Mystical Journey

“Kong Yuan? What are you talking about?” The robot took two steps back. Garen had guessed right, he was just a simple researcher, and as such he did not have much fighting power at all. Or rather, he had obtained a part of the Slayer’s fake Sacred Sigil, a counterfeit, and yet he did not have the courage to use what little power he possessed.

It was just like with a weak average person, no matter how weak they were, they would still have some power. If they just trained a little and had the guts for it, they would easily be able to kill the person they used to be. But this person in front of Garen now evidently did not even have the courage for it, he relied on his thick armor for defense, hoping first to render himself invincible. Then, he used his poison to fight the enemy.

Faced with a minnow like this, Garen did not even feel like killing him.

“You guys weren’t the ones who caught Kong Yuan?” said Garen impatiently.

The robot kept retreating, his expression unnaturally frantic.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about! What Kong Yuan, I don’t know anything at all!”

“You piece of trash!” Garen had completely lost his patience, it seemed like the robot had no clue.

He held up his hand like a blade and dashed forward ruthlessly.

With a slight hiss, the hand blade pierced straight into the robot’s chest, as though it was a real sword. It vibrated intensely at a high speed, and he swung it downward.

Instantly, a clear white line appeared directly in the middle of the robot’s body.

Garen carried Kong Xinxue with one arm, leaping aside and quickly retreating to about a dozen meters away. Accompanied by a rumbling sound, there was a wail and tremor behind him.

Boom!!

The robot exploded.

The flames burned for quite some time, but practically no one appeared around him anymore. Garen could now be certain that the enemies here had probably issued a hasty retreat, and as he watched the flames rise higher and higher, he gave up on his initial plans to search for any spoils of war.

“The problem now is where do I find a ship to leave with…” Garen looked around him, but could not find any sailing equipment at all. “The people should have departing ships, right? Or else a plane would work too.”

He lifted the unconscious Kong Xinxue and began to wander aimlessly around the island.

Soon enough, a white helicopter rose slowly from the center of the island. The pilot was a black man, and Garen had threatened him into flying the helicopter away from here and into the distance. In no time at all, the helicopter had disappeared across the horizon, leaving the large blaze to grow stronger and stronger on the island. The thick smoke roiled, rising into the sky as a black-grey pillar.

No one noticed that, on one end of the island, a crystal-clear white gem was sparkling in the gradually dying flames, at the center of the place where the robot had exploded. The gem was hexagonal in shape, as though it had been carved before, and it was completely transparent. It also emanated a Soul Energy Aura that regular people could not discern.

If Garen were here, he would be able to recognize it instantly. This was a lost Soul Energy Crystal, a component part of the Soul Ring that he placed so much importance on. It was also a part of the Soul Seed.

A Soul Crystal could only be condensed with a variety of precious experiences and inspiration, as well as power. Although it was not as high quality as a Soul Seed, a few Soul Crystals were already enough to condense and distill a Soul Seed.

If Garen had obtained it and converted it into Soul Energy for him to absorb, he might have been able to condense a new Soul Seed, turning his Soul Ring into a Four-Soul-Seeded Soul Ring. It would also greatly reduce the time needed for him to reach the next grade of the Demon Lord Class, as well as increase his Soul Limit. Once he entered the Five-Soul-Seeded Soul Ring Phase, he just needed another breakthrough to reach the Seven Colors Phase, which meant he would need to condense seven Soul Rings of different colors — red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet — once more. Finally, he would reach the True Soul Level.

After all, there were levels within the Demon Lord Class as well.

Another option would be to use it as simply pure Soul Energy, so he could strengthen his own physical fitness. It would speed up his journey of growth further.

Unfortunately, he never put any stock in such a small fry, and since he had Kong Xinxue with him, he did not have any spare time to check, so he left just like that.

Leaving a Soul Crystal lying right there, sparkling away.

The Soul Crystal lay on the black metal that had been charred and was still smoking, when suddenly it was picked up gently by a large hand and lifted up.

“Slayer’s Soul Crystal… A Forged Soul Sigil,” said a deep masculine voice. It was a man in black, completely wrapped up in a black cloak. His face was obscured, and all one could hear was his deep voice.

He kept the Soul Crystal away carefully, hiding it inside his cloak. Then he looked into the distance, in the direction Garen had left toward.

“I just need to collect two more, then I can condense the Sacred Sigil Seed…”

He murmured, turning around to look at the sky. There was a helicopter there, slowly flying toward him at a low altitude, and someone tossed a ladder down from it.

*********************

The helicopter flew slowly, surrounded on all sounds by the endless ocean.

Garen sat aboard the aircraft, continuously dialing numbers on his phone. Unfortunately, this place was dead-smack in the middle of nowhere, and his was not a satellite phone either, so he could not get any reception whatsoever.

“Do you have communications?” He looked at the pilot impatiently.

“Yes! Of course!” replied the black pilot hastily, fearing for his life should Garen fly off the handle. He had been terrified throughout the whole journey, after all, Garen had demonstrated that he could fly this chopper with just one hand almost as soon as he came onboard. It seemed that the only reason the pilot survived until now was that this person appeared to be somewhat lazy.

“Dial a number for me,” said Garen.

