Mystical Journey

“I won’t be needing them for now,” Garen declined.

Garen got rid of these Demon-Hags who babbled on endlessly before flying toward the deeper parts of the swamp.

The ground of the swamp soon turned red gradually before a lofty black palace appeared in the distance. Numerous black War Puppets that were more than ten meters tall were patrolling the enclosing walls around the palace. These humanoid puppets with ox horns possessed extremely powerful shock forces. Since they were sturdy and durable, they were one of the best items that could be refined for guarding. One normal soul was all that was required to drive it for numerous years, making them extremely worthwhile.

Garen was obstructed by the War Puppets who refused to let him proceed any further. The level of the master here was unknown, and it was possible for various types of monsters to appear in the Abyss. There were no living creatures who dared to clash with an enemy for no reason. Hence, Garen did not force his way forward but withdrew and left instead.

He walked along another side before leaving this green swamp quickly.

However, he soon felt as if someone was watching him. After he had left the swamp, several little human silhouettes trailed him faintly.

Garen remained in his Dragon Whelp form. This physique looked extremely delicate and weak. Since it seemed like he was only at Level Four, it was not surprising that close-minded people were staring at him.

He found a hillock and flew there before descending in the shadows behind it. He turned around and waited for the pursuers behind him.

Shuffle shuffle…

Several faint noises could be heard before three translucent human silhouettes that were slightly distorted appeared at the top of the hillock. They were looking downward.

“Have we actually been discovered?” One of the people asked in a surprised tone.

Since they were already discovered, they did not bother to continue hiding. The Translucent Spell on their bodies vanished immediately. Three figures who were dressed in a silver armor were revealed. They were actually three knights.

A faint red Spirit Light was twinkling below their bodies. This faint red light was constantly centered around them. They radiated circles of blinding rays outward, representing their statuses as Blasphemy Knights.

The Blasphemy Knights were sentenced to be knights of the blasphemers by the Church of the Gods for various reasons. Most of them had entered the Abyss through special channels. This was the only way to prevent their lives and souls from being captured by the Gods and tortured forever.

After all, the Gods would punish the blasphemers extremely severely. Nonetheless, although the Abyss was a cruel place, it was still an opportunity for them to live.

Two of these three Blasphemy Knights were women while one of them was a man. They were not old and the armors that they wore on their bodies seemed to be of the same style.

“I want the skin and eyes of this Dragon Whelp, but you can divide the rest among yourselves,” said one of the female knights directly.

“I could tell that its eyes seemed strange with one look. It may be some type of treasure. It wouldn’t be good for us to divide everything up so early on, right?” said the other female knight unhappily.

“The way I see it, it wouldn’t be too late to discuss this again after getting rid of our opponent…” It seemed like the sole male knight had already detected that Garen was aware that something was amiss. His gaze was glaring closely at Garen.

“Were you three the only ones that followed?” Garen glanced behind himself unhappily. He focused carefully and realized that these three idiots had really trailed him. It looked like most of the other traders were much smarter in comparison…

He considered these three knights carefully. By looking at the forces of their Spirit Light, he could tell that they were at Level Four. Were these three Level Four individuals actually daring enough to hunt a Level Four Dragon Whelp in the Abyss? Perhaps they had special hidden moves. Was it possible that they were unaware that the creatures in the Abyss that looked weak were the one you should provoke the least?

In a place like the Abyss, everyone was afraid that their strength was not powerful enough to be displayed fully. Nonetheless, they had to exhibit their strength to prevent themselves from being bullied or oppressed. Only the most powerful beings would intentionally show signs of weakness to purposely entice the hunters and prey on them instead… Meanwhile, it was possible that true weaklings did exist among the local demonic creatures. However, none of the outsiders were abnormally weak.

“Go!”

The male knight drew his Greatsword first. The blade was dyed with a faint red Spirit Light, while his Level Four forces increased to Level Five immediately. By looking at the taut muscles throughout his entire body that was now enlarged, it appeared that he had used certain temporary means of strengthening his powers.

