1463 Returning to the Hall of Gods Part 1 (1/2)

Saleen took his three weapon spirits and retaliated. Because of their previous attempts to advance their level, the spirits' powers were somewhat diminished. But that didn't matter: What Saleen needed was the control and assassination abilities of the three, which they still maintained.

Dante was the first to fly to the top of the volcano. He cast Lightning Constellation, shrouding the fire dragon inside.

The dragon's intelligence had already been wiped clean by the head warden; all that was left was its instincts. As such, it simply roamed around the magma after penetrating the underground without any intention of leaving or returning.

Saleen arrived soon enough. Under observations of his Eye of Souls, he was able to see the fire dragon's core—a divine persona in its brain; it was fuchsia. Not even the head warden seemed to have discovered this.

That was because even if it had been observed by the Elemental Eye, it would have looked like a magic nucleus. Being pseudo gods, the three weapon spirits were highly sensitive to divine personas, enabling them to sense if something was different.

If this had ever come to the head warden's attention, he would have extracted the divine persona and kept it for himself.

The divine persona was not actually the power core of the fire dragon but only a condition of its birth. Coincidentally, a god from the underworld had fallen there and its divine persona was left intact, gradually giving birth to one such creature.

Given enough time, provided it was not discovered by others, the fire dragon could eventually become a god, say in a few billion years, or maybe tens of billions of years.

The three weapon spirits looked at the dumb creature and were elated deep down. Even the weapon spirit of the magic amplifier, the most down to earth among the three, coveted that creature.

The fire dragon's energies were so pure that if it had not been for the seal of the volcano becoming undone by a level-18 magic spell, it might have actually become a god. But if the creature had appeared before the others, it surely would have ended up dead.

”Move!” Saleen deduced that everything under the volcano had been destroyed, dissolved by that green hole. There was nothing to be gained this time. Had it not been for the divine persona, tens of thousands of his people would have died in exchange for the head warden's death. That would have made Saleen very regretful.

He shouted at them to move before unleashing yet another thick lightning bolt from his family badge.

The fire dragon, no longer intelligent, breathed a long stream of flames in retaliation, intending to block Saleen's attacks. It had good instincts: despite Saleen being the first to attack, the dragon was the first to breathe fire.

The power of lightning, however, was not something the dragon was capable of stopping. The bolt blew off the dragon's head right away, leaving only a pristine-looking divine persona hovering about.

Saleen had never had such an easy time killing a magic beast. He thought it would be much tougher and even came prepared with several scrolls and was prepared for a prolonged fight, even sustaining injuries. He never expected to see the fire dragon's divine persona floating with just one lightning bolt.

Among his three weapon spirits, the spirit of the magic amplifier was the most down to earth—and the speediest. It latched onto the divine persona right away, flying back to its master and handing him the prize.

The God of Magic Net, by contrast, was the kind who bullied the weak yet feared the strong. That's why it kept its mouth shut. It simply crept up to the dragon and cut up its body with its elemental blade.

Unexpectedly, the fire dragon's head regenerated. And what was the first thing it did? It chomped down on the God of Magic Net angrily. In response, the God of Magic Net's elemental blade swept and cut down the dragon's red fangs. Then it made a fast getaway after nearly being swallowed by that dragon.

At this point, Saleen realized that the fire dragon's vital area was its heart: This is where its magic nucleus rested. The head had already been taken by the divine persona, preventing a magic nucleus from developing there.

After being severely injured in one of Selene's previous attacks, the fire dragon went berserk. All three weapon spirits were capable of different attacks. Saleen was bored to tears during the fight and on the verge of dozing off. He thought the dragon was a formidable opponent. He didn't expect it to rely solely on instinct after being stripped of its intelligence.

Those instincts had not been honed on the battlefield. Essentially, the head warden had disabled the fire dragon in order to gain power from it.

It didn't take long for the enormous beast to be killed by the three weapon spirits. Its corpse was then scooped up and dumped into the Lightning Constellation for preservation. Under stimulation from electrical pulses within, its body would be kept fresh to prevent its elements from dissipating.

Saleen, nevertheless, was still vexed. He sent hundreds of lightning warriors into the magma to see if the head warden had left anything behind. The search was disappointing, for everything below had been destroyed.

The lightning warriors went all the way down until they reached the tunnel where the fire dragon went in and out before more than 100 of them were sucked inside. Saleen didn't want to see further losses, so he recalled all remaining lightning warriors.

And what did Saleen gain after raising an army and using up two level-18 scrolls? One divine persona and one fire dragon. Of course, there was still plenty of wealth to be had on Black Dungeon Island. Except for the head warden's lair, Saleen was hardly interested in that.

There was no doubt that the divine persona was the best reward to be had. Suppressing his disappointment, Saleen left with his weapon spirits. The island continued to crumble and when Saleen reached the outskirts, the ruins of a temple emerged from the cracks on the land.

Saleen knew that the Black Dungeon Island had once acquired ancient ruins. The ruins he was looking at now were probably the same ones. It's too bad they had pretty much been picked clean. The gushing lava rendered them unworthy of further exploration.