Badge in Azure Chapter 277

Chapter 277: Planes in Chaos (Part 2)
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Every mage who heard Daniel’s screams immediately blessed themselves with a magic shield and a Windspeed spell before retreating in the same direction. In order to unleash the highest offensive power, mages needed to be at a certain distance. Not everyone was like Saleen, who loved taking risks.
Daniel did not escape. This time around, he charged forward bravely and jumped up, landing on the pikoosi’s center head. The pikoosi had also acknowledged the presence of this strange object. The pikoosi was more familiar than Daniel with these things. The strange creatures within the death dimension were more complicated than those found on the Myers Mainland, but what struck fear in the pikoosi was that this object did not resemble a living thing at all.
This object emitted a pale light while it was within the death flames. The light shined for an instant before disappearing, and the pikoosi nearly collapsed.
“No worries, it’s fine. This thing will die soon.” Daniel tried his best to control his death flames, and the speed of rotation of the black passageway began decreasing. That square-shaped creature bounced on the ground for a moment before opening with a crack. It looked like an angular structure made up of countless squares.
“Daniel, what’s going on?” Saleen was already flying in midair, looking downwards. Before the black passageway closed, several more death creatures with strange appearances were summoned onto the plane of the Myers Mainland.
Saleen knew that with Daniel’s current grade, it was impossible for him to summon so many creatures at once.
“I don’t know either, that… is too scary!” Daniel was stunned. Saleen felt that something was strange. Even though Daniel was being pursued by the Holy See’s people, Saleen had noticed that Daniel purposely made himself look petrified simply so that he could vent his emotions. In reality, Daniel was not afraid of dying. If he died, there was a possibility that he could still transport his soul to the death dimension.
The entire situation had occurred because Daniel’s death flames were of a high grade. Other death mages were not so fortunate as to be able to obtain such miraculous death flames.
Only after the summoning space disappeared did Daniel recover from his shock.
Now, even if Daniel did not explain, Saleen also felt that something was wrong. In the beginning, the creature which had been summoned from the summoning space of the death flames could still be considered normal. However, Saleen noticed that the ones which had been summoned later on had actually resembled creatures from the abyssal plane which were always illustrated in drawings.
The abyssal plane was wider than the Myers Mainland by over a million times and was separated into different parts. No one knew how many levels the abyssal plane contained. In the past, humans had only been able to advance for dozens of levels before they could advance no more.
What made Saleen suspicious was that Daniel’s death flames had been summoning creatures from the death dimension, and yet things from the abyssal plane had managed to come out from the summoning space as well.
Saleen furrowed his eyebrows, and decided to observe the square-shaped death creature first, the one which had caused Daniel to lose his composure. This object did not look like it was alive, and even though its structure was popped open, it simply looked like a mere pile of wooden blocks.
However, it was these things which looked like white wooden blocks that caused Daniel, who looked honest, but was in fact cunning, to be frightened, and he had even thought of perishing together with them.
After the square-shaped creature popped open, its complicated internal structure could still be identified even though its layered configuration was not opened. Such complexity was similar to a magic formula in that a certain kind of cadence was displayed in an abnormally intuitive manner.
Daniel was less experienced than Saleen. He did not know that the last few summoned creatures were not from the death dimension. He explained to everybody, “This is called Aita, more commonly known as the mechanical soul.”
“Mechanical soul?”
“Humans have created many alchemical machines. In the past, when humans could still traverse the planes, they produced many soul-type alchemical machines. Then, these things underwent mutations, causing some to be extremely aggressive. After their creators died, these things caused a catastrophe within the death dimension.”
“How would you know that?” Logically speaking, such things would only have happened after the humans had left the death dimension, so how would Daniel, a mere death mage, know about all this?
“I just know. These things shouldn’t even appear on the Myers Mainland. They love swallowing all of the energy around them before replicating themselves. A single Aita is able to devour a creature hundreds of times bigger than itself, then it splits itself and replicates. With enough food, a single Aita is able to replicate itself countless of times within a single day.”
“Wouldn’t this thing dominate the entire death dimension?”
“No no no, there is a limit to the Aita’s swallowing ability. After a few days of replication, its swallowing ability disappears.”
“Then why were you so terrified just now?”
Saleen had never seen a drawing of an Aita before. However, the magic notes had mentioned such creatures, and the author did not seem to be afraid of such things.
As Daniel explained the features of the Aita to Saleen, the rest of the mages from Sregl Island were just like Saleen. They noticed that the last creature, which was on the verge of death, was not from the death dimension.
