Mystical Journey

With the absence of Defence minister Veska, plus the fact the Royal Guard Captain Edin was not leaving the White Silver Palace, and that the First Concubine was busy with the preparations of the ceremony, Avic had completely left all authority in the palace to Garen. The entire palace was almost entirely governed by him.

In actual fact, this was all just Garen following the historic scenarios that he had seen, ridding all the Obscuro spies of the entire palace. The majority of those being purged are all eyes and ears for the First Concubine.

The only thing was that his excuses weren’t sufficient; he was also lazy to think of more solid justifications, so he simply thought up a few placeholders and killed the entire bunch of people. Which was what led to his bad reputation. But it didn’t matter, the Trejons’ family reputation was already rotten ever since Vanderman’s human experimentation was exposed; the household’s reputation had been thrown out the window. Garen couldn’t bother with those menial ethics either.

So long as Avic’s heirloom is fine, none of this would be a problem. The guards and maids in the palace could always be replaced. In such a crucial time, Garen couldn’t afford to be soft, he must remove all of the First Concubine’s spies.

He wouldn’t have known if he hadn’t uncovered the fact that First Concubine’s subordinates were all over the palace. He then ruthlessly killed off all of the spies of Obscuro.

Now that Prynne had mentioned it, the outsiders actually described him to be even more terrorizing than a demon, Garen didn’t know if he should be laughing or crying.

"Wouldn’t you guys know what kind of person I am? You actually distrusted me this much, you really make me sad."

Prynne said with a worried tone.

"Actually my grandfather said that too, you are now standing on a cusp, there would be some trouble when Veska returns, you’d better make some earlier arrangements."

"I understand." Garen nodded.

"Alright, I shall make a move, the girls are still waiting for my news. When you have the time, let’s hang out with the rest, it’s been awhile since we got together." Prynne tapped Garen’s shoulder.

"Let me send you off."

Garen sent Prynne off outside the palace and then arranged for a Black Fire Guard to escort him out. Garen then returned.

Within the period of time when he had become a Head of Palace, the Trejons family businesses also grew alongside his position and quickly expanded.

A few days ago, Garen had raided a heavily corrupted treasurer, but in the meantime also took a small part of the spoils, just enough to return all the money to Kid. To his tactics, Avic was turning a blind eye too.

Just by ridding the palace of so many spies, Garen still couldn’t figure out how Obscuro actually planned to make a move.

Back to the grand hall of Black Fire Palace.

He sat on the pitch black throne inscribed with dark red patterns, his fingers crossed. His mind spiralled into a rabbit hole of thought.

On both sides of the grand hall were two rows of Black Fire Heavy Guards.

There were some differences among the Black Fire Guards too, the ordinary ones in heavy armor were form 2 elites, but the ones in heavy armor and a cape, they were all form 3. The entire Black Fire Guards summed up to two hundred people. In reality, their capabilities far exceeded regular totem users in the same realm, and most importantly, they did not fear death.

The kingdom was full of form 2 totem users, but the ones who were truly fearless of death numbered few. Behind each totem user was a massive chain of resources and supplies, with many beneficiaries of various scales. During a life-threatening event, there were definitely few people who would fight to their death without abandon.

The Black Fire Guards were different. They were the kamikaze elites of the Form 2 totem users. Under Garen’s orders, they could unleash explosive amounts of power at anytime.

Despite all that, the Black Fire Guards were of little use to Avic, as the Form 2s in the Kingdom’s totem user regiment stands the majority.

The real reason people fear the Black Fire Guards was the fact that the all had the power to self-destruct. And also because of the Green Vine Sphere, their numbers can always be maintained. If they lost one, they can immediately be replenished with another.

It was too bad the Green Vine Sphere could only control so many Black Fire Guards; with the creation of so many kamikaze units, anyone who was below form 4, even spiritualized would not have dared fight them head-on.

"Unfortunately… these people aren’t sentient.." Garen shook his head as he sighed. " looks like I have to recruit someone to help me manage the human resources within the palace.

As he calmed down, he began preparing the items for his next expedition, he would go out on a monster hunt every two days to increase his potential points, and also to see when would he reach the Secret Techniques’ upgrade threshold.

