Badge in Azure Chapter 330

Chapter 330: Into the Chaos (Part 2)
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The Chaotic Swamp during the winter was far colder than any other place. During the summertime, swamp, ponds, marshes, and mosquitos that could kill you with their poisonous sting were very common. Aside from mages, only powerful people with a rank equivalent or greater than that of a grand swordmaster would not be approached by these pesky nuisances. Whenever winter came, even though all the insects would have flown away to god-knew-where, the overall environment was not really any better. Aside from being an endless sea of white, the Chaotic Swamp was also well known for its bone-chilling winds.
The difference between a swordmaster and a grand swordmaster was that the former could not force his sword aura to leave his body and do the fighting for him. In addition, they were not able to use their detection abilities for movements outside a given range. Thus, stronger grand swordmasters would always be able to detect the presence of a mage like heat-seeking missiles. For swordmasters who were not able to utilize their sensory abilities, they would be in grave danger if they stayed in the Chaotic Swamp, even during the winter.
It was a no-brainer that swamps would freeze over during winter. However, there were holes and deep craters that would have been covered by heaps and heaps of snow. One little misstep and a person could fall through a natural pit around tens of meters deep. If no one came to help, this little misstep would be fatal.
There were many rocky areas over in the Chaotic Swamp as well. The cracks, joints, and bedding planes were even deeper and more pronounced. Falling through these abysses was potentially fatal.
The map that Saleen had on hand right now had been drawn out using only his memories of the place. This ensured that his entire team could enter without a single scratch on their bodies. If Saleen had not done this step, a random mage would have needed to step in and blaze a trail for them. If he got a junior mage to do it, they would be exhausted in no time. That was because junior mages had limited mental power. Once they had used all of it, they would need to meditate in order to rejuvenate and recharge.
The person that had come here before Saleen’s troops had been a grand swordmaster. However, it was not considered safe for a grand swordmaster to enter the Chaotic Swamp alone. If they were to encounter a hill cyclops or any other magic beast that was just as reckless and aggressive, even if they did win a fight against them, they would be severely injured.
That person was either very proficient in their swordcraft or was too bold for their own good. Either way, Saleen had to proceed with caution. Even though Saleen had brought these pirates along with him with the intention of using them as cannon fodder, he was not going to have them sacrifice their lives for nothing. The most important person he had to keep alive was Daniel. With Daniel’s current grade and capabilities, he was still slightly weaker than a grand swordsmaster. If the latter were to ambush him, he could easily perish.
The troops stuck close together and walked in a neater formation. The scouts were only surveying an area within a distance of one mile from the other soldiers in order for them to easily relay information to the others. The three mages in this team were not very good with puppet magic. If they were, they would have been releasing paper puppets to survey the area by now instead of using the pirates.
Under Saleen’s command, the pirates each equipped themselves with a wooden gun. To Saleen’s surprise, they vigilantly observed everything and anything that was on the road. Because the weather was so cold, practically speaking, weapons like epees were not an ideal choice. Neither were machetes. Wooden guns, on the other hand, only had metallic tips. Thus, relative to other weapons, they were lighter. Not only that, but they could also be operated normally even while wearing gloves.
The troops gradually slowed down. Approximately a dozen pirates stood by Saleen. All of them were more ruthless and harder to tame than their counterparts. As of now, they had already attached the bowstrings to their steel crossbows and were ready to defend themselves against an ambush. These pirates had come to like leading the lives of adventurers. Regardless of whether they were sailing or on land, they refused to lead peaceful lives. Being forced to take part in the construction of Saleen’s city had been an even more torturous experience than sitting in jail. Now that they were out and about, their lust for blood was beginning to show. It was obvious from the fact that they were much perkier now compared to the time when they had been over in the city base.
Saleen had sensed the change in their attitudes and decided to observe a select few pirates. After a while, he had discovered that over twenty pirates displayed the same change in attitude, which meant that they might not be so reluctant to follow him after all. Upon reaching this conclusion, he commanded those twenty-plus pirates to be his personal bodyguards. They might have thought that they were protecting Saleen, but in reality, it was Saleen who intended to protect them.
