Badge in Azure

Saleen quickly rushed back to the bone castle. The first thing he would do was to bring Su to the spirit magic tower to heal him.

Su was more badly injured than the winged skeleton and the other demons. First, he had killed the grade-7 sorcerer forcefully and was hurt by the shock from breaking through the crystal guardian. Then, the grade-7 sorcerer’s equipment launched an attack that badly burned his left arm. Finally, he forcefully used the sword aura in order to attack the grade-8 sorcerer with a giant axe. Now Su was in danger. His eyes were bloodshot and his muscles were trembling uncontrollably. His sword aura was also becoming weaker.

Saleen let Su absorb an entire bottle of magic liquid. Finally, his injuries seemed to be under control.

Saleen then prepared a huge bucket of restorative water for Su to lie in. Such a healing method might be extravagant, but it was also the most effective. Although restorative water was made from a grade-1 spell, it was more effective than any magic fluid. Its only disadvantage was that it could not be stored for too long, so one could not create too much at once.

Saleen used the teleportation portal to send a letter to Lex. The letter described the details of the two battles and requested for Nicholas to make a trip to the bone castle.

In order for Su to recover quickly without any side effects, it was best to seek help from the grade-9 holy priest.

Saleen did not expect Nicholas to go into battle with the Holy See as the latter would likely be under a lot of pressure. Nevertheless, Nicholas’ healing abilities were unparalleled amongst those around Saleen. Not only could fallen divine spells save people, they might even be more effective than other healing methods.

Immediately, Saleen asked the mages to count their losses and gathered Lex’s four battalion commanders to explain the details of the battle.

Saleen’s entire fleet had been sunk. He only had three skeletal warships left on the Separation Sea, so there was no way he could launch any attacks from the sea. When the four seasoned generals heard about the outcome of the sneak attack, they were both pleased and worried.  ( NovelFull )

They were pleased that Saleen had killed one of the enemy’s sorcerers, which was definitely a huge victory. They were also worried as the enemy’s numbers remained large and their fighting abilities had not been diminished as a result of the sneak attack.

Based on Saleen’s battle records, the four generals began to help him analyze how Cloudflow organized their troops, their fighting abilities and possible strategies.

One of the battalion commanders opened up the battle notes organized by the mages and flipped to the middle before pointing at a row of words and saying, “Your Highness, please take a look at this. The surface of the ground on which the enemy has built their camp is of grade-3 toughness. It fits the standard for building cities!”

“What do you mean?”

“Cloudflow was slow to arrive because they want to build a city beside the lake. Your Highness, if Cloudflow manages to build a city here with its back facing the Separation Sea, it will be able to replenish its manpower continuously. What can we do then?”

The four generals looked at Saleen. The way they analyzed even the minor details of battles was something mages could never understand. They were able to quickly see where the key to the battle was. Cloudflow did not intend to attack Daliang City immediately. Instead, it wanted to build a militarized city beside the lake. If this was indeed the case, Daliang City was in grave danger.

Daliang City was less than two-hundred miles away from the lake. If Cloudflow managed to build such a city successfully, Daliang City would have to station heavy-armored soldiers there permanently and could no longer expand outwards. Not only would Lex have to give up land that she had fought so hard for, she would also have to keep her soldiers within the city in order to guarantee Daliang City’s safety.

Cloudflow would be able to transport resources continuously via the Separation Sea. They would finally attack Daliang City once they had made the necessary preparations.

Saleen was frustrated with this outcome after he had just killed more than four-hundred-thousand enemy soldiers. Although Cloudflow soldiers might not be the bravest, the tactics they employed were hard to deal with. ( NovelFull )

If he and Lex had gathered more than one-hundred-thousand soldiers to attack the camp beside the lake directly, the results would not have been as great as what they achieved that day. If they had not attacked, Cloudflow would have put a nail in place behind Daliang City, slowly, but steadily.

Saleen recalled the roguish tactic employed by Ceylon City. After being beaten by others, they did not seek revenge. Instead, they peered at your home every day just to irritate you. It would be extremely dangerous if an entire group of people employed this tactic.

Saleen regretted not bringing Jola along. If Jola was around, he would definitely be able to perform an even better analysis. Jola was once a swordsmanship teacher in the Cloudflow palace, so he had a better understanding of Cloudflow tactics.

Saleen had no solutions to this roguish tactic used by Cloudflow. The battle on the Separation Sea was a good example. Based on Saleen’s current forces, there was no way he would be able to destroy the Cloudflow fleets.

“My Lord, we should seek the Princess’ opinion regarding this.” Eleanor spoke at the side, “Building a city may seem like part of a tactic in this battle, but in actual fact, it must also be a strategy. What Cloudflow is doing will affect the entire Mainland. What is their relationship with the Qin Empire and the Tanggulasi Empire like?”

Saleen nodded. Indeed, the people around him did not specialize in politics. They could only analyze Cloudflow’s tactics from a military perspective. Lex would definitely have something to say regarding that. It seemed there was a deeper meaning to Lex keeping Narnia by her side! It was a mistake on Saleen’s part for not bringing Narnia along.

The generals saw that Saleen did not have any comments so they continued to discuss Cloudflow’s principles in their tactics.

