Mystical Journey

"Amazing sword technique…" Garen's eyes were brimming with light.

He waited until the mist dispersed. He then saw a tall and slender female figure standing behind the silver mark knife, which was three meters long and planted in the middle of the pool.

She was a strange lady. She has a sensual body as both her chest and butt were protruding out, and she was in a milk-white dress without any sleeves. The skirt was split from both sides like a cheongsam, revealing her pale and delicate legs.

Her hair was black as ink. She put away her sword as she turned it one round in the air before piercing it into the ground beside her. The sword was pierced deep into the ground and stood firmly.

The strangest thing about her was her face.

She was wearing a light black metal mask. On the left, it was sad and on the right it was happy.

"Al… My beloved brother." As the woman opened her mouth, a deep male tone came out instead of a woman's. In addition, she was speaking in Ancient Endor's language which Garen was very familiar with.

"The traitor… even the traitor has appeared… What kind of luck do you have!?" even Black Sethe's voice sounded strange. "This isn't someone you should be facing at your level!!"

Garen was expressionless as he ignored Black Sethe's outburst.

Sigh…

He exhaled a stream of white gas and then he inhaled deeply. Afterimages of his right hand appeared in front of his chest as he spontaneously jabbed an acupoint at the center of his chest.

Pew!!

The muscle there sunk in as it formed a deep socket before a jet of air was expelled out of it.

Garen's body suddenly expanded as his hands turned black. His skin was like a black metal, solid and hard.

"Who are you?" Garen asked in a deep tone. "And who's Al?"

"The woman laughed lightly. Her laugh was as light as a bell peal. Although it was a laugh of a girl, the moment she opened her mouth, a male's tone came out.

"You have the blood of my brother, the Void Nine-Headed Dragon, flowing in you. Did you not know that? Its soul and will are even fused into your soul. I have been searching for so long,"

She reached out her right hand. Her jaded fingers were long and mellow and as she flicked her fingers, a yellow copper coin appeared out of nowhere. There was a ferocious dragon head imprinted onto the coin and the other side of the coin was a pattern of three rings connected in series.

"I finally found its blood. It shall be mine. "She chuckled. "I am what you and the others know as the traitor… the traitor who would rather become a void creature."

"She's an Army Level! Every traitor is at least an Army level!" Black Sethe's voice sounded beside Garen's ears. "She's the upper general who commands a huge army of void creatures! It would be fine if my body is here, but…"

"Are you here to kill me as well?" Garen stared at the opponent as he growled.

"Kill you?" she started laughing as if she heard something very ridiculous. "This is not called killing… this is purifying. We of the Void has always been enemies to the Underworld Civilization. There's no room left for discussion, no?"

"Fighting against the strong is always my dream." Garen moved his leg and strode towards the opponent. His footsteps were heavy and powerful as the dream world trembled with every of his step.

"Interesting…" The opponent stopped smiling as the gaze under the mask finally took him seriously. "Looks like you're an outstanding person from the Underworld. Back in my days when I achieved the Eighty One Magical Slash, among all the strong ones, only Caps has the same pure fighting spirit as you."

"The opponent was once an elite who practiced Secret Technique. Every traitor was once an outstanding person in the Mage Civilization, so you have to be careful! Their Secret Techniques are definitely one of the best." Black Sethe reminded him softly.

Garen didn't need Black Sethe's reminder, as he could already feel that the opponent was the same as him. She was already above the level of King of the Century and her Secret Technique had achieved the realm of the legends.

In this world, among the Secret Techniques that he practiced, excluding the Slaughtering Hand, the Seven Star Life Secret Technique combined with his battle skills was his strongest technique. The Two-faced Waterbird Fist Technique and the other normal battle skills would probably be ineffective against this level of opponent.

Against an opponent of this level, any secret methods or techniques that were simple could be immediately understood and similar techniques could be created by them. It was to the point where they could trace thousands of secret techniques to a single source. In this realm of Secret Techniques, they were without a doubt at the level of Master.

Only a unique, delicate, complicated and powerful secret method was something they could use and others couldn't. In the legend, there even were Masters who would purposely add in many disruptive techniques to blind the opponent's vision.