The black pilot immediately turned around and glanced at the phone screen. Then he quickly dialed the number exactly.

Unfortunately, the call still did not go through.

Garen was at a loss now, it was extremely scary to lose communications on a flight. He would not mind so much if it was just him alone, but now he had someone with him. If he tried to swim his way back like before, that would truly be troublesome.

“Do you have an emergency channel?” he asked the pilot with his final ray of hope.

“N-no…” The pilot was even more panicked now. “But I’m bringing up the naval map now, there should be some decently-sized supply islands nearby, we always go there to replenish our everyday supplies!”

“Then let’s head there!” Garen decided.

Beside him, Kong Xinxue also began to stir right about then.

Mmgh…

“Where is this?” She massaged her head, opening her eyes slowly.

“Over the sea.” Garen turned around to glance at her.

“I remember… being kidnapped, I think,” Kong Xinxue said hesitantly. “How long was I out?” Her words began to flow better.

“How would I know how long you were out? All I know is that it was quite a while,” said Garen, annoyed. “You’re the reason I came vacationing all the way out here in the ocean.”

“Well, it was your fault for neglecting your guard duty and leaving your post, otherwise I wouldn’t have been kidnapped, would I?”

“Yeah, yeah, it was my fault. I shouldn’t have left my position like that.” He did promise to watch everyone’s backs, and Garen was not an irresponsible guy, so he decided not to argue.

This was indeed his fault.

“What should we do now?” Kong Xinxue frowned, looking at the black man flying the aircraft in front of them.

“We need to find a way to contact the outside world, and then wait for help to arrive,” replied Garen, cutting to the chase. “It would be best if we could reach Nine-Tailed and the others. Still, the most important thing now is to first figure out exactly which faction attacked us.”

His gaze fell on the pilot in front of him.

“I’ll talk! I’ll talk! According to international law, you can’t torture prisoners of war!” yelled the black pilot hastily.

“First off, tell me, who are you guys!?” asked Garen directly.

“White Crab, I’m just a regular aircraft pilot under the White Crab Army!” replied the black man immediately. He did not dare to pause for breath, lest his slow response ended his life. He had just watched Garen kill off more than a hundred elites without batting an eyelid, and most of those elites were terrifying killers who had been half-machinized and modified, usually they were the ones who killed indiscriminately.

But Garen had destroyed and obliterated each of them as though he was merely slicing through watermelons. The survivors had mostly gone into hiding, the killing had scared them away.

“White Crab?”

“That’s right!” The black man nodded his head like a chick pecking at feed. “The White Crab Army is an independent mercenary troop, we don’t know what faction we actually belong to, but most of our missions are passed down from the Commander-in-Chief above us, our small island base is only one of the twenty-or-so such islands under the Commander-in-Chief’s control. Our codename is the Biochemical Army. There are a lot more armies besides us.”

“Who’s the White Crab Army’s Commander-in-Chief?” asked Kong Xinxue coldly. This question was crucial, this White Crab Army could very well be related to the traitor among their midst, or else the enemy would not be able to follow their tracks so easily, capturing Kong Xinxue as soon as Garen left.

“What about Kong Yuan? He’s fine, right?” Garen asked Kong Xinxue in a low voice.

“About time you remembered!” Kong Xinxue rolled her eyes at him. “He’s fine, he’s just under temporary protection for now. He has no idea what happened, so we told him that he was aiding the investigations of a murder case, and he’s at the police station now.”

“That’s good.” Garen nodded. Then he began to listen to the black man’s explanation.

“I’m just a regular soldier, how would I know the Commander-in-Chief!?” the black man yelled. “I’m just a low-ranking soldier, a low-ranking one!!” he kept repeating.

“Fine, fine, I know you’re just a low-ranking soldier.” Garen was exasperated. “Tell me everything you know.”

“Got it! Got it!!” The black man heaved a long sigh of relief.

********************

On the cruise

Nine-Tailed Fox and Li Hua stared down the heavy-duty robot opposite them, as though readying for war.

On the surface, this robot looked just like a normal person, the only difference being it had a high-speed spinning metal sphere connected to its arm, and every inch of the sphere was covered in sharp thorns.

The robot was about 180 centimeters tall and appeared to be slightly thin, looking more like a man in armor rather than a robot.

But there was an evident gap in its neck, formed by a cluster of metal strips. From the outside, anyone could see that there was no flesh or blood in its neck, only metal strips and wires.

The waves were growing stronger, and there were corpses scattered all over the cruise ship. The cause of death was clearly the caving in of their chest cavities, as though something heavy had crashed ruthlessly into their chests, shattering it and killing them through their internal injuries.

There were crew members among the dead, and some special service personnel, but most of them were passengers.

That robot had suddenly dashed out from among the passengers, staying hidden and motionless when Garen, Nine-Tailed and the rest were fighting hard outside, only to suddenly attack and ambush Nine-Tailed Fox as soon as Garen left.

Although Nine-Tailed Fox noticed something amiss in time and managed to dodge, she still stabbed in the waist by that extremely quick poisonous needle. There was a great force behind that steel needle, so even putting aside the poison on it, merely the impact of it was enough to penetrate the muscles in her waist.

By now, the blood was slowly dripping down the right side of her waist.