Mystical Journey

“That’s!?” The smile on Nadia’s face froze, and she tried to jump up, but she could not move her body at all.

Bam!!

The huge hand gripped her tightly and exploded. With one clear sound, waves of water and soil splashed everywhere, and for a moment there, nothing could be seen.

In the heavy rain, on the other patch of burnt black grass, Garen stood up once more in the midst of the dragon shadows and the chaos of the explosion.

There was a bloody hole about the size of a thumb in the middle of his forehead, and blood kept flowing out from it.

Reaching out his hand to touch the wound on his forehead, Garen licked his slightly dry lips.

“Nadia, so it was you… the person who could tear apart my soul primer, who set this ambush.”

Amidst the loud sounds and tremors, the Buddha Mother’s gigantic and gruesome body slowly bulged out from the ground.

This was a giant up to a hundred meters tall, and from afar, it looked like a black mud monster with three heads and six arms, similar to the Divine General Nezha from Chinese legend. The three heads each expressed a different emotion: happiness, anger, and sorrow. Each of the six arms held a different weapon: a bottle, a long baton, a dagger, a silk ribbon, a war axe, and a ring.

Of these, the mouth of the bottle was currently aimed at Nadia’s position, and it emitted a powerful suction power like that of a black hole. This was also why Nadia was fixed in the distance and could not move.

Buddha Mother, a terrifying killing machine from an unknown civilization. Even back then, Garen did not truly face the Buddha Mother head-on, it had been scared off by Garen’s Profound, the Flight of the Evil Phoenix, and thought that it was the Holy Phoenix Scriptures, that was why it gave in of its own accord.

Even Garen did not know what the Buddha Mother was truly capable of.

The hundred-meter mud giant stood underneath the stormy sky, several bolts of thunder blasting past its head, the sound of thunder rolling. It looked like a strange demon god in the night, unnaturally frightening.

Just then, one of the Buddha Mother’s hands was gripped tightly, keeping Nadia trapped tight. This hand originally held the silk ribbon, which was now floating around it on its own, functioning as automatic protection.

Garen was currently standing on the Buddha Mother’s right shoulder, watching everything happen in the rain beneath him quietly.

A Blood Breed Death Apostle was nothing to him, even if that Mongo gathered up the power of the other three Death Apostles, they could only barely draw with Ashen, so they had no effect on him. Perhaps he had been careless during the First Star, but if he was currently in fully-fledged Fifth Star mode, nobody could withstand even one punch from him.

“Nadia, how on earth did you descend into this world?” Garen’s gaze moved to the Buddha Mother’s tightly-clenched fist.

Rawr!!

With a whoosh, the Buddha Mother wailed out. A large hole had been pierced through the back of its hand, and a black shadow flew out of it, floating quietly in the air at exactly the same height as Garen.

The black figure stopped moving, revealing its face. It was Nadia, who had just been ambushed by the Buddha Mother. Right now her face was even paler, and a small stream of blood was flowing down her fair right arm.

“To think you could actually harm me…” Nadia licked her lips. She(1) was no longer a projection now, but the actual thing. Looking at the Buddha Mother’s giant body, surprise flashed through her eyes. “I truly have no idea where you could have found this antique, to think it still works.”

Barroom!

Lightning flashed past, instantly illuminating their faces.

Beneath them, the Death Apostles had scattered again, becoming individuals once more, and they looked up at Garen and Nadia in the sky weakly. Carefully, they retreated to a relatively safe space. Looking up at the gigantic Buddha Mother in the empty area, they all did not know what to say. A feeling of helplessness rose in their hearts.

“Is this the Holy Fist Palace’s true trump card? We messed up this time!” the only female Death Apostle murmured in a low voice, staring at that huge black shadowy giant. She suddenly felt as though she was watching a Transformers movie.

“Even the Final Holy Technique State could not kill him. This Garen… he is no longer human,” Scarlet Moon said softly. He looked extremely weak, all three Death Apostles had just used up all of their spirit and blood to power the Final Holy Technique, so that Mongo could fight, but even then, Garen could still face them head-on and blow them away. Although they had already guessed that they would be no match for him even if they joined forces, this result was still enough to turn all their faces pale.

“What do we do now? Where did that woman come from?” Wellington asked unhappily, of everyone here, only he hated Garen down to the very fiber of his being.

“Forget about that! We still have our final trump card,” Mongo said softly, looking at the giant Buddha Mother. “For this plan, that person had properly planned out the details with us, if even this trump card doesn’t work, then we…”

“What are afraid of? We can’t beat him, but he can’t kill us either! As long as the masks can’t be gathered, the Final Mask won’t appear!” the female Death Apostle interrupted him.

The four Death Apostles had lived for at least a thousand years, so looking at the huge Buddha Mother now, they were only shocked for a moment. After that, they recovered instantly, their long lives having made them unaccustomed to shock.

“How are your conditions now?” Mongo looked at the others, “What about the people we brought?”

“I don’t know, I think it’s time we retreated,” Scarlet Moon said quietly.

“Retreat? Hahaha…”

As the words rang out, a trembling figure appeared behind them, blocking them quietly. It was AG, and Tu Lan stood quietly beside him. Tu Lan’s fingers were dripping with blood, and that blood seemed to belong to Blood Breeds rather than humans.

“AG, what are you planning!?” It was still Mongo who spoke, he was the secret party’s most mysterious Death Apostle and the last to appear. It seemed that he was also the strongest, as he could speak on behalf of the other three.