Perhaps the Nine-Headed Dragon needed too much, for such a long period of gathering potential points, roughly 200 points in total, the Secret Technique had yet to produce any reaction. However, this made him anticipate it even more. As the requirement of potential points increased, so did the degree of change after one finally crossed the critical point needed to reach the next level.

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In a tall restaurant in the Kingdom

By the side of the round beige table in the restaurant, two men with thick black beards were sitting by the table, looking towards a large black palace from afar.

Although it was noon, the sky was covered in clouds. The weather seemed gloomy, and the thick layers of clouds felt like they would collapse to the ground soon, which gave off a depressing atmosphere.

The two bearded men sat towards a corner, ordered a decent, yet normal meal, which did not stand out at all. People came and went around them, hardly noticing their existence.

Nobody realized that the two of them had minute movements on their lips; they were actually communicating using a secret technique.

"Still have no way to contact Eleven?"

"It is extremely difficult." the other man who was slightly shorter looked gloomy. " The most troublesome people in the palace are the White Silver Palace and Black Fire Palace. Eleven’s Palace is situated slightly ahead of the Black Fire Palace, so it is very difficult to rescue her! The Nine-Headed Serpent’s abilities are extremely powerful. If he catches wind of anything out of the ordinary, not only would we fail the extraction, whoever goes in would also have no chance of walking out alive."

"That’s why we must avoid the Nine-Headed Serpent. To avoid him, we must avoid the Black Fire Guards first, but the Black Fire Guards are everywhere, scattered across every corner of the Palace…" The tall bearded man fell into deep thought. "Then we have to ascertain, what kind of people can get into the palace without being checked!"

The other person blinked his eyes.

"Stone, you have an idea?!"

"Let’s go find out exactly what’s going on, we may have a way around this. We shall first investigate Garen’s routines, habits, and behaviors. To win someone, we should try to understand our opponent as much as possible, for that is the most important step."

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Roar!!

A red dragon head dodged.

Within the deep mountain, surrounded by more than ten Black Fire Guards, Garen stepped on a boulder, underneath him were piles of debris.

At a plain nearby, a bovine-shaped monster with the head of a crocodile was slowly lying down on the floor, its body size spanning more than six meters, it had a jet-black body, its thick neck tightly bitten in place by something, protruding to the side.

As its head stretched upwards, and the blood vessels around its burst open. A stream of bright-red blood gushed out from the open wound, but once the blood touched the air, it disappeared as if something swallowed it up.

From the air were faint noises of some large creature’s gulping from a swallowing movement at the throat.

The left side of Garen’s mark on the forehead was flashing with a hint of bright red. As the swallowing sound diminished, so did the red light.

Bam!!

The giant creature hit the ground, and its body shrunk significantly.

Garen took the white handkerchief from a Black Fire Guard and rubbed his hands.

Suddenly, a strong quake was felt from the ground.

"Who! Dares! To Kill my Bovine Croc!!" A large roar was heard from afar.

Garen laughed, this was already the Meteorite Mountains, which was very far away from the Kingdom, which he rode on the fastest Thunderhawk for a little less than half a day to reach. This was beyond the defensive line, where different forces were constantly clashing, with people from different scales of power. However, the monsters itself were not very strong, perfect for training.

This was the northern side of the West Farm Defensive line, which, when compared to the south, had much stronger monsters. There were even pinnacle form 4 monsters here, and there were more than one of them, so even the Royal Alliance didn’t venture too deep into the mountains, and could only shrink their defensive lines.

Deeper into the mountains were monsters even stronger, Form 4 monsters, even Spiritualized ones were found spawning in hordes within a lair. This meant that the elites were the only ones capable of entering.

A single Bovine Croc could earn Garen five Potential Points, which was a fairly decent return compared previous standards.

One Form 1 totem or monster would provide about a quarter point’s worth of potential points, not even a full point.

One Form 2 gave about two points; and five points for form 3. Whereas spiritualized creatures gave a whopping 15 points.

The Bovine Croc itself possessed a combat prowess of about an elite Form 2, with its rough and thick hide, and its high strength, with special resistance towards non-physical attacks. But it actually provided points equivalent to a form 3, so Garen made it a point never to let any of these Bovine Crocs go.

