Mystical Journey

Chapter 682: Obtain 2

He raised his arm and to his surprise, he saw lines of worms crawling beneath his skin.

The lines were squirming slowly between his skin and muscle, like fishes swimming in water. It seemed like some sort of a worm.

“Is this an illusion?” Garen closed his eyes and opened them once more and saw that the lines in his hands had disappeared.

He continued walking towards the cannibal tree and the vines nearby started to move. They were so dense it looked like a person’s hair.

Sizzle…

Countless vines gathered together and swiftly knitted many black butterflies which spanned several meters wide.

The butterflies fluttered their wings gently as they pulled at the black vines and floated before Garen.

Cling!

Suddenly, thin gaps were opened in the middle of the butterflies’ bodies, as if they had opened hidden mouths.

Slash!!

Garen shoved his hands deep into the mouth of a butterfly and tore it into halves with his hands.

“Don’t you have anything that’s more powerful? Bring it on,” Garen smiled coldly as he prowled towards the Cannibal Tree.

That girl appeared once more and stared at Garen from the left side of the tree with one of her eyes.

Garen reached out his hand and tried to grab the woman’s face but to no avail. He was stunned, as he didn’t expect to fail at capturing her with his speed.

“It’s time to end this game,” he raised up his right hand. His hand started to swell and his skin immediately turned black green, giving off a metal like sheen; he had activated the first star.

He aimed at the cannibal tree and grabbed it with all his might.

Ahh!!!

A loud cry could be heard.

Garen’s vision turned blurry as he pierced through the cannibal tree’s trunk with his right hand under the neutral scream.

When he regained consciousness, he was already standing in front of the big tree. The sky was bright and he could hear the voice of Rod, Allen Hill and the guards behind him.

His right hand was pierced deep into the tree trunk. Fresh blood was slowly flowing out of the tree trunk.

Plop…

Garen took out his hand, lowered his head and looked beneath his foot.

The soil opened up automatically, revealing a part of the black mask.

He crouched down and tugged the mask out with all of his strength. The familiar cool aura immediately flowed into his hands. It was the Potential Points.

‘You killed an invisible creature,’ Black Sethe finally spoke, ‘However, this invisible creature doesn’t seem to possess any strength. Other than the cannibal tree’s corrosive and poisonous characteristics, it only possesses a little bit of illusive capability. To you, it may be nothing, but for others, it is an incredibly threatening being.’

Garen finally understood what had happened. The invisible creature existed in a world that no humans could see. Hence he had a hard time understanding their existence.

He then quickly returned to where Rod and the others were. Both of them stared at him as if they’d seen a ghost.

“I’ve got the mask,” Garen waved the mask in his hand, “Why are you guys staring me like that?”

Rod pointed at Garen’s shoulder. His finger was slightly trembling as if he had seen something horrifying.

Garen lowered his head and saw a worm-like thin line squirming in his shoulder’s skin. It looked like a living being that kept squirming in his left shoulder.

‘It’s the curse of the invisible creature,’ Black Sethe explained at the right time, ‘Some of the invisible creatures will cast a curse upon those who offended them. However, in your case, you just need to purify it with the Void Core and you’ll be fine. Even so, it’s something terrifying for commoners. These thin lines are called Gluttony. They will first keep eating your muscles and then drill into your organs until you die.’

Understanding the whole situation, Garen took out a small piece of black Void Core and gently pressed it onto the thin line.

Green smoke started to appear.

Sizzle…

The thin line gave off some smoke and soon the pieces disappeared as if it had been absorbed into his body.

“This item looks very strange. It looks like some sort of parasite!” Rod finally gave a sigh of relief.

“Let’s go,” Garen held onto the mask as he walked out of the garden.

Rod followed behind closely.

Allen Hill, who was behind him, stared at him with a complicated gaze. Garen had done it. He had obtained the mask without killing the cannibal tree. It seemed that he didn’t actually dig it out but that the cannibal tree had given it to him on itself.

He turned around and looked at the cannibal tree. It looked spiritless and seemed to be heavily injured, but it was much better than being toppled over.

“What’s the status on Kenna and Cole?” he whispered to Mole, who had just approached him.

“We haven’t captured them yet, but I fear that they’re still looking for opportunities. It’s definitely them who leaked out the news for the Nighthawk King to come here all of the sudden.” Mole whispered. They were quite lucky this time. If not for Rod who acted as a connection, the Nighthawk King might have forced things to go his way and Halo’s losses would have been great.

“Are you sure Kenna and Cole are not related to the Nighthawk King in any way?” Allen Hill whispered.

“I’ve done my research. Kenna was almost killed by the Nighthawk King once in Africa. For unknown reasons, he’d decided to let him live,” Mole replied confidently as intel and tracking were his forte.

