Mystical Journey

It was not only affecting him, but even the Suffering Knights and summoned creatures behind him were injured heavily from the Level Nine spell. The Succubus’ Wail is basically a large-scale area-of-effect spell with friendly fire. If the Lich had not been forced into a corner, he would have never used this spell welded on his brow as the last resort.

“The Touch of Despair!”

Taking advantage while Garen was still under the effects of the Succubus’ Wail, the Lich’s body fluttered upwards, his hands started making a lot of complicated gestures at lightning speeds, sprinkling large amounts of mixed and messy powder of an unknown material.

A purple matrix emerged from below on the huge snowy plains.

The snow was quickly dyed dark purple, and huge purple tentacles that were a few meters in diameter sprouted out from the purple ground, wiggling straight towards Garen.

These tentacles were like an octopus’ tentacles. At the tip of the tentacles, it was densely packed with countless tiny suckers, whilst the suckers were covered with fine, sharp teeth.

A large number of tentacles tangled itself onto Garen, quickly weaving him into a giant purple meatball held high up in midair.

“I originally wanted to turn you into one of my undead! Unfortunately, you no longer have this opportunity! Now die for me!!” The green flames in the Lich’s eye sockets burned intensely. Just an instant earlier, he felt that he was about to be killed. That strong, intense feeling of a lethal threat was something he had not experienced for many years.

Just a genius of the White Dragon Clan? That was enough to damage him?

His hand, still holding up a gesture, moved down.

The purple meatball began to sink down swiftly. The snowy plains were no longer covered in snow. Everywhere the purple light touches had already connected to a different dimension. Once something was pulled in, it would directly enter the torrential dimension storm that was the habitat of countless monsters. The countless powerful and terrifying high-leveled monsters aside, even if one were to survive the monsters’ pursuits, without any specific landmarks or coordinates, he would only be left there to starve to death.

This was a spell that the Lich created himself. There were no other existences that could imitate it, and no existences could manage to find a countermeasure to it in such a short period of time. The only option for anyone caught in this was to keep on resisting and dodging.

Unfortunately, Garen’s spell power was far from reaching this level.

“How unfortunate, such a powerful Alien Soul…” The Lich looked at the purple meatball as it was slowly pulled down towards the purple ground. He had calmed down, albeit feeling sorry that he had to resort to this solution.

“These purple tentacles are from a huge creature called the Ruins Monster. Even the Dragon Clan’s Level Nine powerhouses won’t be able to escape. No matter how much of a genius you are, you’re still just a White Dragon!” The Lich grinned.

At this moment, the huge meatball began to slowly expand, getting bigger and bigger, and then contracting rapidly.

The green flames in the Lich’s eye sockets flickered wildly.

“No, it’s impossible to escape!”

However, the power of this spell completely repels any other external forces. He could only watch anxiously as the purple meatball stopped in mid-air, contracting big and small swiftly.

The green flames in the Lich’s eyes flickered faster. This spell was already his most powerful one. If his opponent managed to break free even under his most powerful spell, and he had already exhausted his arsenal of spells and half of his spell slots for the last two continuous Quicken effects, he had no way of fighting anymore again.

The white, bone finger gently touched the last black jewel on his bracelet. After a slight hesitation, the Lich still could not decide.

“Retreat!!”

He finally made up his mind, barking out loud.

Swiftly, all the Suffering Knights, summoned creatures and two Silver-Striped Knights who were still moving instantly grouped to protect the Lich. A cloud of dark smoke suddenly enveloped everyone. As the dark smoke dissipated, the Lich and all the Suffering Knights had disappeared completely.

Poof!!

The purple meatball burst from the inside, and Garen was covered all over with fine, small wounds. The white-gold scales cracking into what looked like countless glass shards.

Streaks of white blood dripped down slowly through the scales.

He burst out of the meatball and shot up into the sky. The enormous force ripped off the purple tentacles pulling onto him from underneath.

Roar!!!

He howled loudly as his wounds healed itself under the naked eye. This is the powerful effect of having an 80 point vitality attribute.

The power of this spell was horrifying. It was impossible for any other White Dragon to escape even at their peak performance. If not for the Divine Statue Technique, Garen knew he would not have been able to escape with only these light injuries.

The spell was strong enough to trap even the strongest Black Dragon at its peak!

“Lich…!” Just within this short fight, Garen had already understood the Lich’s power.

The Lich was definitely above him in terms of powers, he was no mere Level Nine. To be able to utilize and show the full Void Shadow potency of the Succubus’ Wail, he was very likely to be a Level Ten.

“If it was a formal fight, I wouldn’t even have stood a chance against him, but his insistence on wanting to kill me caused him to pay a hefty price. No wonder he retreated voluntarily.” Garen understood what was going on in his opponent’s mind after pondering about it.

If he could not kill a creature like a Lich from the roots of his soul, it would just cause him even more trouble in the future. As long as the Lich’s Phylactery was still there, the Lich will continuously reborn.

The purple matrix on the ground dimmed gradually. The huge monster roared to show its unwillingness to be defeated as its tentacles sank slowly back into the matrix.

“Unwilling to admit defeat?” Garon sneered as he looked down at the monster that is now only revealing its tentacles.

He took a deep breath.

Roar!!!

Roaring furiously downwards, the terrifyingly strong shockwaves slammed onto the tentacles. The entire matrix trembled slightly, and the rate of subsidence slowed down.

