Mystical Journey

"I didn’t pay any attention to that, but my grandfather said that the three departments have utterly given up on Kovistan, this situation is now set, and all their power has gathered in Daniela now. The situation there is even worse, but there’s still hope of salvaging it." Prynne said simply.

"But if it goes on like this, the situation in the Kingdom will only get worse, without farms, where will we get our food? Our daily necessities?" Garen frowned.

"So we need to stabilize the situation as soon as possible." Prynne shrugged. "My grandfather’s plan is for us to join forces, call a large-scale nobility meeting, create a Noble Senate, and unify the situation in the Kingdom, or rather in Kovistan."

"True, right now all the powers are no different, nobody is willing to bow to anyone else, so this is the only method to stabilize the situation as soon as possible." Garen nodded. "I agree, let’s see what the others think."

"Great, let’s not waste any time, I’ll go back now to report to Grandfather."

"Okay, I was about to go settle some things too." Garen agreed instantly, "Take care of my cousin and the others for me."

"Of course!"

As soon as they left the hospital. Garen and that green-haired noble messenger boy immediately rode their horses towards the National Department of Experimentation.

The National Department of Experimentation was a critical technical lab that Avic always supported wholeheartedly, and it had been under Veska’s jurisdiction this whole time. The finances also leaned heavily this way.

The method of handling the meat of aberrated monsters so that civilians could eat them as well came from here too.

Taking advantage of the chaos in the Kingdom now, Garen headed straight for the National Department of Experimentation rapidly.

The two of them were followed by more than ten aberrated horses, each of them ridden by the green-haired noble’s subordinates and guards. There were two Form One totem users among them, and the rest were all normal people trained in martial arts. But their bodies looked strong and sturdy, so they had an impressive presence as well.

On the way, the group went straight through everything, not afraid of anything. Wherever they went, everyone just let them past, by now even some bandits and vigilantes who couldn’t tell all that clearly had no choice but to avoid such a formation.

"What’s your name?" Garen finally remembered this young man who had passed him the message.

The green-haired nobleman immediately looked gleefully surprised.

"My name is Bivon! Bivon Caelus! Sir, I am your avid supporter!"

"You did well this time." Garen nodded, slightly accepting this fella’s show of loyalty. Since he had this sort of gaze, he did not fear his terrible reputation, and had enough guts, it was enough for him to be considered a talent, one that could be used.

As soon as he said that, not only the green-haired man, but even the host of men and women behind him all looked happy. But they also knew that this was just the beginning, because the biggest problem with following the Black Fire Palace Master wasn’t getting him to accept them. But the pressure that came after that acceptance.

The Black Fire Palace Master had executed many and offended far too many more in the Palace, but anyone who could reach the inner palace had to have some background, yet Garen killed them without hesitation, no matter who went to plead for mercy. Or rather, he didn’t give anybody any time to plead, and just killed them straight away.

That was how he offended a huge group of people, but with Garen’s villainous reputation there suppressing them, nobody dared to make a move. Even then, it was a small matter to manipulate some things in the shadows.

The Black Fire Palace Master was strong, but he wasn’t undefeatable in the Kingdom. The two Grand Dukes, the defense minister Lord Veska, and even without these three, Garen was still alone, a few more Form Four fighters gathering their tactics together would still pose a huge threat to him.

Garen knew where his limit was too.

One of two Form Fours he might not mind, three or four might not be too much, but seven or eight of them, combining the power of their tactics would make a formidable power. After all, he wasn’t a Form Five yet, faced with Form Fours, if he were to fall into a formation that gathered power such as tactical formations, he would be stuck in a dead end no matter how many lives he had to waste.

And besides, the two Grand Dukes definitely had an Ultimate Heirloom each.

The Black Crow Formation back then was just a forgery of an Ultimate Heirloom, and it was already so powerful, enough to fully use Form Four power. If it was a true Ultimate Heirloom, used in the proper hands, who knew how strong it could be.

After sorting out the information he just received, he had also arrived at the National Department of Experimentation.

The street outside the door was cold and empty, with nobody at all in sight, rubbish scattered all over the floor, papers and clothes, shop signs, overturned carriages, and even two corpses burnt to a crisp.

Right now he was in the west area outside the Kingdom’s city walls.

He was surrounded everywhere by large swathes of black mountain ground, and of the whole Department of Experimentation, only one empty street was connected to the road outside, which made it the only exit and entrance.

The Department of Experimentation was in the middle of the mountains, just like a ring, surrounding several tall buildings and factories inside. He stood outside the large entrance and looked in, seeing a mushroom-shaped white tower standing there quietly.

At the top of the tower, there were occasional flashes of blue lightning circling around it.

"Palace Master, what are we here to do?" The green-haired man, Bivon, asked softly.

"Looking for something, something I had given to His Majesty in the past." Garen replied calmly, not attempting to hide anything.

"Come, let’s go in and look!"

Garen led the way and rode straight towards the tightly-shut door.

Just as his horse’s neck was about to crash into the large door, a red shadow instantly flashed by.

Boom!!

The door was directly smashed open, the metal door more than ten centimeters thick fell down just like that, and even large chunks of the tall wall on either side were ripped out.

There was the sound of crackling explosions in the air, but no light appeared.

"Hm?" Garen glanced at his left hand, the palm and the back of the hand were both charred black. "Invisible electricity?"

When he released the Dragon Shadow from his left hand to smash open the door, he also went numb from the powerful retort of electricity, just a second’s contact was enough to make his entire left(1) hand completely charred. The Nine-Headed Dragon’s defensive Totem Light was destroyed just like that. It made Garen feel the Nine-Headed Dragon’s defense was falling behind.

