Chapter 971: Fanatical Faith (Part 2)

Saleen expanded his Water Shield quickly, the diameter of which grew to more than eight yards. He then beat on the War Drum of Fear with his bone mace.

No sound came out of the drum. More than one-thousand pests were trembling violently within it, and the face on the drum went on to throw them out. The pests were originally monsters made of soul shards. They shot out for several miles after being thrown out of the drum.

The pests were more than familiar with underwater fights. They gushed at the transparent creatures and went to suck out souls maniacally. The creatures’ tentacles were stabbed into the bodies of the pests, yet they were able to suck out nothing but dust, which clogged the suction tubes of the tentacles.

The humanoid creatures were first attracted by the female voice inside the temple, and then attracted by Saleen’s Ring of Gifts. After struggling for a moment over which side to turn to, they charged for his Ring of Gifts. Saleen was even able to feel the contradictions and struggles going on inside those creatures, but the divine power within the Ring of Gifts was simply too pure for the creatures to resist.

The pests joined the fray, carving up the transparent creatures at an even quicker pace. Nicholas only wanted their souls, whereas Saleen and Nailisi wanted both body and soul. More and more pests gushed out of the War Drum of Fear, yet the transparent creatures charged at them all the same, without any concept of fear.

Nicholas felt the stunning effects the most, as he was able to feel the power of faith within the souls of the creatures growing increasingly strong. They were but regular believers at the start of the fight, but then, all of them have practically turned into the likes of fanatics.

They knew they were going to end up dead, yet they charged forward all the same, yearning for the divine power emanating from Saleen’s Ring of Gifts.

The second space within Nailisi’s Twelve Notes of Purgatory was expanded to a size of thirty-six miles radius, which seemed to a limit of sorts. Any further breakthrough would have required the entirety of the collection of purgatories to be completed, before the spaces could be expanded further.

Within the space’ upper side, the bone marrow of the angel of fear gradually took the shape of Nailisi’s image after absorbing the great power of faith housed within. The power of faith was congealed inside the image and turned into pieces of divine crystals. While the pieces were small, they were pure, granting increasing clarity to Nailisi’s image. As more and more transparent creatures made it inside, the power of faith grew proportionately as well. Nailisi’s mere image gradually turned from the form of a statue into a ‘person’ with flesh and blood.

As Nailisi was able to feel the change within, she branded the image with her soul brand without hesitation. It was a weapon’s spirit, one that took Nailisi’s form. Such spirits were incredibly rare throughout the ages, as such spirits were practically a double of their originators.

All those who entered the space perished one after another, being absorbed into the sky and earth. Nailisi willed to have her spirit double pluck out some dead plants from the void and scatter them into the earth. At the same time, Nailisi also threw some special seeds she had gotten from Eleanor, and others that she was able to find herself, into the space.

Many of those seeds were found inside sunken ships, and some were brought from the demon plane. One of the seeds quickly absorbed the nutrients and grew upward, and finally reached the height of thirty-six yards, shooting for the void at the upper side of the space.

Scattered divine crystals within Nailisi’s double began to coalesce, eventually forming a perfect crystal body with one-hundred and twenty-eight facets. The double also opened its eyes and uttered a line of a very ancient demon tongue.

The plants on the ground finished growing, and a forest covering the entire area was soon formed. The creatures which were absorbed began crawling out from within the earth in the forest, yet their bodies were blank. Nailisi’s double chanted in the demon tongue, and some of the transparent creatures began manifesting soul powers within their bodies, growing and evolving.

Nailisi’s image stopped and took a breather, ceasing the blessing on those newly formed living beings. She was just born herself and was still weak. She was unable to do more than let the new living beings evolve on their own.

The newly born beings were able to feel the presence like that of a god in the sky. All of those creatures worshipped Nailisi’s image. Nailisi was irked as she did not hope to become some kind of a god, not even if the one treated as such was her double. She seized the chance provided by Saleen going on his killing spree and dived into the newly formed space itself, proceeding to shatter the head of the image with one punch, then throwing all the divine crystals gathered into her bracelet.

The living beings below panicked. Their object of worship was gone!

Nailisi was only capable of feeling satisfied then, and had the image continue absorbing the power of fear from the beings below. Seeing the head of her image begin to take shape again, Nailisi left the space.

Saleen had recalled all the pests he unleashed, and the transparent creatures at the bottom of the ocean numbered to less than ten-thousand. Nicholas went on to pick on the souls of the creatures one by one.

“Nailisi, are you done?”

“Yes, master,” Nailisi answered in glee. The second space was developed and was one that contained massive power of fear. It remained one unsuitable to house humans.

