Mystical Journey

On a village path in the English countryside.

On the grassy slope by the road, a pale-faced man was stumbling, his hand gripping his chest, continuously moving forward on the grass.

With every step he took, he would squeeze out yellow and black bullets out from between the fingers gripping his chest, these bullets rained onto the ground, tumbling in the grass, but there was no trace of blood whatsoever.

The wound between the man’s fingers was only a red slit, that slit was like a mouth, spitting out bullets every so often.

The hot sun shone down on him, but the man’s skin was obviously growing paler, a mark like a red moon could be clearly seen on his brow.

He turned around occasionally to look behind him, as though worried that someone was chasing him.

His lips were dry and cracked, like those of someone who had gone without water for a long time.

Psst-psst-psst!

In an instant, three black shadows appeared around him, forming a triangle and surrounding him.

The three shadows’ faces could not be seen, they seemed to three men in black hoods, the light around was them was somewhat blurred.

Without saying anything or making any sound at all, the three shadows appeared and rapidly pounced at the man in the middle, like three bolts of black lightning, but completely silent.

With a similar hiss, the man in the middle seemed to blur, and he instantly disappeared from the spot, with a blink, he appeared several dozens of meters away.

And those three shadows remained where they stood, their bodies tilting, before falling to the ground with several thumps, turning into three mounds of black ash, even their clothes completely turned to ash.

He watched the three men disintegrate on the ground. Then the man coughed a few times.

"You dare to harm Lord Scarlet Moon… All of you… should die! If the Blood Alliance hadn’t sealed it off… There must someone from the secret party beside Lord Ashen as well! I must think of a plan…"

The man’s figure quickly vanished into the woods.

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

On the airplane

Garen fell into deep thought.

His Slaughtering Hand secret technique originated from an Ancient Endor Demon King’s peak-level secret technique, it had the powerful ability to absorb life force, this ability was very effective even against normal Blood Breeds, he just did not know if it had any effect against Blood Breeds of the Death Apostle level.

Right now, he looked carefully at the current state of his secret techniques.

‘Garen Thomas.

‘Strength 2.8. Agility 2.7. Vitality 2.9. Intelligence 2.4. Potential 1558%. Soul Limit 30.

‘Soul Seed: Northern Trident Frost-Fire True Water Evil Technique.’

‘Violin Mastery: Second level, proficient. (Total three level)'

‘Slaughtering Hand: Third level: Bloodshed. (Can be upgraded to higher level)

One of the Ancient Ender's 42 Demon Kings, Black Sethe had an unspeakable talent for killing. With a glance, souls would be extinguished and legend spoke of his hands that could send anything to the abyss whether dead or alive…’

"Fifteen potential points, if I forcefully level up the Slaughtering Hand…" Garen wanted to calculate how effective the Slaughtering Hand would be after the upgrade, but unfortunately, this demonic technique was different from all the Living Secret Techniques that he had practiced before, so even he could not estimate how strong it would be after the upgrade.

Garen’s gaze fell on the Slaughtering Hand technique.

Suddenly, a short and abrupt message flashed through his heart.

‘To upgrade the Slaughtering Hand, you will require ten potential points.’

If he could not use the other power system to train for the time being, then it might be a good idea to develop the currently unknown future of the Slaughtering Hand.

Garen finally set his mind on it, his gaze gathering on the Slaughter Hand.

In that instant, the icon began to blur, and then it began to shake violently.

The potential points cascaded madly, like a waterfall, dropping from fifteen points to a measly five points. The five points he had just obtained disappeared just like that. Now he probably had to wait until he had completely received the relics and antiques from the Black Uniform Organization before he could get another refill.

The icon for the Slaughtering Hand began to stabilize.

Soon enough, a brand new triangular icon, glowing with a black light, gathered and formed again.

‘Slaughtering Hand: Fourth level: Massacre (now creating more formation levels…)

Mad massacres brought Black Sethe immeasurable pleasure, his hands could now steal away enemy souls through specific pressure points. After the fourth level, the Slaughtering Hand will be able to gather even more life force, and, by collecting information on the practitioners themselves, it will be able to create brand new derivative levels afterward.’

‘Soul Seed Strengthening Effect —— Frost Essence (adds frost power to attacks, can inflict frost damage on enemies. Has a very high resistance towards cold surroundings)’

Garen observed it closely for a long time, but he could not find any drastic changes in the fourth level of the Slaughtering Hand, he could just store more life force at once, and then some new details on how to deal with this secret technique naturally appeared in his brain, it was some information about some pressure points that were not elaborated on in the Slaughtering Hand Secret Technique’s own records. He knew these pressure points, there were only a very few that he had not noticed himself, all of them could be fatal, but these things were utterly useless to him. He had countless secret techniques and skills that could kill others, but to beings as strange as the Blood Breeds, there was seriously nothing he could do, if what AG said was true, and he really could kill them without first finding their true bodies, then it really would be troublesome for him.

He felt slightly disappointed, but in any case not everything will develop exactly as he hoped.

He did not dwell on it long either, when the Battle of the Blood Breeds truly started, he could easily find an opportunity to hunt a middle or higher level Blood Breed as a guinea pig for his Slaughtering Hand.