However, this was not the most crucial thing, but rather the fact that Garen’s body had once again started to grow. It went from the size of a horse to the size of two elephants in an instant. He was now twice as big as the average fully-matured White Dragon! Thick tubes of his Meridian system could be seen clearly, his muscles were twitching like running water.

“Die!”

Bam!

He stretched out a huge dragon claw, grabbed hardly onto a large clump of large purple tentacles, and pulled it up with all his might.

A shriek of pain screamed from within the matrix, which sounded like a combination of a lion and a tiger but also mixed with the cries of a mountain goat.

The serrated teeth on the tentacles sawed onto Garen’s dragon scales in a mad frenzy, but it could not hurt him except to barely leave a thin white mark on them.

Roar!!

Garen roared into the sky menacingly once more, shattering the layers of cloud. He grabbed madly on to the tentacles and pulled it upwards.

It was a competition of strength between these two huge forces. Garen’s strength was not as powerful as this monster, but he had effectively delayed the tentacles sinking down into the matrix. However, the purple light of the matrix was fading away at a higher speed than the sinking.

That was what Garen had hoped to achieve.

” Silibala, guyiee… 1 ” Suddenly a string of gibberish accompanied with the cries of an angry mountain goat rang out from the matrix.

It seemed to be a language, but it was not one that Garen understood. He ignored it and continued to pull on the tentacles so that they could not sink down instantly.

The voice suddenly changed to a different language, and in a span of tens of seconds, alternated into a dozen more languages.

Quickly, it managed to change to the Dragon language.

“You’re an Ancient Dragon!! Bloody hell, only an Ancient Dragon at its absolute peak could have such tremendous strength!! Let me go and I will compensate you!!” The sound of the mountain goat rang out in urgency.

Garen’s strength had far exceeded his expectations, and Garen was not afraid of his all-devouring sucker teeth. This was an outright miracle. He was just an ordinary White Dragon, but he had the strongest defense that only the Black Dragon Ancient Dragon at its peak could attain. If he knew this, he would have sent out his main tentacles to respond to the summon. That damned summoner Lich. Screw the dimensional agreement. If he could not retrieve his tentacles this time, his actual body’s will would directly be severed at the root of the dimensional link due to the Spacetime Dimensional Fissure. That would injure him fatally.

The Ruins Monster even wanted to devour the Lich’s heart at this point.

“Compensation?”

Garen laughed coldly. Suddenly, he realized something, the Ruins Monster’s strength had already become incapable of stopping him, seems like he was no longer an ordinary existence.

“So, you’re actually an intelligent species. Alright, I want you to sign a summoning agreement!! When I require aid, I can summon you for help!”

“The power required for the summoning agreement is not something you can afford,” the Ruins Monster said hurriedly. “You need 50 grams of Level Eight Soul Crystal powder, a power crystal of a creature that is at least Level Eleven! You can summon only my tentacles like the Lich. That way only Level Seven materials are needed.”

“No! I just want the summoning agreement! You deal with the materials!” Garen’s tone was firm. As the purple light of the matrix below started to fade away more and more, the Ruins Monster also started to panic more.

“Okay okay okay!! But only once! I have to pay a hundred times more materials than you and I can only afford it once! Any more than that and I’ll rather sacrifice this part of my will!” The Ruins Monster was pissed.

“Deal!”

Garen rapidly concussed his soul as a preparation to sign the agreement. A summoning agreement was no stranger to him as a Level Five Arcane Level. After a few lines of simple chants, he exchanged coordinate information with the Ruins Monster.

From the matrix, a black and purple bracelet flew out and automatically attached to Garen’s right claw.

The agreement was established, and the bracelet was the tool to summon the Ruins Monster.

This time, Garen was slightly wounded to the point where he spilled blood. If he did not get something out of it, he would have felt that it was not worth it.

Finally, he released the tentacles. With a whoosh, all the tentacles retreated swiftly into the matrix, and the purple light disappeared completely a moment later. The ground returned to its the original, snowy state.

Although he now had a one-time summoning agreement with the Ruins Monster, Garen did not intend to pursue the Lich to continue their bout.

Now, unless he wasted his one-time Ruins Monster summon, otherwise in a direct confrontation against the Lich, the two sides will be quite evenly matched. Furthermore, if he could not find the other’s Phylactery, even if he managed to critically damage or kill the Lich, his opponent can still reborn again in the future hence making no difference.

Speaking of which, the Lich may be stronger, but he also did not want to sacrifice too much as it was not worth the candle. Garen’s power was not as strong as the opponent. The two have reached a stalemate.

Staying in the snowy plains for a little longer, Garen rested until his body was completely recovered before flapping his wings and flying away.

With this attempt of testing the waters, he had also managed to preliminarily gauge his power. He had definitely surpassed the peak of Level Nine. With the Divine Statue Technique enhancing his dragon body, he was not even fazed by the confrontation of a Level Ten Lich.

Even within the clan, he no longer had to fear the Third Elders. With Garen’s current power, he could easily inflict critical damage to the Third Elders at any moment. After all, he was not a real Level Ten, but rather, he relied on the Divine Staff to reach this level, which was equivalent to the pseudo-Level-Ten.

Since he finally gained the power of self-protection, Garen had to start planning his next move.

In this war between the Mother River and this world, only by becoming a True Soul as soon as possible could he have the greatest chance of survival.

Thus, the first thing to do to reach a True Soul is to raise the Void Original Opus, and in turn, gain more Potential Points.