“Name it. The rules will grow to become clearer given time,” Saleen reminded Nailisi.

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Nailisi pondered for a moment. Her image was able to feel the despair of the spurned beings. All hints of faith disappeared. Their god refused to accept their praise and dependence. The beings’ power of faith gradually disappeared, and was replaced at the same time, by the hatred to their god.

“I’ll call it a purgatory of the fallen then,” Nailisi answered with a smile.

The power of pain and despair was even more pure and more straightforward. The higher the number of believers robbed of their faith, the greater the power of her image. Within the space, the believers would be robbed of everything. That paved the way to fight holy masters, and Nailisi felt very pleased with herself.

She knew that many of her future enemies would be holy masters, even oracles and gods too. The attributes of the space were special and were created entirely by her will. Once the rules within were developed amply, it would prove fatal to holy masters.

It worked like how a mage was thrown in a space devoid of elements. Holy masters would be rendered incapable of acquiring the power of believers, and the connection with their gods severed. They would thus, be rendered helpless sitting ducks.

Saleen did not enter the space itself, but he was able to feel faintly the direction with which the space was created. He had no time to ask about the details. That huge creature that was struggling to climb outside the temple made its way out of the tight space and was then standing right in front of the gate.

It was a transparent creature less than one-hundred yards tall and looked almost identical to the little ones: A human head and four limbs, with tentacles sprouting from the sides of its ribs. The only difference seen in the over seventy yards tall monster from the little ones, was that it did not seem to possess soft skin; it looked like it was covered with crystalized bone armor instead.

Nailisi squealed in glee when the tall monster appeared and said to Saleen, “Master, give that thing to me!”

Her purgatory of the fallen was still incomplete, and the creature looked like it was a grade-8 or grade-9 being. It would have made for a very nice nourishment for her purgatory.

“That is for Nicholas,” Saleen said with a deadpan face.

Nailisi pouted and wanted to say something, before Nicholas cut her off, “Nailisi, it’s the one inside the temple that you’ll need.”

Nailisi shut up right that instant. She had thought his master to have favored Nicholas over her, but it was the right thing to do nonetheless. It would work well for Nicholas’ Scepter of the Fallen to absorb the huge monster’s soul, but the scepter was incapable of absorbing its body. The body would be a very good piece of material on its own. Once absorbed into the purgatory of the fallen, grade-9 beings might appear within.

Nicholas wanted to absorb souls of even higher levels, but his Scepter of the Fallen fell short of being capable of such a feat. Only Saleen’s War Drum of Fear and Nailisi’s purgatory of the fallen would be capable of doing so. The one deep inside the temple, eh…

Nailisi smirked and saw Nicholas, who was being covered in gray light, walking to the faraway temple.

Saleen pushed Nailisi from behind and said, “Go with him. If anything happens to Nicholas, no souls from the temple for you!”

“Master, Nicholas is very powerful,” Nicholas murmured.

After walking for several miles, the tall monster got very near. Saleen stopped right there and stopped Nicholas from taking the monster on alone. He summoned six Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers and had them charge at it, to have it surrounded.

They were not there for a friendly match, and another huge monster was seen climbing out from within the temple’s gate. No one would be able to tell how many of the monsters were housed inside the temple. If it turned out to be like how it was in the Imperial City of the Abyss, where they came out in endless hordes, Nicholas would be unable to hold them off.

Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers also had a specialty of their own. As they had spent so much time in the Imperial City of the Abyss, they had developed the ability to fight underwater. They moved quickly, as if the seawater around them had no effect whatsoever in impeding their movements.

Six magic warhammers struck onto the pale blue body of the monster. The monster growled for a moment, and the transparent bone armor shattered. The warhammers in the hands of the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers shattered as well. Still, they were at the bottom of the ocean. The soldiers simply absorbed the power of the earth and recreated their hammers.

Bam, bam, bam…

The two waves of attack rendered the huge monster utterly helpless in the face of the one-hundred yard tall Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers. The sharp, high-pitched female voice within the temple chanted a string of words, restoring the bone armor on the surface of the pale blue monster’s body almost instantly.

“Infidel, you have no need to repent…Arrghh, Eeeek…,” The voice in the temple grew furious, as Nicholas was using Divine Punishment. The voice thought itself to be Goddess of Myers, and as such, was driven by instinct to destroy powers emanated by other gods.

“On my name, Nicholas, I sentence you!”, Nicholas finished his chant and cast a shimmering brilliance from his Scepter of the Fallen, shining on the seventy yards tall pale blue monster.