Mystical Journey

Radiation blanketed every inch of the sky, raining in from all directions.

After the explosion settled, the aftershock came seconds later. An impossibly bright flash blinded everyone within the proximity.

Most had already escaped to their boats just outside the Smoke Island. Those who were looking at the Smoke Island were blinded by the light and were no longer see anything but darkness afterwards.

On a white boat.

The King of Nightmares and Andrela were standing quietly at the edge of the ship as they looked at the mushroom cloud rising in the distance. Both of them had a rather ugly expression on their faces.

Although the both of them had avoided being blinded by the explosion with their inhuman reactions, it was not because of this that they bore the ugly expressions in their faces.

Andrela gripped the handrail with both of his hands, so tightly that his fingerprints were faintly imprinted onto the metal.

"It’s a nuclear bomb… It’s definitely the people from Weisman!!"

"That was a small one, I heard that their experiment had succeeded not long ago, but I hadn’t expected it to be put to the test this soon…" The King of Nightmares stared at the shockwave travelling from the mushroom cloud and said. "Their motive wasn’t to kill the people on the island. They were trying to the eruption of the giant volcano on Smoke Island!"

Boom!!

The boats out at sea were like paper boats following shockwave, rocking about, risking capsize at any minute.

Navy personnel started to stabilize the boats and ignite the engine to accumulate distance from the island.

The mushroom cloud refused to dissipate, sending a column of black smoke soaring into the sky.

Boom!!

It was another vibrating roar. Red halation emerged from the sky above Smoke Island.

The halation spread out and rained down in all directions. To shock, what fell was in fact red and black lava!

lava rained down everywhere, large amounts of viscous liquid swiftly flooded the whole island, turning the island fire red.

Blankets of black volcanic ash spread out and covered the sky, spreading out thousands kilometers into the horizon.

The few boats that were too close to the island were overturned by a rogue wave. Still others were caught in the rain of lava, and were either broken in half or engulfed in flames.

The boat that carried the King of Nightmares and Andrela was hit by a swathe of lava in the middle, and broke in two.

The sound of screams were completely drowned in the seemingly ceaseless roar of the eruption.

Light from the sun in the sky was completely snuffed out by the thick smoke and volcanic ash. It was impossible to tell between night and day.

The blue surface of the sea was completely covered with volcanic ash and black debris, resembling a blue handkerchief littered and stained with blank ink.

Boats engulfed in flame were small red dots floating on the sea, glowing faint red embers of fire.

The King of Nightmares and Andrela, each with a person on their backs, immediately swam away from the range of destruction of the volcano.

Even so, the toxic smoke emitting from volcano kept invading their lungs. They all knew in their hearts that no matter how strong Garen was, he might not have survived such a terrifying natural disaster.

Majority of the experts were caught in the disaster, unable to escape in time. Only one in ten had managed to got out of range. Weisman’s objective had finally been achieved.

They managed to kill most of the high level masters from all over the world. It was an ideal condition to use the latest technology they had on hand.

In but a fraction of a second, the world had incorrigibly changed.

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

Black...

Everything in front of him was pitch black…

The last memory Garen had was of him releasing all of his anger, sending his fist at the bomb in the sky.

He knew the objective of the enemy was to ignite the volcano.

Smoke Island was practically the world’s largest volcano, as most of the volcano’s structure was under the ocean. Its volume was shockingly immense. The entire Smoke Island was actually the volcano’s crater, and was of the incessant mist on the island. This was a sign that it had been on the cusp of an eruption.

As the gigantic volcano erupted, the small, neighbouring countries were affected. The air pollution caused by it would severely alter the structure of the planet.

Garen thought that Weisman had underestimated the volcano’s destructive power and scale, and had decided to act in such a reckless manner.

However, none of this mattered anymore. What’s important now was the question of his current situation.

He wanted to move his body, but realized that he no longer had the concept of limbs. It was as if his body was in a deep sleep, and his brain was not fully awake and thrown into chaos.

His surrounding was pitch black; there was nothing to see.

In his last moments when his body was disintegrated, he could still feel the immense pain just from recalling this fresh memory. He clearly remembered his body completely melted by the intense heat.

In the instant the volcano erupted, it felt like the earth was in rage, and Smoke Island, which was the crater, unleashed a limitless amount of white and gold magma. The thousand-degree lava had completely melted him instantly.

In actuality, he had a feeling that he wouldn’t be able to escape the moment he saw the bomb.

If it was just an ordinary, powerful bomb, he had no reason to be afraid as he was confident in his resistance to heat. As long as it wasn’t core temperature, the most he would be affected by was the debris and shockwave from the explosion.

