Mystical Journey

Following her memories, Raffaele quickly arrived at the secret room she had been at before.

Opening the door to the room with ease, she walked in and closed the door behind her. Raffaele walked straight to the wall at the very bottom of the room.

She rubbed the ring on her finger a few times, and the ruby on it immediately emitted a red laser-like light. The light shone on the wall, and immediately, it reflected a few spots of pure white back.

Raffaele was instantly overjoyed.

“The thing is still here. He hasn’t noticed yet!”

She felt around the wall for a bit and found that ring again, tugging at it hard.

Crack…

Amidst the soft noises, she pulled a stone platform shaped like a cuboid out of the wall. There was a metallic cylinder embedded in the middle of the platform.

Raffaele grabbed the cylinder’s ring. She pulled at it, but it was surprisingly heavy, and did not budge at all.

She frowned, and began to chant softly.

“Mother, grant me courage, blessings, and strength.”

As soon as she said those words, a red light flashed past her hands, and she just had to pull lightly, instantly lifting up the entire cylinder.

There was a hollow space in the middle of the cylinder, and inside there was a notebook with a black shell. For some reason, this book gave off a strange feeling, as though it was absorbing all the light from its surroundings, just like a black hole.

“This is it!” Raffaele quickly flicked her finger, and instantly held the notebook in her hands. She flipped through it lightly, and found that it was full of all sorts of high level secret techniques! She immediately looked ecstatic.

She quickly took a red paper board from her pocket, it was covered densely with many glyphs and symbols. She pressed this against the notebook.

“Mora!”

She quietly recited the chant to activate it.

Immediately, there was a burst of red light, and both the paper board and the notebook vanished at the same time.

“I did it!” Raffaele felt instantly relieved. Pulling the cylinder back again, she quickly left the secret room, looking left and right down the corridors. Once she was sure that no one had noticed her, she strode confidently down the other corner.

Not long after she turned the corner, Garen’s figure abruptly appeared at the entrance to the secret room. He looked at the direction Raffaele had left in, but did not enter the secret room.

“Don’t we need to deal with her?”

Tu Lan’s figure slowly appeared behind Garen.

“It’s too late,” Garen shook his head slightly, turning around to glance at Tu Lan. “I might need to leave.”

“Leave?” Tu Lan was slightly taken aback. “Where to?”

“I don’t know…” Garen lowered his voice. “If I leave, would you be willing to protect the Holy Fist Palace for me?”

Tu Lan looked thoughtful. She did not brush it aside, but instead she thought about it very seriously for more than ten minutes, and Garen did not seem impatient either, waiting for her quietly.

“I think it would be hard for me to stay for a hundred years,” Tu Lan spoke after much consideration. “If it weren’t for you, I would have left to train secret techniques on my own a long time ago. That would feel much better than wasting time here.”

“You sure are honest.” Garen shook his head and laughed, only then did he remember that Tu Lan’s true personality had always been lazy and unambitious, living each day as it came.

“The only reason I’d stay a hundred years would be for you.” Tu Lan pouted, acting uncharacteristically mischievous. “I’ll watch your house for a hundred years.”

Her eyes shifted. “Or else… Just take me with you.”

“Hah?” Garen did not expect to hear her say that all of a sudden. “Why?”

“It’s boring without you…With you around, I have a proper target to chase,” Tu Lan replied very honestly.

Garen was speechless, and decided to just ignore her. If he could take someone with him, he would have done it a long time ago, and this time was not like the last. This time the planet was repelling him of its own accord The Holy Phoenix Scriptures truly were impressive, they could help the Buddha Mother reach another level, a terrifying level. If he was perfectly honest, without the powered-up Buddha Mother, he probably could not have defeated Nadia. In the end, when the Buddha Mother had been utterly beaten up and broken, the body Nadia had descended into was already on the brink of collapse, and he only beat her because he faced her head-on in the Fifth Star state.

Although all these details were included in his calculations, the Buddha Mother powering up did indeed surpass his expectations, the Holy Phoenix Scriptures merged with the Buddha Mother, increasing its power again.

“The world will become boring when you leave.”

As Garen left the corridor, Tu Lan shouted from behind him.

“Who knows?”

Garen shrugged.

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

On a small island near the North Pole

The icy cold seawater kept washing over the black rocks by the shore of the little island. The whole island was covered with black rocks, and it looked just like an oval black pebble in the middle of the blue sea.

In the blue sky, the sunlight was cold rather than warm, and the scattered clouds were like flights of stairs, floating slowly in the sky. Several fluffy white seagulls also flew past occasionally, some diving head-first into the sea and then quickly flying out again, with decently-sized fishes in their mouths.

Somewhere in the island’s forest of black rocks, a beautiful woman with long white hair was crouching down slowly, looking at something placed on a red stone slab on the ground.

It was a pitch-black notebook, thick, with a cover like a whirlpool that absorbed the gazes of all living creatures around it.

The woman’s long white hair dragged on the floor, scattered all over her. Even if you looked closely, you would not know just how long it was, the strands of long hair tangled and twined together, forming a road behind her like a long train.

She picked up the notebook lightly.