“Then we will kill them! I’ll lead the way!” Allen Hill had decided to divert his vengeance onto them. Not only had he sustained internal injuries from Garen, his precious cannibal tree was injured as well. Furthermore, the mask underneath it had been taken away by force. To add insult to injury, he had to cooperate throughout the process instead of fighting back. This angered him to his limit.

Garen who had walked far away then shifted away his focus as he smirked.

He didn’t care about Kenna’s objective of using him. As long as he’d achieved his own objective, it was enough for him. It didn’t concern him in the least whether Kenna was alive or not.

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

Time flew and one month had passed by in a blink of an eye. Germany’s weather had gotten colder as it entered winter in November.

White snow blanketed the Berlin suburbs. The mask Garen obtained from the cannibal tree only possessed eighty plus points, which wasn’t a lot. It seemed that the cannibal tree was absorbing this energy as well and had used up most of the potential points, hence it didn’t have much left.

Eighty-two points had been added to the ninety-four points that he had and in total, he now had 176 points. This was enough for him to add one point to Intelligence, achieving 11 points.

After reaching ten points, each attribute would require an astronomical amount of potential points to increase it. One attribute point would require one hundred potential points. It would be easy if it was in the Totem world but in this world, it was extremely tedious.

Garen had no choice but to start searching for the location of the next mask after he used up the potential points. Fortunately, the fifth mask that he had obtained from the cannibal tree had a rather good suppression effect on the dragon-shaped coin after its magnetic waves were superimposed onto it along with the other masks. The frequency of Nadia’s attacks had been greatly reduced and her strength was temporarily weakened. However, Nadia soon started to use a different method and was closing in on Garen once more. Her strength had improved and this forced Garen to search for the location of the new mask.

According to the intel provided by Rod, the sixth mask was located in the Global Forest Belt – Memphis Forest.

The Memphis Forest was an area unique to this world. It was like a green belt encircling the planet, spreading into the endless horizon. Rumor had it that the mask was located at the edge of a moon river. A moon river was a river which was shaped like a crescent moon and there were at least ten of them in the Memphis Forest.

As he was about to move out to Memphis Forest, news regarding the Lotus Pearl had arrived.

Rod had negotiated with the Primary Colors and they’d decided to give up on Lotus Pearl, and with Seasnake and Seal’s help, they’d finally killed their target in one of New Zealand’s ports.

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

Squeak… Squeak…

At the outskirts of Berlin on a small road, the thick white snow was trampled upon, creating a crisp crunch.

A man in a grey coat was walking on a road that had yet to be plowed as he puffed out small clouds of breath through his mouth.

On his right, there were tall grey villas and on his left was a densely packed snowy pine forest. Traces of black dirt could be seen underneath the white snow. The snowy road in front of him led to an unknown location and behind him was a road and a small entrance connecting to it. By the entrance, one could see a black jeep parked there.

This man was holding a black bag. He walked forth, turned left and entered the stairs of one of the villas, before pressing the doorbell lightly.

Ring~~~

The doorbell kept ringing.

After a while, the door opened with a click. A middle-aged female servant who looked rather sincere and honest opened the door. She nodded her head, gestured him to enter and didn’t say a word at all.

The guy seemed to know who this female servant was.

“Thank you, Marquilli,” he carried his bag in before taking off his coat and hood, revealing his shiny bald head as he passed the coat to the servant.

With one hand holding onto the bulging bag, he changed his shoes and headed directly to the second floor.

As he stepped onto the black wooden flooring upstairs, he walked straight towards the room on the right and gently knocked on its door.

“Please enter,” a man’s voice could be heard from the inside.

The man opened the door and saw a handsome golden haired man sitting inside. He had been about to put down his phone and glanced at him sideways. From his angle, he could faintly see the information on the phone’s screen.

It seemed like a conversation between him and his family.

The seated golden-haired man was still smiling gently.

“I’ve brought the items,” he immediately diverted his gaze as he didn’t dare to peek further.

“Alright, it’s the deal with Seasnake’s subordinate, right?” the golden-haired man was Garen, who had been stationed in Berlin for quite a while. He’d practically stopped going to university and had invested his full attention in obtaining the masks. His explanation to his family was that he had opened a company on his own and university was of little use to him. He just needed it to obtain the certificate.

Garen had looked through the course of Gullivier University and he had already submitted his thesis and research reports. As long as he passed, the university didn’t care what he was doing with his life.

Baldy placed the black bag on the table in front of Garen.

He opened the zip and took out a black plastic from it. He then unwrapped the plastic as he placed it on the table.

A faint musky odor slowly diffused around the room.

Within the bag was a human head.

“This is Lotus Pearl, representing Mr. Rod’s sincerity,” Baldy stuttered as he spoke softly.