Ahh!

He charged towards Garen fiercely and swung his sword!

Bang!

His Level Five Greatsword struck Garen’s head violently. Garen remained on his initial spot and did not move at all. There was not even a hint of white that remained on his scales.

However, a large crack had burst throughout the Greatsword.

The male knight’s face turned pale instantly. Garen had initially assumed that he would discard his Greatsword before turning around and running away. However, an unwavering look appeared on his face instead as he roared and said, “Rena, Irene! Run quickly!”

However, he did not retreat. Instead, he moved forward, continuing to charge toward Garen without surrendering.

The two female knights behind him reacted immediately when they were aware of the situation that had occurred. One of them ran off at once while the other was momentarily dazed. Next, she actually drew her sword and charged towards Garen. She clearly wanted to save her companion.

“Interesting.” Garen extended his claws and gently blocked the cleaving motion of the Greatsword. He exerted a small amount of strength before the force throughout the male knight’s entire body was instantly exhausted when he was shaken by an intense vibration. He fell on the side after being paralyzed.

“I’ll fight you to the end!” The eyes of the female knight that charged forward were red now. She assumed that her companion had died and proceeded to use full force to explode a ray of red light towards Garen. She had apparently managed to leap to a Level Six force instantly!

As expected, those who were able to teleport themselves here from other planes were not weaklings… Garen sighed mentally. It was not a big deal for the dragon race to randomly encounter Level Five or Level Six powerhouses. However, among the humans, these powerhouses were a level that could only appear once in several thousand people.

He extended his claws and gently blocked the Greatsword that the female knight was slicing toward him. However, Garen instantly felt that something was amiss because the Spirit Light of the female knight’s Greatsword had actually transformed into countless tiny red vines that tangled themselves around his claws firmly. Although the binding strength was negligible to him, this twining would be sufficient to cause most Level Five and Level Six powerhouses to tremble slightly. If their reactions were one beat slower, it was likely that this delay would mean the difference between life and death.

“How loyal. I was planning to devour you initially, but when I look at it now, perhaps you may be slightly useful.” Garen released a tremor in passing and transmitted it to settle the trouble with this female knight by numbing her and causing her to collapse on the ground limply.

The Secret Technique called Quake that he had transferred to himself was simply always successful in countering the close-combat and material-type Warriors here. Extremely fine skills like these could almost be considered as godly techniques to the people here.

Thus, although the effects of Garen’s other Secret Techniques could not be used anymore, he was still able to peak among the material Warriors because of this skill and his own powerful characteristics.

“Kill me, then!” The female knight was still strong-willed.

“Who said you could come over, Irene?!” said the male knight furiously. “Even Rena knew how to escape, yet you returned to save me despite having the chance to flee! Why didn’t you escape?”

“If you’re going to die, we’ll die together!” the female knight answered stubbornly.

The male knight was angered to the point where he was speechless.

Garen flapped his wings and flew in the direction of the female knight who had escaped earlier. Less than a moment had passed before he saw that woman’s fleeing shadow.

She had covered her entire body in disgustingly smelly swamp sludge. It was almost impossible to distinguish the style of the armor that she wore on her body. Her actions and movements were also slightly hurried. When she blended in with the scattered humanoid creatures in her surroundings, it was truly difficult to find her.

However, Garen had never judged people based on their appearances, but by detecting their soul’s aura instead.

When he pinpointed this woman, he dived downward and transmitted a tremor. He eliminated all of her resistances immediately before carrying her back easily.

Since his strength was already at 80 points, as long as his opponent’s vitality was not resilient enough and had yet to achieve 50 points or more, his Quake skill would always be successful and could cause them to fall with a single touch.

When he flew back to his original position, Garen was shocked to discover that there were two Demon-Hags who were actually sneakily collecting the two captive prisoner’s souls that had fallen weak on the ground. The souls of those two Blasphemy Knights were being extracted from their bodies quickly as half of them were already drawn out.

