1529 Lightning Part 2 (1/2)
Saleen definitely would not have acted right away. He needed to wait for the situation to stabilize. Furthermore, he had a suppressed Heretic God to deal with. He intended to use that god to train his lightning skills further. If he were to only be able to rely on equipment to cast lightning skills, taking out the Lord of Glory would have been more difficult.
It was also quite a pain that the Lord of Glory had left so many doubles behind, and leaving any one of them alive would invite trouble.
Killing the Lord of Glory was just the start. Saleen intended to wipe out all god creatures in the divine kingdom. That was not something that could be done in just a day or two. Such a genocide would probably require decades to see through.
The god creatures and the humans were on opposing sides, and Saleen had no choice. He chose to stay behind at the frontlines, getting ready to take on the Lord of Glory at any given moment. Guffen the frost dragon was required to take the Star Shuttle patrolling near the divine kingdom's gates every day. With the frost dragon taking over guard duty, any high level angels that appeared occasionally were made short work of.
Guffen did not launch any aggressive attacks and simply harassed them constantly, giving Saleen time to do what he needed to do.
Saleen's original plan was to first head to the East Sea. However, since he had acquired a level 18 divine persona and there was also the Heretic God's power of the Source to work on, he became reluctant to leave his teacher's side.
In that world, the only person that was more powerful than Saleen that Saleen was able to trust was Jason.
He lent his magic amplifier to Jason while Saleen took his time to work on the Heretic God's divine persona in the Hall of Gods. Initially, he would not have been able to do so, but he discovered yet another trick to the Ring of Cosmos.
The divine persona of the Heretic God was submerged in Aqua Fulgur, which enabled Saleen to conjure balls of lightning in the Aqua Fulgur, using his soul power, to continuously bombard the divine persona, extracting the power of rules from it.
The balls of lightning would gain a bit of the Heretic God's power of rules with every bombardment. While the process was slow, it was like reeling silk off of cocoons. The divine persona would eventually be emptied as the process went on.
On the other hand, the Heretic God was unable to do anything about it, and had to simply let Saleen do what he wanted with it.
Saleen had only conjured balls out of the Aqua Fulgur to bombard the divine persona with at the start. In later stages, he picked up an increasingly big number of complicated techniques, enabling him to attach Aqua Fulgur to lightning runes before stacking them together, forming complex balls of lightning.
Saleen followed up with attacks that were more intense on the divine persona, which in itself were flawless. Cracking up a level 18 divine persona was a task that even level 18 mages needed a lot of time to accomplish.
Saleen started up the magic array in the Hall of Gods, trying to cut down as much of the time needed as possible. Due to Nailisi having killed a large number of god creatures and refined massive amounts of divine crystals out of them, Saleen saw fit to just use the divine crystals to keep the magic array running, and that saved him a lot of high level magic nuclei.
Saleen's stores of magic nuclei began to run rather short, so it was fortunate that the mages from Alchemy City showed up at the frontlines one after another, joining the fight. Saleen's mages retreated, as the pressure at the moment was light.
Rafel and the Winged Skull were sent to the Oceanic Ice Block in order to hunt for more magic nuclei.
Saleen stayed within the Hall of Gods to perfect his lightning magic.
The Heretic God's power of the Source was all stocked within the divine persona, which was not a good thing to do. However, if it were to leave the divine persona, all of its power of the Source would end up being absorbed by the lightning around it.
”How about we work together, mage?” The Heretic God took the risk and released a bit of power of the Source, trying to communicate with Saleen.
Saleen blasted that bit of power of the Source with a ball of lightning unhesitatingly, absorbing it into the ball lightning.
”Most of your powers were taken by Myers. What makes you think you can negotiate with me?” Saleen extracted the Heretic God's power of the Source and began analyzing it.
The Heretic God was frustrated by the attack, but since Saleen actually talked, it saw no choice but to release another bit to communicate with Saleen. The mage's attitude was obvious enough, and having a fair exchange would have been utterly impossible.
”Release me, and I shall tell you how to deal with a level 18 god.”
”Aren't you a level 18 god yourself? Speaking of which, I'm going to reduce you to nothing soon enough.” Saleen did not absorb that bit of power of the Source of the Heretic God and took to chatting with it instead.
The Heretic God thought that it was worth a shot and replied immediately, ”I had my powers sucked by Myers when I was critically injured, and I'd return to the pinnacle of level 18 in time. If you want to take her on, you'll need my help.”
”Your help?” Saleen pondered for a bit and continued, ”Your divine rules don't allow you to comprehend concepts like friends. Everything that is not you, you are compelled to destroy.”
”That is just how things are eventually. I still need followers, and I still need a goal.” The Heretic God dared not play any tricks and told Saleen solid truths, in order to avoid rousing any suspicions.
”Hehe...” Saleen chuckled and released another ball of lightning, blasting the power of the Source completely.
”What are you doing, mage!?” The Heretic God asked furiously.
”Are you trying to negotiate with me? If so, I'll make you pay for every line you say. Be direct, or you shall suffer considerable losses.” Saleen finished and released yet another ball of lightning, destroying the third whiff of power of the Source and absorbing it.