Saleen intended to enlist those pirates that had a penchant for fighting into his army. However, before that could happen, he would have to train them first and ensure that they reached the standards of an intermediate swordmaster before he could allow them to fight alongside him. Saleen did not know how much he could improve the skillsets of these pirates, but he did know that he would have to do battle with the Holy See’s blood knights sooner or later. An army without anyone who had capabilities equal or higher than those of an intermediate swordmaster was bound to lose miserably against a squad of blood knights.
The area up ahead was littered with boulders, pebbles, and other types of rock. The huge boulders, which were lying in the snow, looked as big as monsters. Although most of them were completely covered by snow, because they were so big, they stuck out like sore thumbs.
With a clang, Saleen heard the sounds of a sharp object, perhaps a knife, ripping apart a person’s armor. This could only mean one thing – a battle was taking place.
The scouts that were ahead of them had already stopped at the rocky area. Their gloves were changed and they had swapped out their wooden guns for longswords. Wooden guns were good for confrontational attacks. However, this rocky area provided too little space for anyone to twist their bodies in the air. Thus, weapons that were too long could not be operated.
Even though most of the pirates only had experience fighting at sea, they were not complete fools on land. Even before Saleen had given his commands, they had already equipped themselves with the most suitable weapons to use in this environment. There were even a few pirates who were preparing to launch arrows in case the defenses of Saleen’s troops were broken. The lethality of these crossbows was not to be underestimated.
The pirates who had been assigned the role of scouts became excited. Who would not have been if they were given a chance to slack? Since they were all riding skeletal warhorses, as long as they laid low enough, the skeletal warhorses would block every last arrow shot from those crossbows. If Saleen’s troops needed to fight, they would not even need to do anything during the first round of combat.
Furthermore, with an archmage like Saleen by their side, they would always have access to restorative water. Those that were severely injured would also be healed via the Chunlun spell. It was pretty similar to how the Holy See knights were always healed by holy masters. Now that their morale was high, their combat prowess would inadvertently be raised by a huge percentage as well.
Upon getting closer to the source of the noise, Saleen discovered an empty plot of land surrounded by a wide variety of rocks. The snow that was originally on it had been swept away cleanly by the sword aura. On that plot of land was a thinly dressed man who was gripping a Qin eight-sided sword tightly in his hand. He had on a snowy-white cotton robe and his hair was as jet black as dragon blood’s ink. His brown eyes carried a hint of gold. His belt, like his robe, was also made of cloth. However, it looked different from ordinary belts. His belt was very long, and went twice around his waist before being secured with a dead knot. The tremolites that adorned his belt glittered prettily in the light.
He was dressed exactly like an ancient swordsman and was even wearing a pair of hemp shoes. No part of his outfit was suited for the winter season. It was almost as if he was not afraid of the bitter cold.
This young man was currently surrounded by four tall, bulky swordsmen. Each of them were riding a magic beast. Swordsmen who were able to domesticate magic beasts like that could only have come from one place – the Cloudflow Empire. The other three empires only produced horses to be used as steeds. Even the best horses were cheaper to rear than magic beasts. Thus, only the Cloudflow Empire would do something as expensive as rearing magic beasts. The reason for that was because there was too little land over in the Cloudflow Empire for anyone to breed horses. Thus, these swordmasters would step up to fill the gap between the lack of knights and suitable steeds.
The young swordsman had a lazy look on his face, almost as if he did not view these four magic beast knights as a threat. He brandished his sword lazily, cutting up snowflake after snowflake that floated down from the sky. Almost all of the snowflakes had been split right down the middle. Without even releasing his sword aura, he had managed to clear the entire area completely of snow.
Only grand swordmasters were able to execute this technique with such precise control.
“You’ve been chasing me for more than half a year. Aren’t you guys tired of this?” the young man questioned, his voice smooth and unusually warm. In fact, Saleen could have sworn that the snow falling around him had melted from the warm tone of his voice.
“Jola, we respected you in the past because you were a prodigy in swordcraft. However, since you have tainted the princess, as her knights, we must wipe you off the face of this planet,” one of them gruffly replied.
“Knights? Are you so stupid that you think you’re worthy of being knights? Does the Cloudflow Empire really house people as naive as you? Did your mother drop you on your head too many times as a child? How is it my business that the princess is pregnant? Just get a mage to ascertain the identity of the father!” Jola responded, exasperated.