“There are three of us, and you only have two Death-Apostle-level fighters, don’t tell me you plan on keeping us here?” he spoke in a low voice.

With a loud ‘barroom’, a tremendous earthquake came from the battle not far away. Garen and that woman had evidently begun to fight for real.

“If you were at your usual, full strength, I might not be able to keep you here. But now… hahaha…” A hint of hatred appeared in AG’s eyes, “Let’s settle everything, including our grudge from before, right here and now!”

Boom!

With a tap of his staff, the ground sank underneath him, and a huge semi-circular crater appeared. On the other hand, he shot in the sky, flying straight for the four Death Apostles, his body looking illusory and translucent.

Tu Lan also made her move at the same time, raising her hand and pointing it, a transparent water-like liquid flew out of her entire body, morphing into spikes that flew at the four of them.

The four Death Apostles scattered, attempting to run away in different directions, but a purple mist immediately rose around them. This purple mist rapidly gathered into several purple walls, completely surrounding the few of them in this forest.

“The Dark Colors Witches’ Purple Light Membrane.” Mongo’s gaze changed slightly, it did not seem to occur to him that the Lightless Alliance could have gathered all their members here in such a short time, completely ignoring the Blood Alliance’s assault on their other fronts. It seemed that they were dead-set on keeping the four Death Apostles here.

“Is there any point?” The hint of anxiety in his eyes faded, “You paid such a high price, just to kill us once?”

Death Apostles could not be killed, that was a natural rule that could never fail.

So no matter how weak the four Death Apostles were, they were still confident and unafraid, just looking at AG and Tu Lan with sarcastic eyes.

“Who said we just want to kill you once?” The hatred and pleasure in AG’s eyes became even more obvious. Lifting his chin, he looked at these four Death Apostles with an unprecedented gaze of madness.

“Seal!!!” he roared abruptly.

In an instant, countless waves of purple mist rushed out from behind him like tails, and strangely, there was a hint of pale gold in the purple mist.

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

A deep cut appeared on the Buddha Mother’s huge chest.

It stumbled back, its feet sinking heavily onto the ground, like a giant in a swamp.

Garen stood on the giant’s shoulder, quietly looking at Nadia, who was floating in the air.

The heavy rain was getting thicker, the raindrops beat down on their bodies, but they did not seem to touch anything substantial at all. There were no splashes, as though the two of them were merely illusions.

Countless gazes gathered here through different devices, each of them shocked or disbelieving as they landed on the two of them.

Such a battle, in the eyes of outsiders, was no longer a battle between humans, but had already surpassed that to be the stuff of legends.

Right now, Garen had completely earned his title of humanity’s strongest Holy Fist.

And the person standing opposite him had power that was as terrifying and oppressive as the endless black clouds.

Their battle was being relayed to the higher-ups of secret organizations all over the world through all sorts of devices.

This was a battle that determined the fate of the world.

“With the way you’re training your secret techniques, this world is already beginning to repel you…” Nadia waved the huge sword in her hand carelessly, “You should never have come here.”

“You sure know a lot.” Garen’s expression did not change. He did not maintain the emission of his Fifth Star state, right now he was relying completely on the Buddha Mother to fight Nadia. He had only used the Fifth Star in that instantaneous explosion just now.

“Looking at you, I can’t help but think of the old me.” Nadia flicked her long hair lightly, her expression nostalgic. “The truth is I always wanted to kill you, mostly because you beat me a few times back then, so I wanted to save face. Thinking about it now, it was such a waste of time.”

“A Void Creature and a Void Pursuer, haven’t we always been sworn enemies? That is the True Soul vow we made to the Mother Stream,” Garen said calmly.

“That’s right, we’re destined to be enemies… So whenever I see a Pursuer with the potential to grow, I can’t help but want to destroy them,” Nadia smiled, carefree. “But thinking about it, this truly is a pointless battle…”

Her expression looked lonely.

“For the past ten thousand years, I’ve always been wandering in the Void, with no idea what I was doing… Pointless battles, one after the other, killing off so many Pursuers.”

Garen looked at her seemingly genuine expression, and did not know what to say. Up until now, he had barely lived for as long as the last few digits of her lifespan. So when it came to such a depressingly lonely life, he did not understand, neither did he wish to understand.

“What do you mean by talking so much?” The corner of his eyes swept across the Purple Light Membrane that had risen up in the distance, and he knew that the Lightless Alliance did it, while the Death Apostles were on the run.

“Your plan succeeded. They’re called Death Apostles, right?” Nadia was unperturbed as she asked with a smile.

“Since I’ve come to this planet, I should at least leave some proof that I was here. Wouldn’t you think so?” Garen replied calmly. “It’s true that the Death Apostles can’t be killed, but I can make them fall asleep, and stay asleep until the end of time.”

The rain poured down even more intensely.

The two of them did not have anything else to say for now, because the truth was they did not bear any grudges against each other.

After fighting for so long, be it Garen or Nadia, both of them had recognized the other’s power.

Garen could survive so many battles with her projections even as they grew stronger, while he grew more powerful each time. He was just like Nadia herself back then, with the blood and will of the Nine-Headed Dragon. Before she knew it, she felt as though she was seeing another version of herself, walking down another road she never had.

“The me back then failed,” Nadia spoke, “then what will happen to you, walking the opposite of the road I took…? I look forward to it…”

“Ominous Space Path!” She held up her giant sword flatly in front of her. The long silver giant sword began to distort, and several pitch-black dragon shadows appeared, swirling around it, emanating piercing wails and roars.

Translator’s Note:

Raws say ‘he’, probably a typo.