Mystical Journey

Squawk!

The bats screeched as they pounced at Garen. There was actually the pale black glow of Totem Light on their bodies.

Garen hurriedly avoided them, retreating backwards to avoid the bats’ attack.

"Someone came in! Don’t you know this area is restricted!"

A man’s deep voice came from the tunnel ahead.

It was a skinhead who wore a black robe and had four red stripes on his collar who suddenly appeared in the tunnel ahead. A male lion with a black mane crouched next to him, and a black bat perched on his shoulder.

As soon as he came out, the skinhead saw Garen, who was avoiding the bats.

"Intruder!!" He instantly roared, pointing a finger at Garen.

Brrr!!

The bat on his shoulder, as well as the two black bats in the air, opened their mouths and emitted shapeless soundwaves at the same time.

The soundwaves fanned opened, completely enveloping Garen who was trying to avoid them. They came in waves, like seawaves breaking over the rocks.

The soundwaves had just touched Garen when they broke past the Neon Butterfly’s Totem Light in an instant, directly entering his body.

Suddenly there was a tight and dull on his chest, and Garen felt his head vaguely aching.

His vision was a blurry mess, as though something was pressing down on his eyelids, so he couldn’t see anything clearly at all.

His ears were also constantly echoing with a ringing sound, so he couldn’t hear a thing. His heartbeat accelerated, growing faster and faster, and that dull nausea kept rising from his chest and into his threat.

He suddenly tasted something like iron in his throat.

"Shit!! Form 2 totem!" Garen immediately understood his opponent’s level. Before he could think too much about it, he somersaulted backwards, his feet desperately tapping the ground, and he disappeared into the darkness within a few leaps.

The bats chased him for quite a distance, but still couldn’t catch up to him in the slightest.

The skinhead called back his three bat totems coldly, caressing the black lion’s head beside him.

"Suicidal. A tiny Form 1 totem user who didn’t self-implode after taking a hit from my Triple Ultrasound Waves, consider yourself lucky." The other guy escaped, but he didn’t mind in the slightest. Anyone who got hit by Triple Ultrasound Waves basically wouldn’t live for more than five minutes.

He fixed his collar, and raised his hand to look at the time on his watch.

"I should go check on Phillip, there have been little bugs getting in here all the time now, and now they’ve almost entered the restricted zone. Looks like we oughta move this position soon."

He strode into the pitch black tunnel, the bats and black lion following closely behind him.

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

Garen panted heavily, trying to get air into his lungs. The Neon Butterfly was perched on his shoulder motionlessly, its light dimming, its body wrinkled and dry. It had obviously taken damage in that soundwave attack from before.

Not only was the Neon Butterfly damaged, tiny red dots were also blossoming all over Garen’s whole body, as countless blood capillaries erupted at the seams.

He leaned heavily one of the tunnel’s stone walls. His whole body, inside and out, felt like it was swelling up as though someone was inflating him with air, making him liable to explode at any moment.

His blood and qi were boiling intensely like never before. Garen tried his hardest, did everything to press it down, desperately using the Divine Statue Technique’s methods to control and adjust it.

It took a full ten minutes for there to be some sort of effect.

He stretched out his hands, and saw that there was blood leaking out all around his fingernails.

"What a strong effect!!" he murmured softly.

All the blood in his body was trembling from the soundwave attack, roiling over like waves. His peak-level Body Hardening Technique, that had completely merged with his body, actually started to waver.

All this time, ever since he came to this world, he had confidence based on his highest achievements from the world of secret techniques. Even when he witnessed his teacher Emin’s battle against an opponent, he didn’t think he was too far away from them. It was just a difference in their strongest outputs.

And now, a regular unknown Form 2 totem user from out of nowhere, nearly injured him grievously at just first glance. It was like pouring a bucket of cold water over Garen’s head.

Although he did know inside that he couldn’t match a Form 2 totem user, he was still not that afraid or worried about his opponent, because the other person would find it hard to hurt him as well. Especially after he ambushed and killed a Form 2 totem user recently, this line of thinking had been reinforced even further.

To think that he would suddenly stumble into that skinhead totem user in this tunnel, and that guy had a total of three bat support totems. And his main totem, the black lion, hadn’t even attacked, but it was already enough to injure Garen to this level.

Only then did Garen understand more about Form 2 totems.

"Three support totems, and one core totem… He’s definitely one of the higher-ups here! A Form 2 totem user like that can’t possibly be a no-name character!" he hazarded a guess. At the same time, he kept stabilizing the situation inside his body.

Right now, his blood and qi were unstable. The impact had caused internal bleeding, and if he were to fight with anyone now, his abilities would be drastically reduced. At the most, he would have half of what he did before.

Faced with the soundwave attack that also carried Totem Light, the Divine Statue Technique could only resist a little better than normal people. Other than that, he had no other advantage.

After resting for a while, Garen knew that this was the key period. In his memories, he knew that as long as he found the core area in here, he shouldn’t be able to get a rare totem. This was Obscuro Society’s main factory, after all. If he could obtain the Obscuro Society’s totem and bring it out of here, it would be surely stronger than regular totems.