As the two of them stood still while facing each other, the dream environment started to fall apart as cracks started to appear. The swimming pool's scenery started to tremble and black pieces started to fall away. It was as if the surrounding was set up with clothes and backdrops.

"Unfortunately… You haven't reached the peak that you have imagined… Your body is still too young." The woman whispered. "Ten years."

"What?" Garen raised his hand and was prepared to open the second star's acupoint. The opponent's invisible aura was giving off so much oppression that he could barely breathe.

"I'll wait for you for ten years, in hopes that you can reach the peak." The woman continued. "If…"

Kaboom!!!

With an explosion, countless black rubble pieces flew behind Garen as he leaped towards the enemy, like a terrifying predator going after its prey.

"I don't need ten years." He muttered.

In the dream, two black and white figures collided with each other.

"Second star!!"

Garen's body expanded once more and he was now at least two meters tall. His skin was black and he looked like a metal giant. He rushed towards the woman with both of his hands aiming at her.

He, who had activated the second star could produce hundreds of metric tons of force at this high speed.

His hands were weapons as hard as steel as it clashed against the lady's huge mark knife.

In an instant, the mark knife started to vibrate at high speed like an electrical saw as it moved up and down. A strange stickiness came from the sword and was stuck to Garen's hand. To be precise, it was more like biting down on him.

Garen's hands pressed hard against the mark knife. As both of them started to vibrate at high speeds, sparks started flying all over the place.

A few hundred tons of force was instantly placed on the woman, pushing her back far away.

"Dragon's Spine Slash!" Her face was filled with excitement. It was the battle exhilaration when a strong fighter met another strong fighter.

A mysterious white light which resembled a sword suddenly came out behind her and was going towards Garen's neck. It was like a huge dragon's tail whipping towards him. In this instant, the strength she released was even stronger than Garen's.

The light was incredibly fast, and Garen's hand was glued with the big mark knife and wouldn't budge at all. He could only see the light coming his way and he could do nothing about it.

Without time to think, he instantly bent backward, steadied himself and stomped onto the ground with his right leg.

Boom!

Mixed with the explosion, countless rubble fragments from the ground were shot out at high speed. However, the woman didn't care in the slightest as the stones freely pummeled her body; there was no marks of injury on her at all.

However, Garen's objective wasn't this. A huge amount of rubble flew straight at the side of the light and upon collision, the original direction of the light was shifted.

Then, Garen immediately used all of his strength and struck the woman's knee.

Two of them were separated by the reaction force.

The dream was completely shattered as both of them were left standing in an empty space. There was nothing left in their surroundings but darkness.

"I have underestimated you…" The woman said after realizing the strength from the last attack as she glanced at the surrounding.

"Unfortunately, the environment couldn't withstand our battle. I'll see you again. My name is Nadia, remember it…"

'Nine-Headed Dragon Queen Nadia…" Black Sethe's voice appeared once more.

"I'm Garen," Garen announced his name as he stared at the opponent who was slowly slipping into the darkness.

"Garen, we will meet again very soon…" Nadia's voice came from afar as her voice volume gradually decreased until nothing could be heard.

"You're in deep shit. The Nine-Headed Dragon Queen was one of the traitors in our generation. She has eighty-one lives and every death would increase her strength by one fold. At the end of her life, she would be eighty-one times stronger than before. It's something that can't be imagined!" Black Sethe seemed to recall the days of the past.

Garen suddenly recalled his days in the Totem World where he'd first obtained the talent of the Nine-Headed Dragon. With the Nine-life Talent, he could revive nine times, but compared to Nadia, the difference was too much.

"Eighty-one times…" Garen's current strength was quite close to the peak days in the Totem World. Although his body's attributes weren't as good as back then, activating the second star of the Seven Star Life's Secret Point would double his current attribute, which was about twenty-one points. However, he would have to increase the life force of his Slaughtering Hand in order to meet the exhaustion of such skill as his body's regeneration wasn't enough to activate the second star. As for the remaining third, fourth and even the last star… the current Garen wasn't able to obtain such power as the activation of each star would require a lot of life force. With his current storage of life force, he wouldn't be able to activate beyond the second star.