1241 Stand-in Figures Part 2 (1/2)

The wooden faces of the eight figures slowly changed. Under the influence of the constellation power, all eight of them took the image of Saleen and the rest of his people. That was not all. The internal structures of those figures began to change as well, becoming bodies of flesh and blood full of life.

Level-10 astrologers were capable of maintaining such statuses for hours. In actual fact, having the star figures around at the moment of entry into the cemetery would have sufficed, as the curses would have definitely fallen onto the figures.

The curse's power had definitely been weakened after being around for tens of thousands of years. Saleen still made one for himself just in case.

Stand-in figures were very common tricks employed by astrologers. Defense measures employed by astrologers were not as varied as those of mages. However, the defensive ability of the stand-in figures was incredible.

The stand-in figures were capable of taking the brunt of all skills, including the ones meant for attacking souls. Powerful astrologers even had hundreds to thousands of similar stand-in figures on standby at all times.

Doing something like that was very lavish, but it made the one doing so very hard to kill.

Common astrologers often spent some time and effort on preparing over a dozen of the stand-in figures for themselves.

However, starline cloth was very expensive, and the extravagant spending of astrologers went no further than that. Having huge numbers of stand-in figures was the dream of every astrologer, yet the ones capable of achieving such feats were as rare as mages like Saleen.

Saleen's level-10 astrology was not capable of maintaining many figures at once. Ten would have been about his limit. In this situation, he was only using the stand-in figures to deal with the curses and did not need them for battle. As such, the stand-in figures he created lacked any combat capacity.

The eight figures were infused with the bodies of their respective owners. Saleen then rushed everyone out of the Magical Element Tower, saying, ”Get in there quick. The figures will only last for six hours. After that, they will only be able to take hits from attacks in your stead.”

”Within those six hours, you are free to attack however you like. The figures are capable of withstanding attacks from any kind of power. They will be able to take even fatal hits for you at least once.”

Saleen had elaborated on the attributes of the figures before. Nonetheless, he reminded them one more time.

Saleen left the tower behind. There were 3,600 demonic spirits and Rossen there to keep watch over things. If Theisio wanted to leave, he would have to spend a huge amount of time and effort on doing so. Meanwhile, Saleen was able to come and go from there at any time by using the tower.

That line of thought was why Saleen had let Baudelaire into the cemetery of the giant in the first place.

Once they entered, those who went inside before Saleen would have to deal with him and the 3,600 demonic spirits in the tower all at the same time.

Saleen was no longer fond of schemes and tricks. Even Theisio knew that such calculations were done only because their hands were forced. The pope had to get inside the cemetery.

That was because there were mages from Daliang City and Holy Rock City inside the cemetery. If he couldn't get inside, there wouldn't be anything left for him. As for Saleen blocking the entrance, that was something left to be dealt with later.

If push came to shove, then he would simply invoke the power of the three godly items and leave forcefully. He could stay holed up within Holy City for a year and no one would be able to do anything against him.

What the pope had calculated, Saleen was able to come to the same conclusion. Both parties knew that if negotiations failed, they would have to duke it out, regardless of whether or not they were actually capable of taking each other on. The cemetery of the giant was simply too hard to resist.

None of them would rest well until they got inside.

Covert schemes were no match for overt schemes. Overt schemes were no match for the well-beaten path.

Do whatever you have deemed necessary and back your enemy into a corner.

If Saleen attacked the Holy City with an army, Theisio couldn't just run away and leave the city behind. Even if he were to be unable to resist the army, he would have to hold the line one way or another. Such was the tried and tested beaten path.

There was no need for tricks when wars were fought in such ways.

All eight of them entered the cemetery and Saleen shared his senses with Nailisi, enabling more of them to be on the lookout. He observed the place using the Elemental Eye. I was just as it had been described by Jalin—barren and devoid of light.

If he did not have the Elemental Eye skill, everyone's sight would have been restricted to hundreds of meters.

However, there were several people at level-10 among those at Saleen's side, including Jola, Nailisi, and Nicholas.

Among the others, Daniel was a death mage and was immune to the dark. Eleanor was an elf. Her vision was over ten times stronger than that of humans. Isabella was somewhat weaker, yet her close combat abilities were formidable enough to deal with enemies who got up-close and personal.

The most frustrated one was Sul. He had no way of advancing to level-10. In such an environment, he was the one who was most likely to get injured. However, golden grand swordmasters were no weaklings, and they would be able to survive better than level-9 mages.

Saleen put up his Puppet Constellation and unleashed the puppets. The Puppet Constellation was hardly affected within the cemetery of the giant. The area the territory was able to cover expanded to 60 a mile radius as Saleen's astrology ability advanced.

It was an unexpected gain. But Saleen did not want to spend too much mental power on it. As such, he would not fight in such a manner.

The puppets began to collect all manner of material and equipment under Saleen's instructions, even the broken ones. Many broken wares could be made into decent materials for alchemy.

Bronze rust, for instance, that was around ten thousand years old was would on par with gold in value. However, it had to be from alloys made according to certain ratios instead of naturally formed bronze.

Only such materials with bronze as the main ingredient and many rare metals added in, which then rusted for over ten thousand years, was ever deemed qualified to serve as alchemical material.