Mystical Journey

"A level of power where one is able to use aura to influence the currents. It’s a peak level that Palosa only achieved in his heyday, when all his personalities were one."

Andrela stood with Nightmare, looking at Garen’s wild aura covering the sky as he explained softly. "That is the legendary highest level of a martial artist. In ancient times, such a person was called the King of the Century! Garen… he has finally achieved this level!!"

"King of the Century…" Nightmare looked up at the platinum aura pillar, a similar expression of awe and shock on his face. This aura was as limitless as the sea, and just one touch brought with it an overwhelming sense of enormity and infinity. It was almost enough to make one get onto their knees. "To think that martial arts could really reach such a level…" He had never believed that martial arts could go so far. With the accelerated advent of firearms, the fall of fighting arts was all but certain.

And right now, Garen’s eruption truly showed him the end of this road.

The black night sky was practically lit up by the platinum aura. The white light pierced through the fog, as though it was truly sunlight shining across the island.

But it wasn’t really light, just an illusion of the nervous system caused by sensing that aura.

Everybody watched the two auras in the sky over the island, shocked. That was the level of the legendary Aura Solidification, the level known as the King of the Century!

All those people representing the different powers around him retreated backwards one after the other, trying to escape being enveloped by that platinum aura. They had to retreat up to several hundred meters before they could escape the range of the aura.

Within the range of that aura, it was a matter of Garen’s will for anyone to immediately end up just like those five elite fighters. It was akin to being caught in a cage.

Garen pulled his gaze back, and looked around him.

The five elite fighters were all constrained for now, and had no chance of escape.

With one wave of his hand, the platinum aura was abruptly pulled back, distilling into a huge platinum divine statue behind him.

At the same time, the statue suddenly reached out its arms and grabbed the Clown King.

The enormous platinum arms got hold of the Clown King with a rush of violent aura.

"No!!" The Clown King screamed. With a loud pomp, thick blue mist erupted and hid the giant platinum hands within its depths.

Wherever the fog touched, thick layers of blue ice formed on the spot. It was extremely strange. Some of the grass between the crevices were affected, and quickly became a puddle of blue liquid.

Boom!!

Another burst of flames exploded from inside the blue fog.

The giant hands vanished, as did the fog flames. All that remained where the Clown King had been was a pile of minced meat.

But Garen frowned slightly. An intense eruption of the platinum aura could indeed hold everyone down, but such an eruption couldn’t last long, and took a heavy toll on his spirit.

As soon as he withdrew his aura, the other four presences pounced at him ferociously.

The Glorious Chan and the Werewolf Bedega came at him from the front, one of the wielding a blade while the other had sharp claws shining red. The air rippled with the rush of wild and violent aura. The giant whale and black wolf formed by their respective also bore their fangs at the platinum statue madly.

At the same time, there were two more equally powerful presences and currents from others behind him.

Garen snorted coldly, and ignored them all.

"Divine Statue, Ten Thousand Mammoth Trample!!" He crossed his arms, and faced the two in front of him directly. The invisible aura emanated from him in waves, the roar of trumpeting mammoths rising from the air.

Bam!!!

His arms collided with the blade and claws, producing a sound loud enough to make one’s teeth ache.

A large amount of platinum aura broke through the Glorious Chan’s and the Werewolf leader’s aura without mercy, piercing straight through like a sharp knife. Both of them coughed blood as they quickly fell back, their faces turning from white to red rapidly.

There were also two dull noises behind Garen. The impact of their hit made him jolt slightly, but he ignored that as well, pouncing forward.

Smack!

His hands curled into claws and he grabbed the Werewolf leader’s throat, the platinum aura putting an end to all future resistance in an instant. Although it was just a moment, that was already enough.

Ker-chak!

The bones in his throat were shattered with a light pinch. Bedega held his throat tightly and retreated, falling to his knees.

Garen’s expression remained unchanged, his right palm glowing like red jade. He turned it backhand, and met with Palosa’s palm in the middle of the latter’s sneak attack.

His left palm slammed into the Glorious Chan’s shoulder, as fast as lightning. He had also taken advantage of the second after his opponent’s aura had been broken through, and the opponent fell into a temporary moment of numbness.

Bang-bang-bang-bang!!!

It was one palm against the Glorious Chan’s shoulder, but there were four sounds of impact.

With every sound, the Glorious Chan’s shoulder sunk some more. By the fourth sound, the entire left side of his body had been utterly destroyed.

In the end, he fell a few steps back in a daze, his eyes quickly losing all light before he collapsed onto the ground.

"Big brother!!!" A roar of grief came from behind Garen.

Garen’s face was emotionless as he turned around quickly. One more palm hit.

It went up directly against the sharp tip of something like a tuning fork.

Clang!!!

The tuning fork vibrated intensely, neither the sharp tip nor the palm giving way. The Wesiman general in front of him had an expression of madness, all the skin on his body as red as a cooked lobster. It was evident that he had used some secret technique to increase his power exponentially in the shortest amount of time.

Garen was just about to retreat and escape. Just then, there was another ‘boom’ and a huge wave of power, forcing him to remain where he stood.

He tilted his head slightly to look back, and saw Palosa huffing through his moustache, one palm on Garen’s back as his expression remained calm.

"It’s over." A sharp voice came from the air above him.

Garen looked up abruptly, his pupil dilating. A flowery figure was falling on him rapidly from above.