Upon hearing Jola’s smug reply, the four magic beast warriors became so agitated that they positioned themselves to attack once more. However, before any one of them could make a move, the young grand swordsmaster laughed, “I’m not the only lover than the princess has. Why don’t you chase them instead? Why are you so obsessed with me?”
“Oh don’t worry, those people won’t live for very long either,” one of the knights burst out. The princess had gotten pregnant. However, the people who could have been responsible for her pregnancy had run away a long time ago, angering the emperor enough for him to hire magic beasts knights to eliminate them all.
Even though the royal noblemen led absurdly promiscuous lives, they took steps to ensure that the women would not get pregnant. Alas, the princess just had to get pregnant and even give birth to the child. The emperor had originally intended to send the princess over to the Qin Empire to get married. However, given the values that the Qin royal family firmly believed in, the chances of the princess being accepted into their family were now zero.
Even though the Cloudflow empire was in a state of peril and needed allies like the Qin Empire, the princess had gotten pregnant at the most inappropriate time and ruined everything. In a fit of rage, the emperor had deployed hoards of magic beast knights to arrest the princess’s lovers. Jola was the youngest grand swordmaster that the Cloudflow Empire had ever had. He was apparently used to be the mentor of the royal swordsmen. More than half of the magic beast squad that had chased him for over twenty thousand miles had been killed off by Jola, and one of their comrades had just been slain by him as well. Now, it was four against one.
The four magic beast knights knew that if Jola was desperate enough to kill off their comrades, he was probably not going to come back with them willingly. Even with their powers combined, it was possible that they would be no match for him. Four junior grand swordmasters might have been able to take on an ordinary black metal grand swordmaster, but Jola’s swordcraft was just too good to beat. Not a single black metal grand swordmaster with the same rank as Jola would be able to defeat him.
The reason why grand swordmasters were so strong was not because of the fact that their sword auras could exit their bodies and attack their enemies like a mage’s spells. It was because the person manipulating the sword aura had attained mastery in their craft to the extent that they could defeat a hundred opponents on their own.
Aini and Saleen, who had heard every single word spoken, glanced at each other silently. Their gazes communicated the same question in their heads – are these people out here to get us? Is this a trap?
Four junior grand swordmasters and one black metal grand swordmaster would mean a grand total of five grand swordmasters. Given these numbers, neither Saleen nor Aini would be able to deal with them on their own.
The swordmaster laughed and said, “Idiots! My buddies are here. It’s not too late to run now.”
Buddies? The four magic beast knights had spent so much of their time and focus investigating Jola that they had not detected the presence of the pirates. Upon hearing Jola’s words, they started to panic.
If they had been dealing with Jola alone, they could still have enlisted the help of their magic beasts. However, they were now faced with over a hundred new foes, and not just any foes, but knights! Oh no! they thought in dread. They had no choice but to retreat slowly. Even though the emperor’s orders were to be followed without any exceptions, they obviously had no control over the situation now. Staying put would mean sentencing themselves to death.
Upon hearing Jola’s words, Saleen could not help but bubble with anger. How dare he use my troops to protect himself? Saleen thought. Even if it was a trap, there was no way he could avoid being caught in it. Since we’re buddies, you better be prepared to introduce yourself, Saleen thought sinisterly.
“Listen up! I will shoot my arrows if anyone dares to leave. We have over a hundred steel crossbows here. Even if all of you are grand swordmasters, you won’t escape in one piece, trust me,” Saleen yelled, using magic to allow his voice to pass through the boulders.
What Saleen was doing at the moment was meant to scare the five grand swordmasters into doing as he said. Out of all the pirates he had, only a dozen of them had their crossbows ready to fire. Even though steel crossbows were fairly lethal weapons, they were severely affected by cold weather. They had contracted slightly, becoming even more taut and fragile than before. This meant that they were not as elastic. They would only use these type of crossbows when they were in a defensive position.
Upon hearing Saleen’s voice, the four magic beast knights panicked even more. They were not only knowledgeable, but had also seen the world enough to know that the voice belonged to a mage, and an archmage at that. They more or less believed Jola’s words now. Given Jola’s status, only an archmage would be worthy of becoming friends with him.