Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

  He knew that this place would not be able to withstand one of the strongest Totem Users anymore. However, his continuous acts of vengeance caused serious losses towards Obscuro Society. Within the span of a year, most of Obscuro Society’s Silver Totems had destroyed the blood pool in order to save Hellgate. They charged forward without caring about their own safety……

  Both sides suffered numerous casualties during the battle with the Nest Leaders, forming the red plains and sea of countless corpses.

  The absence of proper leadership resulted in the stalling of their forces by the Eternal Night Palace, causing Obscuro Society to suffer extremely difficult setbacks. Without powerful battle forces on either side, the Nest Leaders were able to obtain great advantages.

  This was the first step of the complicated plan that Divine God Palace Master had drafted out after he had obtained sufficient Living Secret Techniques.

  The King of Ender cooperated and tempted him personally, hastening the creation of the blood pool. After Hellgate had entered the inner world, he could control and interfere with his exit and entry points freely. However, these complicated plans involved too many people.

  They would only be able to obstruct Hellgate in the inner world, making it impossible for him to return temporarily. Meanwhile, it would only last for a year.

  An outcome like this……

  ****************

  Kovitan Kingdom

  This place had changed completely after a year.

  While Garen sealed himself at the bottom of the sea, Ivycius and Skyharp guarded the area, leaving the tasks of the Black Swamp Palace to be handled and discussed by the Elders, allowing Demon Phoenix and the other Elders that had just entered the palace to pass their time comfortably.

  The White Knight tribesman and princess that Garen had saved in the field formed a new force after entering Black Swamp Palace. The leader of the White Knights from the White Wind Tribe progressed quickly, and obtained the necessary Appraisal to practice the Black Water True Technique. Once he had coordinated and refined it to his Secret Technique, his powers broke through to Form 4 suddenly, leading him to form the White Knights of the Wind that were unwaveringly loyal to Garen. They were in stark contrast in comparison to the Black Knights of the Four Directions Sky Warriors. Once they had obtained power, their initial plan was to return to their village for vengeance. Unfortunately, their enemies had left their original locations for good and were nowhere to be seen.

  Demon Phoenix and the others spent their days enjoying themselves in a comfortable environment that most people could only dream of experiencing. Occasionally, they would travel to the North Sea to check on Garen’s condition. After Garen took them out of their rural homes, they became inseparable from the new dazzling world that they had stepped into. However, their reveration for him remained deeply rooted in their hearts. They would never dare to have other intentions even if they were enticed by others.

  Within Black Swamp Palace, only Demon Phoenix and a few others were the clearest about the exact details surrounding Garen’s existence. During the past year, she had restored herself to middle-level Form 5 completely. However, an exhausted feeling still lingered whenever she faced Garen.

  While Black Swamp Palace held their troops back and recuperated, the other forces in the Kingdom, including the other three Gargantuans, gathered crowds of Totem Users and civilians that were seeking refuge, before beginning to build two cities outside the protection areas.

  The Princess’ constructions were finally revealed. They were called ‘Dawn Towers’, and the five towers that she had built within her domain were able to gather Totem Powers and shoot them across distances of more than a thousand meters. They also possessed the ability to amplify powers, allowing the Totem Users within her domain to experience power upgrades of up to ten percent.

  This was a frightening enhancement. Moreover, it also meant that the Princess had first-rate master Totem Forgers among her subordinates. She would definitely have Grand Duke Benoc’s support behind her as well.

  Meanwhile, Grand Duke Cody concentrated all of his efforts in the new city, and gathered a large group of regular Forgers to build a superweapon called the Kars Cannon outside the city walls.

  This weapon used the Totem Light of fifty Totem Users to cause terrifying explosions within seconds. It was rumored to be the invention of a young prodigy Forger that had fled to Kovitan, thus giving the cannon its name.

  On the other hand, internal disputes of interest occurred after the heads of the guild alliances took in Totem Users from the outside, causing numerous large-scale forces to fall apart during the war. This led to changes in the political regime, causing everyone to become weaker in the end, while the Four Gargantuans were also threatened to be removed from their seats.

  Through Demon Phoenix, Garen was not completely cut off from the outside world during this period. Instead, he knew the changes and developments of the current situation clearly.

  As for the other forces in the Kingdom, Garen was unconcerned about them. This information only reached him because of the close distance between them and Black Swamp Palace. Although the palace did not participate in their affairs and remained detached, they were still aware of certain happenings.

  In comparison to the incidents that were ongoing in Daniela, everything else was unimportant. Out of the countless messages and news that he had received, the thing that shocked him most was not the news of Phiroth’s death in battle. Instead, it came from the largest civilian assembly fort in the world that had been built in Daniela — Heart of Life.

  A large-scale, widespread epidemic had appeared within the Heart of Life, and before the news reached him, more than a hundred thousand people had already died from being infected there! In the beginning, the spread of this epidemic was quarantined within the fort, but once it reached this stage, they were unable to suppress it anymore, causing the situation to reach an extremely dangerous degree.

  The scariest part of this epidemic was not its hundred percent mortality rate, but the fact that it would turn the dead into zombie-like monsters. These monsters hunted the living as food and roamed about. Moreover, they would still be able to live for a few days even if their heads or hearts were destroyed fully.

  This made Garen faintly think of the living corpses that he had encountered the first time he entered the mysterious Ghost City. The surroundings of the capital of that little country were filled with the strange zombies that were described earlier.

  Vaguely, he could feel that it was highly likely that this epidemic was connected to Ghost City.

