852 Tainted Blood Armor Part 1 (1/2)
The Ancient made for the area where the floating ice was more closely packed together slowly. Magic shields of several yards thick were conjured on the more than three-hundred yard wide body of the ship. The pure water element shield swirled around the ships surface, which would only be drained when running into one of the pieces of floating ice.
When the ice and the shield of the Ancient collided, small pieces of ice simply drifted elsewhere, while larger ones were crushed.
The Mechanical Soul took the risk and turned on twelve magic power furnaces, activating the ship's defense mechanisms. The most rudimentary defenses had no weaknesses about them.
Nailisi shut herself in the hold and appreciated her prize from her hunt, the magic nuclei, one by one. The magic nuclei of the white bears were totally different from the beasts' on the mainland. They were sizes larger than anyone would have expected. That was due to the fact that living in places such as the oceanic ice block meant that one would have had to be able to fight drawn-out fights to survive. Being a grade-9 magic beast hardly guaranteed one's safety, as the mid-level beasts in the sea could have easily numbered in the tens of thousands. The beasts were ferocious when attacking in packs, and some came equipped with skills or properties capable of dismantling magic defenses.
The teeth of imps like Luoluokaluo were more frightening than those of dragons, and that was Luoluokaluo's only reliable weapon before maturing. If a dragon was said to be able to chew on metal without difficulties, then Luoluokaluo's could be able to grind crystallized metals to dust.
Nailisi usually hid her true imp form using ultimate shapeshifting, but the skill did not affect her demon form's powers at all. Her mouth was still capable of opening to horrifying levels, and the sharp teeth within were capable of snapping the throat of any large creature.
Cutting magic nuclei with her teeth was something Nailisi became very, very familiar with. The magic nuclei fished out from the sunken ships were never truly cut. Ancient humans only process magic nuclei when they needed to use them, as the standards of ancient magic arrays and equipment were so numerous and complicated that mages had headaches over them. As such, ancient mages only kept their magic nuclei in their primitive forms.
Mages helped the winged skeleton with managing the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel's defenses carefully in their respectively rooms. The very reason why Saleen brought the mages to sea that time was to enable thespersonal mages to get familiar with using warships in battles.
Saleen, on the other hand, was having a talk with the water puppet in the control room.
”Rossen, you did well this time. If you are to continue using the crystal finger skill however, your body will suffer irreversible damage again. You might end up losing yet another part of your consciousness in time.”
”But my liege, Nailisi, she...”
”You have inherited my skills, and that made you a mage. The only thing a mage can trust, is their own magic. You should be like me, calculative. Don't try to be a hero when you are facing someone that you can't beat. Rossen, you aren't like me. While you can resurrect yourself indefinitely, every resurrection will take something important away about you from you. This is just like death to us humans, and it's irreversible.”
”Lose something important about me?”
”Yes, you in the past were just like me, yet the you right now, cowers. That is because you are weak, you are stubborn, you are not confident of yourself.”
”I have lost...true courage!”
”Yes, when death becomes the price you pay for victory every time you fight someone bigger and stronger than you, you will gradually lose courage. You will come to believe in fate. That is something astrologist believe, Rossen. You are a mage. You need to believe in yourself.”
”My liege, let me think about this,” the water puppet was still unable to forget what Nailisi said. When Saleen fought, there was an indomitable aura about him, which caused the water puppet immense envy. It wanted to also became such a person.
”Then think hard about this. This is a space ring I got from my teacher. Not something of high levels, but it should do you just fine. Take this mage robe, and the magic staff too,” Saleen took out one equipment after another, and put them in Rossen's hands, before continuing, ”From here on out, I will try not to summon you back to the Shenhe. If...if you like, consider yourself a human then. Humans, are afraid of death.”
The water puppet mumbled to itself after sending Saleen off, ”Humans...are afraid of death? Nicholas, so you are afraid of death then?”
Nicholas was looking at the winged skeleton controlling the vessel and avoiding the floating ice as best as they were able to, when the water puppet asked. Nicholas then answered, ”Of course I'm afraid of death, except when protecting our lord.”
”So you would not fear death when protecting our lord?”
”No. I'm afraid still. It is just that my future is tied to that of our lord. If he dies, my future will cease to exist. If that is the case, I might just end up dead,” Nicholas answered in a calm manner.
The Winged Skull looked far away from the crystal window, thinking that he could finally hand the control of the ship to the mages. He had been listening to the conversation between the water puppet and Nicholas the whole time, and his head turned to give an eerie smirk.