The water puppet's words were concise. If Saleen simply wanted to take elemental badges, he would be able to do so by defeating leaders of the stone statue soldiers. Doing so would have cost a lot of time and effort though. Saleen had no interest in stone statue soldiers who possessed no soul. The Imperial City of the Abyss was not going to go anywhere. If he still wanted to capture elemental creatures, all he had to do was to come back on a later date.
Elemental creatures with souls however, were something he definitely wanted to get his hands on. An elemental creature would not have been having any problems advancing once they possessed a soul.
Saleen wasted no time, and had the water puppet keep going east with a wave of his hands. The areas about fifty miles away from the walls of the city were probably its line of defense, filled with all manners of large magic arrays, elemental creatures, and most probably troops of various races back in its heyday as well.