  The occurrences in Ghost City were caused by the black copper phenomena, of which the root cause was black copper, and the source of the black copper phenomena was very likely to be Hellgate.

  Since the situation had reached this degree, it had left the original timeline completely.

  Hellgate had disappeared temporarily, and another person had similarly disappeared without any news was Divine God Palace Master.

  The Three Territories had formed a temporary alliance, cooperating as one major force. The other domains were thriving prosperously, becoming the largest, ideal, living stronghold outside Ender and the Ultimate Protection area.

  ****************

  A pale blue light twinkled at the bottom of the pitch-black sea, faintly illuminating the surrounding waters beneath the deep sea.

  Within the bottomless ocean abyss, a cluster of gigantic, hundred meter tall icicles were erected in the large marine trench. The sharp icicles stood upright like an array of long transparent spears that were faintly stained black.

  In the middle of everything, within a sharp large icicle that was over ten meters thick, was the source of the twinkling pale blue light.

  In front of the icicles was a stretch of icy ground.

  As it was situated in the opening between two marine trenches, gallons of seawater had frozen into ice because of the extremely low temperatures, while the bottoms of the marine trenches were completely filled with ice, forming a gigantic ice mountain that filled the marine trenches at the bottom of the abyss.

  The ice mountain was translucent and slightly black, and behind the pale blue light in the center, situated within a large icicle, was a slender golden-haired man that had been frozen within the ice. The man was unmoving, while both of his eyes were slightly shut as if he were in deep sleep. However, it also seemed as if his gaze was fixated on something in front of him.

  Meanwhile, a handsome man with a head full of long white hair sat cross-legged on the icy floor in front of the icicle. He wore a long white robe with a silver-black belt tied around his waist while a long white sword lay flat on his knees.

  "How does it feel to break through?" An empty-sounding male voice reverberated throughout the layer of ice, as if he were speaking in a large hall, carrying echoes that sounded unconventionally graceful.

  Ivycius grasped the hilt of the sword on his knees gently, shaking his head slightly.

  "If I hadn’t guarded you here personally and observed the effects and changes of your Secret Techniques towards your surroundings, I would not have entered Form 5 so quickly. The originally estimated time, is still insufficient."

  "Only a high-leveled prodigy like yourself would be able to see patterns from the traces of these Secret Technique changes," said Garen casually from within the icicle.

  Ivycius declined to comment. During this time, after he married Skyharp, he had spent all of his time guarding this underwater abyss while the professionals of Black Swamp Palace and Seven Night Tower built a simple underwater residence here.

  But before they could add the finishing touches to the place, the construction workers were forced to retreat, being unable to withstand the frightening cold air that Garen released increasingly every day.

  Ivycius, Skyharp, and Garen managed to connect with each other on a deeper level through their interactions during this time.

  Ivycius was a person who abided to his own principles closely. He chose to stay behind and guard Garen, and did not give up on him despite the ending of the Dragon Demon’s bindings. He did not think of the Demon Dragon’s bindings as any form of restriction at all.

  In reality, Garen had never imposed any forceful commands on him, allowing both of them to have a normal friendly relationship with each other. For both of them, the presence or absence of the Dragon Demon’s bindings made no difference.

  "There have been signs of activity in the Heart of Life again, while Ender is entering the finals. How is your situation here?" asked Ivycius in a low voice.

  "Still considerably smooth." Garen did not explain it in detail.

  Both of them fell into silence. Within the period of a day, silence was their most commonly used mode of connection, as both of them preferred to enter their own worlds.

  Garen suppressed his thoughts, before placing them back within his Living Secret Techniques.

  Two of his Secret Techniques had mostly fused already, while the Black Water True Technique had reached its final scattering phase. The forced tearing of two of his main Living Secret Techniques caused his will and fusion powers to be absorbed as nutrients, leaving nothing but the last bits of his Nine-Life Talent.

  As the Nine-Life Talent was the core strength of the Nine-Headed Hydra, the fact that the extremely delayed speeds were able to support it for such a long time was already a very rare occurrence. But at this point, they were unable to evade the complete decomposition forever.

  Meanwhile, the two Living Secret Technique seeds within his body had absorbed many nutrients from the outside after a long period of time, allowing them to reach extremely desirable states.

  After a long period of bodily operation fusions, Garen’s body had fully adapted to the Living Secret Technique’s powerful activities. As the fusion between the two Secret Techniques deepened, the transformations within Garen’s body became more integrated as well, lessening the conflicts.

  "Soon…… Soon…… Only a little while longer before I get to the essence of the mysteries of the Living Secret Technique……"

  As of now, he had yet to truly receive the Legacy of the Living Secret Technique. One of the reasons was due to the conflict between both of his Secret Techniques. The most troublesome part was that the true Secret Technique practice message would only be transmitted after he had finished the transformation completely.

  The Living Secret Techniques would be able to exceed their limits after coming to fruition, allowing him to achieve peak levels. This was the general consensus among strong, peak individuals.

  The fusion of two Secret Techniques would not necessarily bring positive changes. However, they were not too undesirable from his current perspective. Although he had lost many parts that conflicted with one another, the seedlings that were preserved continued to possess the presence of extremely terrifying air ripples.

  Once he received the Legacy, the presence of the Black Water True Technique and the large quantities of Living Secret Techniques that he had accumulated recently would definitely allow Garen to achieve a higher level within a short span of time. After all, he had already obtained an extremely high Secret Technique state.