As he began going to more dangerous places, even though the Nine-Headed Dragon’s dragon skin defense was considerably strong among low-level totems, it was still too far away compared to others of the same level. Recently its Totem Light kept getting easily destroyed.

After all, whenever the Totem Light was destroyed once, that meant the totem had been grievously injured once. To other totem users, it was a terrifying injury that would require years of healing and recovery if done naturally.

Normally, this was a very rare possibility, because after all totem users’ Totem Light was twice as strong as the totem itself.

But to Garen, this situation was happening more and more frequently recently.

No wonder the Nine-Headed Dragon had nine lives, between defense and reviving, it had chosen the latter to evolve into. Only then did Garen begin to understand.

Feeling for the Nine-Headed Dragon’s condition in the dark space, one of the dragon heads had begun to wither up again.

Garen quickly took twenty points off his potential points, and patched it up, returning the nine lives to full once more.

But out of his previous potential points, he was now only left with slightly more than fifty.

He led the others into the Department of Experimentation, taking striding steps.

Inside the door was a ring of grassy land, equivalent in area to three or four football fields, unnaturally wide.

The white tower was standing right in the middle, arches of blue electricity continuously sparkling around its peak, its surface as smooth as a mirror, with a strange futuristic feel to it.

Garen didn’t even look at the other tall buildings around it, walking straight towards the white tower, while the others followed behind him.

There was the sound of many rapid footsteps around them, and even some heavy stomping.

Whoosh!!

A beam of white light brushed past Garen’s body horizontally. It nearly touched his nose.

"It’s the White Guard!!" Green-haired Bivon was slightly panicked, and hurriedly reminded Garen, "Palace Master, the White Guards are the Department of Experimentation’s best masterpiece, half human and half totem, they’re very powerful, and not afraid of dying! There are a hundred of them in total, they’re all made from dead high-level totem users. You must be careful, Palace Master!"

"How strong are they?" Garen had already seen the people in white-armor surrounding them.

"That depends on how strong the totem user they were made from had been…" Bivon’s face had gone white as he looked at the circle of white-armored people around them.

These people had their entire bodies hidden under the white armor, two blood-red crystals on their helmets in place of their eyes, glimmering with a faint red light. They held a sword in one hand and the other had been engineered into a silver cylinder, shining with a vague white light inside, as though it could spray out at any moment.

"Looks like this is one of Veska’s trump cards…" Garen glanced around appreciatively. "They should be somewhat similar to my Black Fire Guards, but they seem to be even stronger by a little. Tsk-tsk… there are fifty of them in three waves, and more than ten Spiritualized ones… impressive, as expected!"

The surrounding White Guards seemed oblivious to everything, as though they hadn’t heard what Garen said at all. They all stood quietly on the spot, completely motionless, not attacking or letting them pass.

"Veska, looks like you don’t nearly have as may back-up White Guards as my Black Fire Guards, right? If you don’t want to waste your power, then let me pass. I’m just here to take what was originally mine." Garen harrumphed, and ignored the White Guards blocking in front of him completely, riding his horse forth. Going straight for the white tower.

These powers and a few more trump cards would pose a certain threat to him as well, but he took the most pride in his survival power, without enough same-level power to suppress him, even if something could utterly destroy his power, he still believed that he could escape in one piece. That was probably the terrifying power of the Nine Life talent.

Bivon and the others followed Garen, terrified, and as expected, the White Guard in front of them kept retreating, naturally opening a path for them.

Veska must have a method that allowed him to see the situation here.

Garen understood now, the other party didn’t want to lock horns with him, and he wouldn’t go looking for trouble either, declaring war on Veska and all that. After all, he still didn’t know how strong that fellow was, he was also at the peak of Form Four. And he was connected to the other Grand Duke, Cody, too.

Riding his horse to the foot of the white tower, Garen leaped off the horse and strode to the door of the tower.

The door to the round white tower had naturally spun open, and there were a few researchers in white bustling about inside, as though they hadn’t noticed the changes outside at all. Each of them looked utterly lost in their work.

Garen strode into the tall tower. A voice came from behind him suddenly.

"Your thing is in the third secret room on the second floor." It was still that old, traditional-sounding voice, Veska’s voice.

Garen smiled, strode through the crowd, and followed the stairs up to the second floor, while the others followed closely behind.

On the second floor’s white corridor, the door to the third secret room was clearly glowing with a faint red light, as though showing Garen the way.

This light was slightly piercing, even with Garen’s sight he had to narrow his eyes, while the rest seemed to not feel it at all.

He strode towards the secret room.

There were two people in white standing guard outside the secret room. Seeing Garen approach, they actually lifted their feet as though ready to kick open the door.

"Without a decree from His Majesty or the defense minister, you cannot go in!"

"Scram!" Bam! Garen pushed aside the people blocking him, he strode into the lab, took a glance around everything, and instantly identified where the Green Vine Sphere was.

The thing was kept in a crystal bottle, a cylindrical crystal glass bottle, filled with a green liquid.

The whole Green Vine Sphere was like a green ball of thread with claws and teeth, bits of thread sticking out everywhere.

Garen walked over.

He smashed the glass with a bam, and reached his hand in directly, fishing the Green Vine Sphere out and pressing it onto his shoulder.

Psst…

The Green Vine Sphere waved its green tentacles around madly, rapidly piercing them into the flesh on Garen’s shoulder, and had completely melted into him in no time.

"Let’s go!"

Garen turned around and left the lab, if he stayed here any longer, he was afraid Veska’s weak will couldn’t take it.

Translator’s Note:

Raws said ‘right’, which directly conflicts with the previous bit, so I’m assuming left.