"I must be patient now, and wait for Goth’s side to trigger his power. It will disrupt the entire underground headquarters and factory, then I’ll have my chance to move in the chaos!" Garen’s heart slowly started to calm down. He began to dig stones, bit by bit out of the cave wall he was at.

Curling his hands into claws, he could paw out a large rock with each swipe, Soon enough he had dug a trench out of the stone wall, and darted into it.

He then squeezed all the rocks and shards he had dug out into very fine black sand, scattering them on the ground around him. This way it was very hard for anyone to notice him.

Shrinking quietly in the stone wall, Garen used the clothes on his body to hide the trench. It was hard to see in the darkness anyway, so it had a very strong camouflaging effect.

He shrunk into the stone wall, listening silently to the disturbances in front and behind him in the tunnel.

The reason he rejected using his teacher Emin’s White Bear as a core totem was because he knew that no matter how strong the White Bear totem got, it couldn’t defeat special animal totems without evolving to the very peak. And these special animal totems could barely go against Terraflor’s plant totems, not to mention the strongest ones, Obscuro’s element totems.

He didn’t have over-powered talent, so if even his basics were one step behind everyone else, it would be hard for him to advance.

Acacia’s talent could support two totems at most, and that was also because the Neon Butterfly was very weak. If it was the White Bear, he would only be able to support one at most.

He didn’t know how long he waited, but Garen -- hiding in the stone wall-- suddenly felt footsteps coming from the tunnel outside.

A large group of people were running past this tunnel, their footsteps hasty.

"Hurry! Hurry!" Voices came from outside.

Boom!!

An intense tremor came from the distance, jolting Garen, who was inside the stone wall, into getting a face-full of sand.

"It’s begun!! Goth and the others must have engaged the enemy! I have to hurry!" After the footsteps had passed, Garen quickly darted out of the wall, put on his clothes, and hurriedly dashed deeper into the tunnel.

After that moment’s reprieve, he had recovered most of his speed.

The tunnel ahead of him kept turning and twisting.

Soon enough, he returned to where he had been injured earlier. That skinhead in black robes was no longer there.

Garen didn’t wait for even a moment, and directly ran past this area.

The path ahead was suddenly illuminated. It was a wide tunnel with torches on both sides of the wall.

There were a few corpses scattered over the floor, each of them with their necks snapped and their eyes wide.

There was a light splatter of blood on the walls, leaving a smell of iron in the air.

On the right there were two white stone doors, one tightly shut and one half open.

In the distance ahead, he could faintly hear the sounds of intense battle. The two fighting sides had evidently just left here, and hadn’t gone far. They could be back at any time.

Garen walked up to the half-open stone door, and quickly peeped inside.

There were also corpses strewn about inside, blood flowing into a little stream from the corner of the walls to the door, dying the black stone floor a sticky dark red.

This stone room was probably a place for recreation and meetings. He could still see the bar counter, beer bottles and sofa inside.

Garen quickly walked up to the second stone door, and pushed it slightly. It didn’t budge at all, meaning it was locked.

It was a boost to his spirits. Garen aimed his right palm for the keyhole, and hit it abruptly.

Hiss!

A hole instantly appeared where the keyhole to the stone door had been.

He pushed open the large door, and quietly but quickly pulled it to a close behind him.

This room was wide, and had many long white rectangular shelves inside. There were like so many book shelves, neatly arranged.

There was a hint of pale red mist in the air.

At the furthest right, by the corner of the wall, there was a silver unit factory on a large table. A pile of intricate instruments made of silver were continuously spitting out silver, cubed units from a black exit hole.

There was a mess on the assembly table next to it, and the chairs by the table had also fallen askew. It was evident that the people here had left in a hurry.

Garen didn’t hesitate, and struck out a palm at the silver shelves.

Whoosh!

A strong gust of wind blew past, but did not trigger any movement.

He relaxed slightly, and quickly walked to the first shelf on the left.

The shelf was stuffed full of drawers, he pulled out the first one with a clatter.

Inside, there was a silver bat neatly arranged.

Although the bat had strong soundwaves, it was still an animal type, and so wasn’t what Garen wanted.

He pulled open the second, the third, the fourth.

They were all bats.

Everything in the first shelf were created bats.

He quickly walked up to the second shelf.

This shelf was full of silver poison wasps, each of them as big as a fist, and the poison needle on its end as long as half a finger.

The third shelf was half empty. In the larger doors towards the bottom, there were many wolf-shaped totems, all silver and unactivated.

The fourth shelf, the fifth shelf.

Garen casually took some of the smaller totems, so he could sell them outside as revenue. But that wasn’t what he wanted most just now.

In front of the sixth and final shelf.

This shelf only had a dozen long doors, dividing the shelf into a dozen long compartments.

Garen pulled out the first long door, and the thing inside gave him a slight shock.

It was a pitch black large metal ball, about as big as a person’s head.

The ball was covered in tiny, cramped and seemingly random white carvings, like a toy ball made out of voodoo parts.

Even more strangely, this black ball was suspended in mid air.

Just as he was taken aback, a clear woman’s voice came from within the black ball.

"Pleases insert the password." The voice repeated in several different languages, and then fell silent.