Badge in Azure

The five-hundred wardens clad in black armor were all fanatic believers. These people had varying abilities, with the weakest being a beginner swordmaster. In order to capture Lex, the inquisition had deployed the strongest people they could recruit at the highest speed, but they were still one step behind.

Back at the Stone Statue Castle, a patrol team from Tanggulasi’s second-tier army had discovered Lex’s tracks and reported them immediately. The intelligence could not be confirmed, so the inquisition only deployed a black deacon. Lex’s team was traveling too quickly, so the black deacon did not find anything. At this point in time, the Agares family had received news that Bifano was in trouble.

The Agares family leaked information about Lex’s movements. At the periphery of the pink army’s base. Men from the Agares family discovered Lex and her party, but Bifano’s army was nowhere to be seen. Due to an intelligence error and miscommunication, the people guarding the periphery of the swamp also did not stop Lex.

Once these men initiated contact with the family, it was discovered that Bifano had already sent out a distress signal.

Lex had managed to escape through this crevice. By the time everyone reacted, she and Saleen had already arrived at the perimeter of the Purgatory Desert. The Agares family immediately deployed people to enter the swamp, but the temple’s entrance could not be located. Bifano no longer transmitted information, so they knew that something bad had happened to him.

Five-thousand elites and the first son of the Grand Duke of Titan had died, this was a massive loss. Lex had correctly predicted the actions of the Agares family, they intentionally leaked information to the Tanggulasi Empire.

The inquisition then followed up by dispatching Black William. Black William only brought along one-thousand blood knights and a few assistants for the trip. The imperial capital of the Tanggulasi Empire was in a lot of trouble, so the upper management of the Holy See did not leave. In the end, Black William got tricked by Saleen. By the time wardens from the inquisition arrived, they could only find some remnants of Lex.

The disciples of the three head inquisitors held the rank of adjudicators in the inquisition. It was a rank just inferior to an inquisitor. They were the most able assistants to the head inquisitors, and were groomed to be their successors.

The weakest out of the six of them was a grade-7 professional; Black William. The other five were all grade-8 professionals. The fact that the inquisition deployed such a powerful person meant that they looked up to Lex. Even though a holy master’s offensive power was lower than that of a mage, this statement only applied when a holy master did not have any equipment and was at the same grade as the mage.

Once a holy master’s grade was superior to a mage, they would still possess overwhelming power.

Number two adjudicator Delase and number four adjudicator Fanyin were grade-8 holy masters. They were already absolute high level powers in the Holy See. When they saw that the number five adjudicator, who owned a partial godly weapon,was killed, they became wary.

Black William was a smiling tiger, he was ruthless and had many tricks up his sleeve. If he used the partial godly weapon, neither of them would be his match. Judging by the marks left behind by the battle, Black William was killed in a single move, it would be strange for Delase and Fanyin not to be fearful.

They did not know that Saleen did not even give Black William a chance to wield the partial godly weapon. If Black William used that partial godly weapon, Saleen could still have killed him, but Saleen would also have died or sustained serious injuries.

Five-hundred wardens paved the way ahead. The word “warden” was just their label, they were the backbone power of the inquisition. Their powers were similar to that of the guards protecting the Tanggulasi emperor.

The wardens forged ahead cautiously. The people walking at the very front pointed their lances downwards. They were oracles who possessed mighty mental strength, so they could detect any approaching danger.

The speed of progress was very low, but Delase and Fanyin never rushed their subordinates. They simply followed behind slowly. This group of people traveled in this manner until deep into the night when the temperature got horrifyingly low. The two of them then allowed the wardens to come to a halt.

The starlight in the sky was dim while the desert was black. The lifeless taste of the air almost drove these people, who had had close shaves with death, crazy. No magic beasts emerged to attack them, even the most renowned sand scorpion was nowhere to be seen. The more quiet it was, the more psychological pressure everyone felt.

The Purgatory Desert was not named to frighten people. Before it became a forbidden land, countless adventurers had died in it.

“Let’s set up camp.” Feeling that the wardens were very exhausted, Fanyin decided to bring it up to Delase.

“Okay.” Even before Delase’s voice faded away, the wardens at the front began screaming frantically.

“Sand scorpions!”

“No need to yell!” Delase admonished, and there was no more chatter. In this pitch black night, hundreds of colossal sand scorpions had gathered. These sand scorpions were not smaller than a washbasin like how the myths had depicted them, they were actually bigger than a wheel. This was not including the three-yard long tails the sand scorpions had.

“Damn it, stay together, don’t fall behind!” Delase and Fanyin wielded their equipment at the same time. In the face of hundreds of sand scorpions, they were not confident of limiting the number of casualties.

The sand scorpions swayed their tails. At the end of their tails was a bone thorn which gave off a frosty glow. This bone thorn had unparalleled toxicity, and as long as it drew blood, it would kill a person in half a second.

Lex and her party had also ran into trouble. Even though they traveled slowly, their speed was still several times more than that of the wardens who walked on foot. Her team first met the sand scorpions, but this batch of sand scorpions was small in size. In two hours’ time, the ten swordmasters had killed all of them. After cracking the skulls of the sand scorpions, they only obtained level-3 magic nuclei. These magic nuclei had unmatched pureness, Lex had never seen a magic nucleus with better quality than theirs.

