such as the remains of gods, tals of high strength, magical pharmaceuticals and so on. Those things will bolster the soul armor’s capabilities.”
Saleen swiftly took out so 12-dinsional tals and fed them to the thunder dragons, letting them have their ti with it. He then added so wrought gold, Mythril, the remains of the god creatures, dragon crystals, divine persona fragnts and so on. Speaking of hardness, even though divine persona fragnts eclipsed that of the remains of gods by a considerable margin, the thunder dragons chewed them up like candy. That was very reassuring to Saleen.
Likewise, Rafel was able to relax after Saleen took out so 12-dinsional tals. Soul armors were capable of revolt. After being fed such strong tals, they displayed their utmost loyalty to Saleen. No one would have succeeded in tempting them to betray him or the thunder gods. Not even the skills of the gods would have been able to do this.
Saleen took a look at the hideous ruins and said, “Rafel, what do you want with them?”
“I want to advance but lack so rare tals that coincidentally are found here,” Rafel answered.
She could not advance simply by consuming the remains of gods alone. The barrier between level-13 and level-14 might not a big deal to humans. To her, however, it was an insurmountable obstacle.
One requirent was to master higher-level tal rules on her own without guidance from her god.
“We’ll think of sothing.” Saleen did not promise anything. He knew Rafel might be making excuses. The ruin in the void was almost destroyed, and it was possibly sothing left by the tal God all those years ago. Though the tal God was not a mage, that was not to say he couldn’t have found mages to help set up a hall like that in the void.
Rafel changed her mind after finding the soul armor. In other words, she ca to value him more than the mories of her god.
The thought filled Saleen with sadness.
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