“You dare touch my spoils of war? You’re really asking to die!” Garen’s mind was upset. He discarded the female knight in his claws and rushed directly towards the Demon-Hags instead.

“Block him!” screamed one of the Demon-Hags.

A black, gigantic beetle that was seven to eight meters tall with sharp pincers moved towards Garen, attempting to pinch him.

Garen moved his claws from left to right in a ripping motion before an enormous force that was accompanied by vibrations transferred directly into the beetle’s body. This bastard turned weak immediately, making it obvious that his vitality was lower than fifty points.

Its head was instantly smashed by Garen’s claw. Its red and green brain matter oozed out at once after the collision, and it lay on the floor, unmoving.

Neither of the two Demon-Hags had expected that the battle would end so soon. They were instantly scared to the point where their souls had almost left their bodies. They turned on their heels and ran while abandoning the souls they were collecting earlier.

However, Garen’s 80-point speed allowed him to catch up to them instantly. He caught each of them in one claw as if he was grabbing balloons that punctured immediately. Both of the Demon-Hags flattened out with a whoosh and turned into two pieces of green human skin that fell on the ground. They were collected by Garen before he turned around and went back.

The green poison that leaked out tried to attach itself to Garen’s body. However, it was completely ineffective as it could only hold on for two seconds before Garen’s powerful vitality became immune to it.

The three Blasphemy Knights were thrown together by Garen. He used a few random vines that he had found on the ground to bind the trio together before grabbing them with one claw. Garen was planning to look for some subordinates to help him gather information because working on his own was truly too slow-paced. As he did not have an Ultimate Transformation Spell yet, his movements in his dragon race physique were too conspicuous. Frankly, it was better for him to find some substitutes.

While clutching these three Blasphemy Knights, Garen flew and briefly asked along the way in passing if the situation that the Fiery Beast was talking about was true. Indeed, he was not lying.

Garen returned to the location of his original cave quickly. If everything that the beast said was true, the matters regarding the forging of his weapons and equipment really rested on his shoulders.

He would probably need to add more than two thousand potential points into his Void Original Opus.

While flying along the way, he began adding his potential points there. It had only increased to 14% after he had added over 140 points previously. This time, he added 500 points in one go before seeing that his Void Original Opus had suddenly surged to a large extent.

It leaped directly to 64% from 14%. He could clearly feel that changes had occurred throughout his body. They were several subtle but extremely thorough changes. However, he did not have the chance to investigate it for now.

He threw the three Blasphemy Knights into his own cave first before Garen went to look for the Fiery Beast whose aura was not far from there. He released a small-scale barrier from Negative Energy Spells. These three fellows were already fully exhausted by him while their muscles and bones were injured from the quakes. Since they were too tired to move, he did not have to worry about them escaping.

“What do you say?”

The enormous beast raised its head and looked at Garen who was flying over while lying on its own building ruins.

“Have you decided to let me help you forge your weapons and equipment?”

“What are your conditions?” Garen knew that nothing ever came for free.

“I want you to provide me with High-quality Souls. Don’t reject me frantically because I can sense the special Soul Divine Weapon that you have. I’ve recently been researching a Matrix that allows me to attempt to condense High-quality Souls. However, I’m lacking a Soul Divine Weapon. If the both of us cooperate, perhaps we can obtain even greater benefits!”

The enormous beast spoke sincerely. He was initially planning to snatch it forcefully, but it was unfortunate that he could not defeat his opponent…

“High-quality Soul…” Garen was aroused. If the quality of a soul was too low, it would be ineffective for him to absorb it as potential points anyway. This was similar to his current situation whereby if he absorbed the soul of a normal person to be used as his potential point aura, it would probably be ineffective. It would be useless even if he tried to absorb it anymore. Only the souls that were Level Three or above and had a certain density to produce qualitative changes were the ones that could provide him with some potential points to be absorbed.