This made Lex and Saleen come to realize a serious problem. There were no plants in the Purgatory Desert. In the knowledge base of a mage, when magic beasts preyed on one another, there had to be a humongous basic community. This community usually fed on plants for survival. The sand scorpions were also obviously evolved magic beasts. It must be noted that the elements were in some kind of chaos in the Purgatory Desert. Other than Saleen and Lex, the rest of the mages who left the magic chariot could hardly cast a spell stably.

The magic nucleus of a sand scorpion was abnormally pure in order to adapt to the desert’s environment. No matter how one looked at it, the environment of this desert could not support too much life.

Saleen and Lex were not afraid of facing individual powerful magic beasts, they were fearful of meeting hordes however.

A slender metal drill dug into the ground of the camp compound. Lex originally thought that this appliance would not be used, but it was not prepared in vain.

Lex was looking for water. In most circumstances, water would be present dozens of yards underneath the sand, but it would be in very tiny volumes, it could only moisten the sand. Lex instructed her men to drill one-hundred and eighty yards into the ground. For every yard advanced, a portion of the sand brought out by the magic machine would be conserved and placed in a porcelain bottle. This bottle would then be delivered to the magic war chariot.

Lex had set up some compact equipment on the small platform in the middle of the war chariot. There were several glass beakers and bottles there. The sand sample was added. Lex did the work personally, incorporating magic medicine into each beaker.

Under the effect of the magic medicine, the water in the sand particles was separated before being channeled into a glass pipe. It then was injected into the tiny glass bottles.

“Saleen, give me a hand.”

“Yes?”

“Help me to analyze it and determine whether these samples have the power of life or not.” Lex pointed to the sand in the beakers.

Saleen was suddenly jolted. Many organisms could not be seen by the naked eye, but many large creatures relied on them for food. There was a type of mushroom spore which could be directly absorbed by the Dibasian Beast. It was was more than three yards long, taking in the nutrients essential for life.

Very quickly, Saleen discovered that this sand was not dead. Indeed, there were signs of life in this black sand,these creatures were just weak. Saleen was not well-versed in this aspect, he simply relied on the divinity of the goddess for detection. As for what type of life was present in the sand, Saleen had no way of analyzing it. Only if he possessed the Tree of Wisdom would he be omniscient of all life in this world.

Lex also managed to analyze the data she wanted quickly. She told the people in the chariot, “The Purgatory Desert’s… precipitation is not low at all. The permeability of this black sand is much higher than that of normal sand though. There will definitely be water sources one mile from here, there might even be an underwater river or lake of some sort.”

“How is this useful?” Nailisi asked, as she did not understand. She also had a desire for human knowledge.

“Some plants have roots that extend for hundreds of yards. As the water source of the Purgatory Desert is located too deep underground, it is very hard to find an oasis, but it doesn’t mean that there won’t be life present. If a plant has roots which extend for more than a thousand yards into the ground, then they will be able to survive in the desert.”

“I haven’t heard of plants that evolve like magic beasts.” Saleen shook his head.

“Daniel has a death plant, anything is possible. Where did those sand scorpions come from otherwise?”

“That’s true, but it doesn’t help our current situation at all.”

“Not necessarily. This information might seem useless right now, but it might save your life in the future.” As Lex spoke, she put on labels stating the depth on the sand samples before putting them away. She was going to bring the samples back to Metatrin City for the mages to analyze. Following that, she injected the Restorative Water into one of the beakers.

At the bottom of this beaker was a black sand particle as thick as a finger. After the beaker was filled to the brim with Restorative Water, this sand particle suddenly shook.

This time around, even Sika was observing the beaker, it was not known what Lex did.

Ripples were created in the beaker. Suddenly, from within the black sand particle, dozens of creatures as small as dust crawled out. These creatures swam about the water, growing rapidly. The Restorative Water itself was full of nutrition, if one consumed it, their thirst and hunger would be dispelled.

In the blink of an eye, these creatures had grown to the size of a finger. They had the exterior of a fish, but they also had transparent wing-like structures like those found on an insect.

Saleen and Lex fell into silence at the same time. In their minds, they were trying to recall which book contained information about such a strange creature.

“Taklama fish beasts!” Saleen and Lex yelled in unison.

The two of them reacted swiftly at the same time. Lex used Frost Ray, while Saleen simply put his hand on the cup, casting the Frosty Touch.

Ka…

The water in the beaker was frozen, but then it cracked open rapidly as the taklama fish beasts broke free from the ice. They then jumped out of the beaker.

The people in the chariot all reacted with lightning speed. Nailisi and the four demons acted at the same time, grabbing the taklama fish beasts with their hands. Every demon executed a similar motion. They used their fingers and pluck off the beasts’ heads without any hesitation.

Seeing that none of the beasts escaped, Saleen and Lex then dispersed the attack spell they were about to cast. By now, they had already broke out in a cold sweat.