However, it wasn’t just any bomb, it was a nuclear bomb. Although it hadn’t been fully developed yet, it was still a nuclear bomb. Furthermore, the issue was not this but that Smoke Island was a giant volcano on the verge of eruption.

The nuclear bomb was nothing but a catalyst.

The eruption of the volcano was the one that did him in.

He was defenseless against the instantaneous high temperature impact and was completely engulfed in it.

"Never in my dreams had I thought of such an ending."

Garen recalled silently in the dark. Sylphalan and he himself were the strongest people in that world.

If Sylphalan had not sought death at the last second and kept on fighting, both of them might have ended in a draw. Practically, with his Divine Statue Technique, immense aura, and his abundant essence were already at an appalling level.

Sylphalan was no different. He had a terrifying explosive force and lethal attacks. Even Garen had a tough time against him. The only thing he lacked against him was his recovery.

Everything was decided the moment Sylphalan gave in to Garen. In a battle between two equals, the result was obvious the moment one party gave in to the other.

Garen understood everything in the darkness.

The world would no longer be a world revolving martial arts any longer. The realm of his martial art was at the peak and there was no room for any more improvements.

The next world should be similar to Earth, the firearm era. The level of his martial arts could only be describe as perfection.

It was pure darkness in all directions.

"Death may be the ending for some people. Clearly that’s not the case for me."

He was alone in the dark. He was a shapeless object without the concept of a body.

Garen didn’t know how long he had been floating in the darkness.

A day… two days…

A year… Two years…

He didn’t know how long he had been there. As time passed, he counted up to millions and there was still nothing happening.

Gradually, he was back to the beginning of transmigration and his thinking gradually stalled as he travelled through the universe.

After some time, suddenly he passed by some sort of mist, and saw a ray of light at the bottom.

Far away in the darkness, a dark blue nebula slowly appeared, and he got closer and closer and the nebula became bigger and bigger.

Within this nebula laid a planet painted in dark blue. Suddenly, innumerable images flashed past his mind, like a million rays of light shining in his direction.

Garen saw everything clearly as he looked at the images. It was a series of events that happened on the planet, the changes it had been through.

It was as if a movie was playing right in front of his eyes.

He Suddenly felt his body burning up.

He looked down and saw that a quaint book-like pendant was floating beside his body. It was the Eternal Starry Night Pendant that he had been wearing.

Unfortunately this necklace, which effect was unknown, was already lined with innumberable crack lines. The once gleaming surface had become dull, as if it was about to disappear.

A familiar faint red symbol appeared just below Garen’s vision.

‘Unknown force has been fully depleted… the travel is about to stop. Do you want to enter the nearest planet?’

Garen was stunned. The Eternal Starry Night Pendant was the source of his travel through the universe.

He immediately answered with swift reaction.

"Yes!"

Suddenly, his talent and abilities were transferred, and he felt his body guided by numerous thin red beams. He was then pulled by the beams to the planet at an incredible pace. A few flash and jumps, but he was nowhere closer to the planet.

His target planet was the one that he had glimpsed earlier.

The planet got bigger and clearer with each second. As Garen turned his head around and looked back, a similar blue planet had already became a small dot and blended itself in with the other stars in the sky.

"I will return…"

"Pew!! The speed had increased even further.

He felt a jolt in his brain and completely lost consciousness. The Eternal Starry Night Pendant let out a and was broken into millions of pieces as it scattered among the universe.

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

Night.

There was a young man, probably in his early twenties, busy writing something in a brightly lit room.

He was sitting at the copper red study desk, holding onto a white quill, occasionally dipping it inside black ink and writing something onto the paper after giving some thought.

The faint yellow light radiated by the candle reflected brightly off his hair onto his fair and handsome face.

‘Sun Calendar. Year 3567, twentieth of the fourth month. I had once met Aquarius from Walton. Oh my goodness! This is the third time in my life that I have been burnt by her beauty. She is too beautiful… So beautiful that she is as pure as a lily and as white as a moon. As beautiful as… As beautiful as…" The youngster stopped writing and started to think carefully of his next praise.

"Ah!~~~~" He suddenly released a long sigh as he pressed his chest with one hand. "Oh the beautiful Aquarius, I shall be your fated prince!!"

Ugh…

A faint footsteps could be heard just outside the door.

"Little Giles! You’re eavesdropping on me writing my poem again!! Stand still!!" The youngster threw his pen down and rushed outside the door. It was completely dark outside as he saw a small human figure rushing down to the first floor as he disappeared into the darkness.