“This is the root to the Fist Saint Garen’s martial arts?” she murmured softly, lightly brushing away the bits of dust that had landed on the book.

“I just have to destroy it and critically wound the Fist Saint, then the world will return to its original path…” the woman murmured, a hint of determination in her eyes.

She flipped open the book lightly, and the contents inside presented themselves to her eyes.

They were lines upon lines, and paragraphs upon paragraphs of strange, unknown words. The words seem to have some sort of magic that kept her gaze glued to it, until she could not pull away.

The martial arts contents in there had, in an instant, opened up a path for her that she had never once imagined.

“This– This is–?!” The woman’s expression changed slightly, and she wanted to push the book away, but her hands grabbed it tightly despite herself, keeping it within her line of vision. She suddenly had a feeling that if she could learn all the martial arts recorded here, perhaps she could walk down a brand new, unprecedented path of evolution based on her own current foundations.

All of a sudden, she sensed an unknown gaze land on her head in an instant.

“Satellite tracking?” She frowned slightly, looking up at the sky, then she quickly kept the notebook away, disappearing into the forest of black rocks with a few bounds.

That gaze swept past the island and seemed to find nothing, continuing to sweep on its merry way.

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

America, the CIA

“We didn’t find anything, perhaps our satellite system is not concise enough yet,” an old admiral said softly in front a giant blue screen. He watched the red dots blinking on the world map on the screen, then he turned his head around to look at the young man dressed in white beside him.

“Thank you for your cooperation, but I can track her myself.” The man had golden hair, but one of his eyes seemed to be slightly rolled back, as though he was blind in one eye. It was Garen, who had come out from the Holy Fist Palace. “The reason I’m here this time is because I need you to help me gather manpower. I can lead the way to the Lion Mother’s old base.”

“Your Excellency the Fist Saint can actually find items that have completely disappeared? What a magical martial arts.” The old admiral looked rather interested.

“You can try to practice it if you’re interested.”

“I’ll try.” The old man nodded.

He adjusted his earpiece, listening to the collective responses from the outside world through it.

“The fifth fleet is all ready, you can go out to sea with the ship. The fleet commander, Hente, is a fourth-generation disciple of yours, he’s training in the White Cloud Secret Technique.”

“In that case, many thanks.” Garen nodded and walked up to the world map, looking at the map on the blue screen. He reached out his hand slowly, and tapped a part of the sea near the North Pole lightly with his finger.

“Over here.”

“You sure she’s there? There’s nothing on the naval map, it’s just sea.” The admiral frowned.

“No, there’s a small island there,” Garen replied with certainty.

“Perhaps it’s a matter of proportions. Some islands are too small to be seen on the map, we can zoom in and see.” The admiral did not seem to move, but the map on the screen magnified all of a sudden, zooming in from a view of the world to that piece of sea, and soon enough, a black dot the size of a sesame seed appeared on the screen.

“Eh?” The admiral was slightly surprised. “There really is an island.”

The screen zoomed in some more, and the black dot was instantly magnified, turning from a sesame seed to a small apple, and further, until it was the size of a basin. There was the occasional wisp of the clouds floating past, covering up parts of the island.

From the satellite footage, they could vaguely see that the island was covered with pitch-black rock formations, with no forests or any trace of green.

“This is the biggest we can go. There seems to be something interfering,” the admiral said, frowning.

“This is the place.” Garen looked at the image on the screen carefully. “Inform the fleet to head straight for this island.”

“Alright, operation codename Lionhunt, commence!” the admiral said solemnly after nodding.

Garen looked at the black pebble island, and smiled strangely.

“I’ll give Pentagon a copy of the Lion Mother’s knowledge about witchcraft this time, and I’ll also retrieve my things. Let’s work well together.”

“Of course, let’s.” There was a hint of desire and excitement in the admiral’s eyes.

Compared to the Holy Fist Fist Technique, he was more interested in the mysterious witchcraft, and the Lion Mother had achieved Death Apostle-levels of strength, she was the ruler of the witches all over the world. If this top-secret mission were to succeed, they would gain knowledge about Death Apostle-level witch’s training, that was a temptation beyond imagination.

That was also why, when they found out that Gare was going to attack the ruler of the witches, many factions all gathered up their power to finally mobilize an entire American navy fleet. Under the guise of practice drills, they launched a top-secret assault straight away.

As for the revenge of the witches after this, they knew that even the old secret party’s Blood Breeds had all been killed at the height of their power, and many of the light party’s Blood Breeds joined the Holy Fist Palace because of Ashen. Among the Blood Breeds, most of the power still rested with the light party, after all, they had been leading the Blood Breeds for far too long.

Most of the light party’s Blood Breeds wished for a peaceful human life, that was also why they joined the Holy Fist Palace so quickly.

Just like that, the power of the Lightless Alliance snowballed, growing bigger and stronger. In comparison, the power of the witches was diminishing, and barely worth a mention.

With the situation the way it was, even if the witches retaliated, they would have no effect on the Lightless Alliance at the peak of their power. After all, there were just too few of them.

“Then I’ll personally make a trip there.” Garen pulled back the finger he had pressed against the map.”

“Good luck.”

“I never believed in luck,” Garen smiled, and turned to leave the command room.