It was the Clown King!!

He held a rune blade in his hand as he pierced straight down. Little bits of black light danced on the sharp tip of the rune blade.

It was that little of black light that gave Garen a sense of immense threat. From the corner of his eye, he suddenly saw something tied onto the hilt of the rune blade.

It was a bundle of purple explosives!

And at the same time, another general as well as the Demon Hunter leader Elysha rushed over at the same time. One held a sword and the other a gun, neither of them pausing for even a second.

"Save him!!!"

Andrela and Nightmare jolted at the same time, and rushed over from each side.

But it was obviously too late.

Garen’s raised face could already feel the sharpness of the rune blade, and the feeling of the tip piercing through his brow.

Suddenly, he smiled mildly.

Opened his mouth and exhaled.

Clang!!

A pillar of white air erupted into the sky, hitting the middle of the rune blade. The blade broke accordingly, the tip flying to the side and passing through the Weisman general’s forehead before sinking into a black stone statue with a whoosh. A string of bright red blood followed in its wake.

The Clown King’s smile froze in a second. He suddenly remembered how he had shown Garen the rune blade before, and his body fell to the ground in accordance with gravity despite himself.

"East King Hand!!"

Garen roared, invisible aura appearing around his body and looking almost solid. Behind him, Palosa was forced back by more than ten steps.

Rripp!!

The Clown King’s body was directly torn apart by Garen’s hands, scattering onto the black stone surface. There was not even a complete bone to be found, everything was shredded by that mad power.

In that moment, everyone stopped whatever they were doing. Even Andrela and Nightmare, who had been rushing here, stopped in their tracks and stared at the minced gore on the floor, feeling slightly nauseous. Their gazes on Garen were different too, as though they were seeing him for the first time.

"And I thought I had become his match, to think…" Nightmare bit his lip unhappily. "Is this the limit of martial arts? That’s too much!"

Andrela, on the other hand, was struck speechless. Only his knuckles on the sword hilt were white.

Arooo!!! Arooo!! Arooo!!!!!

The howls of grieving wolves came from the distance. It was the werewolves mourning the death of their leader. They didn’t rush forth, choosing instead to retreat in twos and threes.

Palosa’s back was against the stone statue as he looked at Garen calmly, a hint of the end in his eyes. He glanced at everyone around them

Elysha and the Weisman general who had rushed over earlier also stopped in their tracks, standing on the spot and afraid to come any closer.

Of all the other elite fighters remaining, all of them had been utterly destroyed in that second. The Glorious Chan, the other general, the Werewolf Bedega, the Clown King. In exchange for those four lives, all they had accomplished was a little scrape on Garen’s brow.

"I thought you had just recently achieved this level and couldn’t steady yourself. Looks like I was wrong." He suddenly heaved a heavy sigh. "There are two keys, how about we take one each? There’s no more reason to fight."

He glanced at Andrela and Nightmare. "Those two over there have no intention of fighting for the keys, right?"

Garen was also watching him calmly. From before until now, this old man’s expression hadn’t changed much. It was obvious he still had a trump card hidden. Even when he ganged up on Garen with the others earlier, he hadn’t truly brought out all of his power.

"Take three of my palm hits. If you’re still alive after that, I’ll pretend that ganging up just now didn’t happen," he said suddenly.

Palosa wasn’t surprised in the least. He merely took a deep breath, his expression turning unprecedentedly solemn. "Three hits? How arrogant of you! But according to your condition and power right now, you do have the right to say something like that. I accept!"

He had initially planned to use all the elite fighters here against Garen at once. Even if they couldn’t kill him, they should be able to fatally injure him. To think the opposite happened, and they forced such a terrifying power out of him.

Once one attained this level of martial arts, it was another transformation in itself. For those who did not deserve to touch fighters of that level, it was a miracle that they managed to hurt Garen at all.

Palosa’s thoughts were in a whirl, but he slowly opened his legs to stand steady. "To think that the trump card I had prepared for Sylphalan would have no choice but to be used on you in advance…"

He held out three fingers, his thumb, pointer and middle fingers.

Those three fingers abruptly pressed onto the center of his brow and both of his temples.

Smack! After a small sound.

Palosa put his hand down again, a huge amount of pure white aura erupting around him. The large aura rippled and crashed like sea waves, quickly forming a huge white bird.

Screee!!!

The giant bird made a strange sound. In terms of height, it was actually equal to Garen’s platinum statue.

Palosa’s eyes turned completely white, so that not a trace of his pupils could be seen. The clothes on his body were torn apart by his rapidly expanding muscles, his height increasing from 180cm to more than two meters. His whole body had the perfect proportions and lines.

Phew!!!

He exhaled slowly, two pillars of white air bursting out of his nostrils and smashing into the ground, even leaving two small dents there.

"The three personas have become one, is it?" Garen finally turned serious. Seeing that Palosa’s aura was actually as tall as his, it was obvious that as he was right now, he had the right to fight Garen face-on.

"To be able to perfect a simple Assassination Fist to such an extent. Palosa, you are truly the number one!" Garen curled one hand into a claw, and closed the other hand into a fist before pointing it at the air, his legs in a forward stance. It was as though his whole body was holding up an unbelievably heavy, extremely huge object.

"Take my first hit." Garen rushed forward soundlessly. The platinum statue’s fists also became white currents, twisting around his arms and forming two platinum spikes from his palms.