Mystical Journey

“Die!” One of the half-machinized goons finally gave in and started firing.

Boom boom boom boom!!!

The light-duty submachine gun made very little noise, but still could not hit even Garen’s shadow.

Compared to their response times and action speed, Garen moved as though he teleported. With such short distances, he just needed to leap forward, and before they could even blink, he had already jumped across several meters of space. He held in his hand the thick metal plate, more than a meter long, and casually bent over, slicing the two men’s waists.

Their guns were still firing, but the two men slid to the ground in two halves each, their mouth still screaming for a full two seconds before the noise died down.

The bullets continued to rebound all around the room, but Garen just waved the exceptionally thick metal plate casually, and all the bullets embedded themselves into the plate effortlessly.

He looked down and observed the underground facility.

“Why do these guys always like to build their bases underground?” Garen rubbed his chin. “Should I go down or not?”

He did not have his powerful supernatural powers right now, so if he went down and some of the people inside ignited a grenade or something powerful like that, trying to pull him down with them, within that sealed room, its power would be… Tsk-tsk…

As he was right now, there was no doubt about it, he would definitely die.

The hot weapons in this world were clearly much stronger here, and the restrictions on supernatural powers were too considerable. And after he forced himself up a level, the increased supernatural powers mostly manifested in his speed and reactions. After he strengthened himself, his Saber Art could be executed at twice the speed of before, at the least. That was the true power of it.

In Saber Art, when he was waving his blade, he would naturally follow the air current that gave him the most speed, slicing down the path of the gravitational field, such that everything was almost completely perfect.

But none of these power-ups could help him face non-discriminatory fire head-on. The only way to handle attacks like those were to hide or take them face-on.

“This is slightly hard…” Garen did not want to put himself in harm’s way.

Ever since he found out that this universe was connected to the other Lighthouse universes, all he wanted to do was simply kill time in this universe, holding in there until his physical fitness reached its most terrifying peak limits, and then he could destroy any opponent he wanted easily.

There was no need at all to fight the enemy to the death right now.

But clearly, there was a chance that the enemy held Kong Xinxue hostage. To Garen, that was a problem.

However, he did not have long to agonize over it, because the other party showed up just like that.

Brr…

Amidst the low hum of the earthquake, some drastic changes appear to have occurred outside.

Garen quickly retreated out of the metal house and saw a gigantic platinum-colored metal platform, more than several hundred meters long, rise slowly from the beach at the front of the island ahead of him.

There was a huge cylindrical crystal bottle on the platform, with a pale yellow liquid inside. An unconscious woman floated inside; it was the missing Kong Xinxue.

Two figures stood in front of Kong Xinxue, one tall and one short. The former was the tall robot that had appeared before, with a triangular head and the symbol of a white crab on its chest. Two scythe-like scimitars jutted out of its arms, making it look like a small-sized elephant. It had considerable tonnage as well, which clearly meant that it was the power-type.

The other shorter figure was the stark naked woman who had impersonated Kong Xinxue. She held a long, sharp spear in her hand, the kind of riding spears people only used on horseback in the past. It made a stark contrast against her demure figure, merely 160 centimeters tall.

“Force Fielder…” The robot spoke first. “You are emitting similar forces… Looks like we are the same.”

“?”

Garen had no idea what the robot was saying.

“Wanna fight? If not, just hand her over, I’m in a rush,” he said nonchalantly. Other than large-area bomb attacks like before, nothing else worked on him. Even the bombings from earlier did not cause as much damage to him as one would expect, all he sustained were some light injuries.

“Hand over your Sacred Sigil, and I can let you leave here in one piece,” said the robot in a deep voice, waving the scimitars in its hands.

“Do I look like an idiot to you?” Garen was speechless. “Please don’t ask such r*tarded questions, it feels like you’re insulting my intelligence.” And a Sacred Sigil? He never had one of those, so he could not hand it over even if he wanted to.

“Or else, I kill her.” The robot tilted its body to one side, aiming one of its scimitars at Kong Xinxue, who was behind it. “She’s your older sister, yes? Are you going to disregard your relative’s life?”

It had not occurred to Garen that they would do that, or rather, he had practically forgotten that he still inhabited Kong Xiaofei’s identity. Now Kong Yuan had gone missing, and Kong Xinxue had fallen into enemy hands as well. Indeed, if it were him, a face-to-face threat would be the best course of action.

“Go ahead, kill her,” Garen rubbed his chin and replied after some thought. Threats were the last thing he was afraid of, practically nobody had been able to threaten him throughout his journey, since he started from the Secret Technique World until now.

The robot and the woman had not expected Garen to reply so decisively and were clearly taken by surprise as they paused there for a moment.

Whoosh!

At that moment, Garen moved instantly. He tossed the black metal plate he held in his hand ruthlessly, and it sliced through the air, spinning at high speeds and crashing toward the two with a terrifying momentum. Even Kong Xinxue behind them was caught in the crossfire.

“Is he crazy!?” The same thought flashed through the robot’s and the woman’s minds. It seemed as though Garen planned to kill Kong Xinxue as well, he showed no signs of holding back.