There were actually many creatures with such rough, thick hides, but none of them were as worthy as the Bovine Croc.

As he heard the loud roar, Garen put down his handkerchief and stared at the sky from afar.

Soon, A giant black silhouette appeared from within the gloomy sky.

A giant octopus-like monster appeared, with tens of tentacles each spanning over a metre in diameter wriggling around, just like a bunch of long whips. The giant octopus head was at least 7-8 metres in diameter, and a scrawny old man was sitting on top of it.

The old man had on grey attire, with a gleam in his eyes. The shadow casted by the giant octopus under him have covered Garen and his team.

As the distance closed the distance, the skull-shaped suckers on the octopus’ tentacles became clearly visible.

Once it breached a 50-meter radius, the black octopus suddenly shrunk, with all its tentacles being retracting in an instant, and its body turned from black to bright red.

The old man sitting on its head suddenly had a change of expression. His gaze towards Garen’s team has also turned more cautious.

"So it seems an expert of the same level had arrived, I am the Seven Nights Tower’s Third Tower Head Endjack, how may I address you, kind sir?"

His intonation changed instantly and became much friendlier.

"Seven Nights Tower?" Garen’s eyebrow was raised. That was the biggest force within the Meteorite Mountain, It is said that it was formed from a large academy and a few guilds that were indigenous to this region. They were strong, and were famous for their seven-tower combination defensive tactical arrays.

The north of the defensive lines edged nearer to the polar circle, hence the temperature dipped constantly. It was still fine at this point, but if they advanced further up north, across the Meteorite Mountains, the areas there would no longer be habitable. The lowest temperature reached negative ten below in Celcius, the landscape covered in blizzards for a majority of the year, where the snow caps reigned. Although it was not as crowded as the as tropics, there were still hidden forces hiding away in these remote ranges.

Totem users have always had tricks to alter the natural environments around them; nobody knew how many experts there were hiding in the polar circles.

"I have long heard about Seven Nights Tower reigning over the north as the largest force in the Meteorite Mountains, I’d have never expected to meet an expert, the Tower Head from the esteemed organization only after coming here ten or so times. It is indeed my honor." Garen smiled slightly, " I am the Personal Guard of the Kovitan King, Palace Head of the Black Fire Palace, Garen."

"Kovitan? As in the empire, Kovitan?" The old man paid heed and asked in suspicion.

"Indeed."

That old man’s eyes brightened up. The reason he rushed over was to catch the murderer of all the Bovine Crocs that he’d let out, but they always winded up dead without him being able to catch the perpetrator. Now that he found the murderer, he’d never expect him to be a high ranking official from the Kovitan Empire within the mainland. The way the opponent looked, he was obviously not a weakling. The octopus that he rode on turned red, indicating that the opponent had the abilities to kill the octopus at any time. It was then obvious to him that Garen was at least at the same level as he was.

Looking back at his person, at the many guards surrounding him, although neither one of them were emitting any strong aura, they had a dangerous air of death about them.

If that issue could be resolved with this person’s help….

The old man had a plan.

The reason that he let out these Bovine Crocs was not to nurture these beasts nurtured for so years and to be running around for just anyone, but instead, they carried an important task.

That was, to steal the illusionary tactics of that brat that had stolen the treasures of the Grand Snowy Mountain. He had incomparable talents towards tactical arrays, and this old man didn’t have the necessary manpower to catch the culprit. The treasures from the Grand SNowy Mountain may not have any function to other people, but it may just prove useful for this man in front of him as an exchange.

Garen on the other hand, had his own set of plans; now that the Black Fire Palace was severely short-handed, if he could build a relationship with a strong organization such as the Seven Nights Tower, he can greatly increase his own power and influence. No matter what, having a expandable amount of strong troops will always make things more convenient.

The Trejons Family already had a sour reputation far and wide, but on the outer fields, it was unknown.

If he could secure a channel of communication and a friendship, it will be of great benefit to the Trejons Family

Ever since the two wars and periods of chaos, even though he managed to reduce the impact to Avic’s side, but Ender, Daniela’s side, even as far as East Continent, remained much the same. Hence, he must continuously improve his capabilities and influence, only then can he stop being hunted by Obscuro and Terraflor in the following years.