Just then, the ancient scroll in his hand moved slightly.

Garen hurriedly opened the scroll lightly, putting it somewhere outsiders could not see.

New, clear lines of words had finally appeared on the pages, AG had evidently just written them.

‘The light party’s number two Death Apostle, Scarlet Moon, is grievously injured and missing in action. Perhaps you can start now, the first step of your training.’

‘If you want to become a true witch, the first step is dreams.’

And then AG began to teach Garen about the levels among witches.

They corresponded with the level systems of the Blood Breeds as well, Death Apostles, upper level, middle level, lower level, disciples (vampires), they had actually drawn out their levels according to the level of Blood Breeds that they could face.

And until now, there was only one Death Apostle level female witch -- Lion Mother, the leaders of the other territories were only upper level witches at the most, and as for male witches, he was the very last upper level male witch…

Male witches were actually about to disappear from the pages of history, they were being utterly eliminated by the female witches.

‘That’s why the Blood Breeds are so strong, because they have four Death Apostles.’ AG wrote as such.

‘So my power is only at the upper level as well?" Garen asked.

‘Your situation is very dangerous, and also very strange, but perhaps the Blood Breeds are wary of the mysterious power in your hands, so even if you have no awareness or resistance whatsoever to their dream powers, they still have not made a move against you. You are special. However, the power in your hands cannot protect your consciousness, so you were still affected in that dream. This means your position is still very dangerous, your power is nowhere near enough to deal with attacks from Death Apostles.’

‘Unless you are willing to release your hands, but even that is merely a temporary measure, the Death Apostles are undying, you can’t kill them. Of course, I don’t really know what will happen when you face a Death Apostle either.’

Garen frowned.

"Right now, putting aside my own power, how long will it take for me to learn the basics of your power system?"

‘I don’t know, maybe a month, maybe more.’

"You just said, that the number two Death Apostle named Scarlet Moon was grievously hurt and is now on the run? Didn’t you say they’re really hard to kill? Without finding their true bodies."

"Two Death Apostles who were extremely familiar with him surrounded him, my news also comes from the proper channel, you don’t need to doubt me. Not even the number one Death Apostle, Ashen, knows this. But it can’t be hidden for long.’

"Then which side is the Death Apostle who marked me from?" Garen persisted.

‘Unfortunately, I don’t know, but I have a guess, a very bold guess, that maybe that Death Apostle does not belong to any side at all, the scent of its mark is something I’ve never seen before.’

"Are you saying it’s a new Death Apostle, who had been wandering outside the two main factions?"

‘Or worse…’

"Then what did you mean by that ally you mentioned in the very beginning? Is it a companion of yours?" Garen pressed again.

The other side stayed silent for a while, before replying again in words.

‘The minimum requirement to become a witch is to have your own ally. That is a companion you can trust unconditionally, with no barriers between you, we usually believe that it is a part of the body’s consciousness that had split away independently, but nobody has done any real research into it before. You can ask him, and he will answer all your answers, these questions are all things that you already instinctively know, you just can’t dig them out from the depths of your memory.’

Garen frowned deeply.

He did not like having to trust someone without knowing anything about them. What does that ally sound like the first signs of split personality disorder…

Maybe he can just research the witches’ power system, and absorb the part used to fight Blood Breeds…

He began to think about that, once he got his hands on the many relics from the Black Uniform Organization’s side, he might have a large intake of potential points at once, then he would have more choices.

He had a feeling that the Slaughtering Hand’s derivative levels from now on might bring him an unexpected surprise. Although he could not really tell the principles behind it…

As for AG’s rating of him, he naturally would not take offense, after all, he still had many things he had yet to reveal. Such as his aura, for example…

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

America -- Grano.

Night, twelve minutes past ten.

Isaros brought her sister Arisa out of the convenience store, the car had already been refueled, and she swiped her petrol card.

Isaros gestured for her sister to get into the car first, taking out her phone to check her messages, the white light shining on her face and making it seem somewhat blindingly white.

In an instant, the sisters had stayed here for several years. She counted, and for a moment she could not remember clearly, this peaceful life was way too comfortable, so much so that they were beginning to forget how their days were before.

"Hey, Big Sis, there’s someone lying here!" Suddenly her sister Arisa’s voice came from the car.

"Hm?"

Isaros smoothened out her long hair, and strode over.

Beside her white car, there was an unconscious man, dressed in rags.

The man had no signs of any injuries or bleeding, so he looked like a homeless person.

"Big Sis, why don’t we take him home?" Arisa seemed to feel pity for him. She was always like that, she had plenty of love for all thing pitiful, be it people or animals.

"No way, that’s a man. What if he has bad intentions?" Isaros decided to use this opportunity to educate her sister.

"Big Sis, are you scared of such a thin man?" Arisa asked in confusion, "Weren’t you able to easily beat up five or six in the past?"

Seeing her little sister’s imploring expression, Isaros also sighed helplessly.

"Fine, fine, we’ll bring him back, it’s not like we never encountered this before…"

Neither of them noticed that the unconscious man had a mark like a scarlet moon in the middle of his brow, that was the mark of a Blood Breed under Scarlet Moon’s command.