This time around, Saleen deployed more than eleven-thousand soldiers to spring a surprise attack on Cloudflow’s campsite. He lost sixteen heavy-armored knights and two-hundred and thirty-four light-armored foot soldiers and auxiliary soldiers. In total, one-thousand, six-hundred, and six soldiers were injured. One-hundred and seventy of which were badly injured.

Based on just the number of injuries, it would seem that Saleen had clinched a huge victory. In actual fact, it was because he did not include spirits of the dead amongst his casualties.

Less than five-thousand of the spirits of the dead returned to the bone castle. Every spirit of the dead had its price. Unless they were the low-level skeletal soldiers of bone castle or low-level zombies, every powerful spirit of the dead summoned by the winged skeleton required the use of magic nuclei.

The bone castle was huge. The seventy-thousand soldiers under Saleen would not be able to guard it. They would be rotated for rest, battles, and act as backups. It was already very dangerous for every rotation to consist only of twenty-thousand soldiers. The winged skeleton decided to build the bone castle and used low-level spirits of the dead as cannon fodder.

Low-level skeletal soldiers might be slow, but they were stronger than humans. Compared to normal human swordsmen, it would be more effective deploying them to guard the top of the city walls. They would not feel fear nor pain when fighting to the death in battles.

Saleen had killed a grade-7 sorcerer and used up six-hundred alchemy arrows. Excluding the divinecherry wood used in the making these alchemy arrows, one such arrow alone would use up a grade-4 magic nucleus. The cost for making an arrow was two-hundred gold coins. Even if they could reuse the arrow shaft, Saleen would still need to use up more than one-hundred-thousand gold coins in total.

The truth was that the alchemy arrows that managed to hit the sorcerer were all destroyed and could no longer be reused. Crystal reflection was a spell that could reflect attacks back to the attacker. Every alchemy arrow that hit the crystal guardian all turned into ashes.

Saleen would never sell arrow shafts that possessed the nature of space. The number of sunken ships in the ocean was limited so there was no way Saleen could keep creating such alchemy arrows.

After going through some calculations in his head, Saleen said, “No, I have to make a trip back to Daliang City. After I leave, this place will temporarily be overseen by Mu En. No one is to leave the castle to attack. Defend it to the death!”

Saleen was a little pessimistic. He did not know how long he could defend it if the powerful Cloudflow army gave everything to battle Bitter Water Prefecture. This was when he finally understood what the four generals meant.

Morale was useless!

At the end of the day, only honor and loyalty would serve as motivation for soldiers to continue fighting.

In comparison, boosting morale was the best way to increase the fighting abilities of soldiers in Sikeqinya. This solution would be ineffective in the bone castle because his enemy was a powerful empire with a population that far outnumbered the Qin Empire and controlled tens of thousands of miles of the sea. Although the army of such a powerful empire might seem a bit pathetic, they still outnumbered their opponents. Cloudflow could afford to use thousands, or even millions of soldiers, to overwhelm Daliang City.

Lex might have a solution and it was to seek help from Holy Rock City. There was a two-million strong Qin army in Luolan after all. The problem was, would Holy Rock City help Lex? Alternatively, if Lex sought help, would Bitter Water Prefecture be taken over by Qin like Phoenix?

Lex possessed an eye for strategy. The land that Daliang occupied was a strategically sound location and also fertile. If not for the Separation Sea behind it, Daliang was actually suitable for expansion. The problem was that the Cloudflow Emperor did not seem to be thinking logically. Instead of fighting against the Tanggulasi Empire, who had already occupied half of Titan Duchy, he chose to attack Bitter Water Prefecture instead.

“Damn it!” Saleen cursed in his heart before leading Eleanor and Cuisi towards Daliang City. He did not dare to fly. He instead brought along his two-hundred bodyguards and set off towards Daliang City from the bone castle on skeletal warhorses.

An army would usually take a day’s time to cover a distance of two-hundred miles, but Saleen only used slightly more than three hours. Daliang City was heavily guarded. Before Saleen could even approach it, soldiers on patrol had already come up to them. Saleen realized that there were mini castles on both sides of the road.

“It’s His Highness, Saleen!” The soldiers on patrol recognized Saleen and quickly sent someone to bring him into the city. Lex has already disseminated the battle report sent by Saleen, but did not mention the losses he had incurred. The people of Daliang City only knew that Saleen had scored a huge victory by sinking more than eighty of the enemy’s fleets and successfully springing a surprise attack on their campsite. To top it off, they also managed to kill a Cloudflow sorcerer.

The news of Saleen’s arrival quickly spread amongst the armies. The soldiers in the vicinity all gathered by the roadside, hoping to catch a glance of this amazing King.

Saleen did not dare to show his worries. Instead, he greeted the people on the roadsides with optimism. This was how members of the noble families of the fourth dynasty were expected to behave. To the Bitter Water Prefecture soldiers, Saleen’s behaviour presented him to be a noble king that was also respectable.

Faced with such an unexpected welcome, Saleen could only slow down his skeletal warhorse’s pace and proceed slowly. All of a sudden, there was a throb in his heart. It was as if a powerful magic beast had set its sights on him.