How did abyssal creatures appear in the death dimension? Similar to humans, abyssal creatures were powerful, but they were not suited for traversing the planes. Inside of the abyssal plane, they were quite powerful, but after leaving it, they would die very soon, just like fish out of water.
Even if the special attributes of the death dimension enabled them to “live” on, such a life did not hold much meaning. The special attribute of the death dimension was that any creatures which had lived there for a protracted period of time would be transformed into spirits of the dead.
Saleen also knew about this problem. If the powerful creatures from the abyssal plane wanted to invade other planes, it would have been normal for them to select the demonic plane, and not the death dimension. At least the demonic plane did not have so many volcanoes, and there were still lava lakes in the ground. The abyssal creatures living in the lave lakes would not die, and their powers would not be reduced drastically either.
“Daniel, can you summon more of them?” Saleen asked Daniel, who was still panicking. Daniel remained afraid, because if the Aita he summoned killed everyone, who knew what consequences he would face?
Creatures who were killed by the Aita would plant some thoughts in the replicated bodies. By the time the Aita split, the new bodies would bear hatred towards themselves, because of all the trouble the Aita had caused.
Daniel did not dare to make the Aita his contract creature. There was not much of an effect in signing a contract with the Aita, because its actions were not influenced by other people.
“No, I am not summoning it again, unless we can find a solution to deal with the Aita.”
“This thing looks dead, doesn’t it?” Saleen did not know why Daniel was afraid of a spirit of the dead. Wasn’t he a death mage?
“Dead?” Daniel muttered, still in shock. Then, he said to Saleen, “The Aita is not dead. This thing was never alive to begin with.”
Saleen was deeply interested in the Aita, but his current alchemy skills were simply too lousy, so he was not in the mood to study it anyhow. Saleen put the Aita away before pointing to the other few abyssal creatures and asking the Sregl Island mages, “Do you recognize them?”
“Yes, these things come from different abysses.”
“How did they get to the death dimension? Like those in human forms, which are even clad in armor.”
Abyssal armor and abyssal creatures were the same. The moment they left the abyss, they would disappear. Hence, the abyssal armor did not have any defensive power at all.
A grade-5 mage, who was slightly worried, said to Saleen, “Saleen, this matter should be reported to Alchemy City. It seems like there is planar chaos. The creatures summoned by Daniel should have only come from the death dimension, so why were there abyssal creatures too?”
“What is ‘planar chaos’?”
“Before a plane collapses, it might have the opportunity to fuse with other planes. At this point in time, two planes which might never meet would collide into one another and fuse together. To the plane itself, this is a new life, but to its creatures, it means a neverending disaster.”
“Planes actually collide with each other!” Saleen felt that this whole concept was too incredulous after listening to this mage from Sregl Island.
“After the collision, the planes spend millions of years fusing with one another, and during this period, the creatures from both planes will find it hard to adapt to the transformations of the planes. This is called the period of planar chaos. Actually, there is nothing to be worried about. But Daniel has summoned the abyssal creature at this time, and this might cause the plane to gravitate towards the Myers Mainland. Eventually, it will also fuse with the Myers Mainland.”
Saleen had the shock of his life after listening to this grade-5 mage. He did not really care about the Aita nor the collision between the abyssal plane and the death dimension. However, if this plane was going to crash into the Myers Mainland, then that would be far too terrifying.
“If what you said was true, then how much time do we have left?”
“Probably a few million years? Or perhaps even longer. I obtained all of this information from a book,” the grade-5 mage explained to Saleen.
Saleen pondered for a moment, then said, “If there is still so much time… then let’s just ignore it for now. However, the abyssal creatures are pretty good. Unfortunately, we aren’t capable of capturing them. Daniel, you might be worried, but I need you to carry out the summoning again.”
“I am not doing it anymore!” Daniel furiously refused.
“Daniel, I completely understand what you are going through right now.” Saleen did not mind Daniel’s honesty at all. He knew that Daniel must have been feeling very terrible right now. However, Saleen had an idea to make Daniel continue.
“You might be feeling down now, but this is for your future. You should try your best to summon more creatures now, and don’t send them back anymore.”
“Why?”
Daniel did not understand what Saleen meant. Saleen then explained, “The speed of time differs between the different planes. Only the speed of time in the interdimensional space will be identical to its corresponding plane. If you do not exploit this chance to summon more creatures, you might not be able to do so once the two planes have fused together after a long time.”
“Ah? Okay, I will do it!” Daniel was once again shocked by Saleen’s words. His future was in these death flames. If the interdimensional coordinates which were connected to the death flames disappeared, Daniel would perhaps be unable to revert to a magic disciple anymore, let alone make any process.