And all of this happened too quickly. The woman still managed to leap away by the tiniest margins, but the robot was by nature heavier and clumsier, so it could not dodge at all and had to resort to holding up its blades to block.

Bam!!!

The black metal plate, spinning like a shuriken, crashed mercilessly into the robot’s twin blades, emitting a loud and piercing sound upon impact.

The vibrations of the sound made the woman next to it go numb, and before she could react, she saw something flash before her eyes. There was an intense pain around her neck, and then she felt nothing more.

The very last image she saw was Garen instantly pulling his hand out of her neck.

Since she was frozen still for an instant, Garen managed to kill her off before she could even activate her true powers, and she sank into the darkness unwillingly. This may have been something that she and the robot never expected.

On the other side, the robot was hit by the black metal plate at high speeds. It pulled its arms apart, and fiercely tore the metal plate in half. This was a demonstration of its considerable strength. It was almost equal to Garen’s.

“How dare you kill Carice, how dare you kill my daughter!! I’ll bury you with her!!” roared the robot furiously, swinging its blades as it pounced at Garen.

Large gusts of high-temperature steam gushed out of his ¹ shoulders and permeated the air, carrying with it a clear and pungent odor. It obviously contained some special poison.

Garen held his breath, at his current level of physical fitness, he could fight continuously for ten minutes without breathing. He had nothing to fear against poisonous gas attacks like this one.

The two of them dashed straight at each other, without trying any fancy moves.

Hah!!!

Garen bent his waist and gathered his qi, then he smashed his fist straight at the robot!

The robot also slashed at him with both blades at the same time. Putting all his effort into it.

“Only an idiot would go head-to-head with you!” Suddenly, the corners of Garen’s lips curved, and he disappeared with a whoosh, reappearing directly behind the robot. He crashed his elbow into the middle of the robot’s back.

Bam!

There was a dull sound. The robot fell straight to his knees, but there was only a slight dent in his back.

That exasperated Garen slightly. This metal was rather overpowered, to think it could withstand his attack with more than five points in his Strength stat. Back in the Secret Technique World, two or three Strength points were already extremely terrifying, allowing him to treat regular steel plate or iron armor like they were nothing, tearing through them with ease. In addition, he also had his Body Hardening Technique, such that even bullets could not penetrate his eyelids. It was only natural that he would be nearly invincible like that.

And now, although he did not have his powerful Hardening Technique, his Saber Art was still his strongest and sharpest weapon.

“Wind Reversal.”

Garen held his hand up like a blade, and as the robot turned around, he chopped his neck hard.

Hiss!

A slight pain spread from his palm, giving Garen a shock and making him pull back his hand into a hasty retreat.

It just so happened that two of them had swapped positions, and he landed beside Kong Xinxue, looking at the robot, who had shot more than ten meters out, from a distance.

Garen raised his hand and looked at the edge of his palm, where there was a small and slow trickle of blood. His expression instantly turned solemn.

“What is this?” He thought back to that moment, it seemed as though there was something invisible and sharp protruding out of the back of the robot’s neck. His own strength had made him collide mercilessly with the sharp edge, and that was why even his powerful defenses could be broken and blood drawn.

It was like how people could easily tear a piece of paper, but when the edge of a paper was abnormally sharp, a brush along that edge would result in a papercut. It was the same principle.

The smaller the surface area affected was, the stronger the pressure exerted on it would be. Garen’s instantaneous explosive power was already unimaginably fearsome, and it had all been concentrated on that tiny, thin little sharp edge. It would be a miracle if he had not gotten hurt.

Of course, that item on the robot’s neck also seemed to fall to pieces. That was the result of both of them exerting their power.

“It’s the latest gadget, the Invisible Metal Blade…” To Garen’s surprise, the robot actually responded. “Alright, time to send you off.”

“?” Garen was taken aback. “What’s that mean?”

The robot laughed coldly.

“The medicine should be taking effect right about now,” he said proudly. “Your wound will slowly begin to rot and split even further, while your muscle tissues and blood cells are rapidly infected and infested. The parasitic bacteria will worm into your body’s internal organs and tissues, causing you unbearable pain…”

“Medicine?” Garen looked at the wound on his palm. “You mean this? It’s closing up already.”

Seeing the edge of his palm where not even a scar remained, the robot’s voice ended with a duck-like squawk.

“No way!”

He stared at Garen’s hand in disbelief.

“This is the newest cutting-edge high-powered corrosive poison! How could it be!? How could it be!?” He repeated ‘how could it be’ twice, showing just how shocked he was right now.

Garen could not be bothered with him and sank a backhanded fist into the bottle that held Kong Xinxue.

With a splash, the entire bottle shattered, and Garen caught Kong Xinxue’s body in his arms.

Garen could already tell that this robot was merely a researcher who had never really fought with his own hands, placing all his hopes in his poison. Unfortunately, his poison was child’s play to Garen, whose fearsome physical fitness was at an average of more than five points.

Carrying Kong Xinxue by the waist with one arm, Garen walked up to the robot.

“Spill it, where’s Kong Yuan?”