Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

  After sitting cross-legged in the darkness for goodness knows how long, Garen slowly got up, arranged the white night robes he was wearing and walked out of the room, faintly hearing the dissatisfied roar of the Nine-Headed Dragon behind him.

  There were several subordinates guarding the door, but they seemed not to hear anything at all, they wore the same uniform, all in white casual clothes, and one of them offered up a black box to Garen respectfully.

  "Boss, this was just sent here. It was sent by Vice Commander Kaedun."

  Garen nodded, and accepted the box.

  There were pale golden patterns embedded in the surface of the black box, like so many disorganized lines, but upon closer inspection, there was some rhythm to them.

  Opening the lock with a smack, Garen saw a slightly black copper mask in between the black silks, the mask was expressionless, its forehead covered with countless eyes, and he could vaguely see the detailed skin-like linings all over the surface, intricate and realistic.

  "The second one……" Garen reached out his hand to caress the mask lightly. Wisps of cool potential energy instantly surged into his palm.

  He just felt it roughly, but he could already tell that this mask would have a total of more than forty or fifty potential points, and what made him happiest was that this mask itself had the ability to constantly produce potential power, it seemed to be able to grow more as well as store a certain amount of potential value.

  If even a forgery can achieve such an effect, who knew what it would be like if he collected all twelve forgeries.

  Garen touched the wrinkles on the mask carefully, feeling the wisps of cooling energy surge into his hand, according to his initial estimates, a Mask would produce about 0.1 potential points worth of energy every day. That way, if he had twelve Masks, he would automatically receive one potential point every day, this was undoubtedly a huge sum in this world that was woefully low on potential points. And over time it would become a very substantial amount.

  "Did Kaedun say anything else?" Garen asked.

  "During the afternoon the day before yesterday, Lord Jay and Lady Hera were ambushed, Commander Kaedun had gone out personally to send the Mask, so he managed to avoid the ambush and countered the enemy instead, capturing two of their members. After some interrogation, they said that the strongest group in England, the Bailey Group, had goaded the Primary Colors into moving." His subordinate reported quickly.

  "The Bailey Group?" Garen repeated this noun again. "How’s the situation? Right now."

  "Not very good, Lady Hera was grievously hurt, now Commander Kaedun has rushed over to deal with matters, and Lord Jay sustained heavy losses, although he is fine, he had lost at least half of his men in the ambush." This subordinate had recently become Garen’s information specialist, not just him, but there was another small group that was founded specifically to be something like a meeting of strategists, everyone in the group had their own roles, but once there was an emergency, they would band together to solve the combat club’s and Nighthawks’ problems.

  They usually planned all sorts of strategies for Kaedun, Jay, and the other leaders.

  The vast amounts of information would also be transmitted here endlessly, after they reach a conclusion, the results would be sent quickly back to the various leaders. This was basically a strategy room.

  Of course, these people were all elites that Garen, Kaedun and the others invited from all over, some of them were even university lecturers, or even lecturers from Garen’s own university, but after practicing the Waterbird Fist and feeling that drug-like pleasure, they could no longer leave the combat club. These people were mostly all like that, although they were intelligent, when faced with the temptation of the Waterbird Fist, they were still willing to stay in the combat club and strategize for Garen.

  "The Bailey Group, the Primary Colors……" Garen was starting to feel a little ticked off, to be honest, these three subordinates made things a lot more convenient for him, in the incident with the Stone Clock of Fortune, they had given him quite a haul. He had only gotten one Stone Clock himself, but Jay even snatched several more for him, saving him a lot of energy.

  And this time, Kaedun found him the second mask as well. If he had to look for it himself, it would take a lot more time and energy, after all he did not randomly attend private exhibitions.

  If he wanted to continue training without worries like this, while constantly obtaining more potential points at the same time, it seemed that he would need to move a little bit this time.

  Before this, due to the trouble caused by the Void Creatures, and his need to deal with the Nine-Headed Dragon King Nadia, he did not intend to meddle with reality too much, he did not want to waste his time and energy on reality, but it seemed that he had no choice.

  "Gather up the Nighthawks, everyone gather at Kaedun’s place, but be careful on the way." He thought for a bit and directly gave his orders.

  His subordinate beside him recorded what he said, word for word.

  "Also, list down all the factions that are attacking us this time."

  Looks like he needed to upgrade Baldy and the others soon, otherwise it would really be troublesome if he had to do everything himself.

  It just so happened that he had recently perfected the Shooting Shadow Secret Skill, turning it into the Shooting Shadow Secret Technique, it had a whole array of secretive yet overwhelmingly powerful killing moves, and it also inherited that intense training pleasure from the Waterbird Fist, while also having the soul primer added to it, so the whole Shooting Shadow Secret Skill had become a powerful demonic secret technique on the same level as the Waterbird Fist.

  Baldy and the others had already trained the Shooting Shadow Secret Skill to an extremely high level, the three leaders had all reached the highest level, the Shooting Shadow sixth level, so if they started training the complete version, they would progress abnormally quickly.

  Garen had already unified the two secret techniques he created, forming a Book of Demonic Secret Techniques, otherwise known as the Demonic Book for short.

  The Two-Faced Waterbird Fist and the Shooting Shadow Secret Technique, these two legacies would become the martial arts at the core supporting the Demonic Book.

  Thinking back on it now, Baldy and the others were somewhat too weak, after they worked so hard for him over the past few years, they got less tutelage than Hochman, Dahm and the others, so this was rather unfair to them.

  Garen decided that in order to counter the way the Shooting Shadow Secret Technique could only assassinate, he would create another proper secret technique, to make up for what they lacked in head-on battles. Just like this time, once they were ambushed and put on the spot, the three main leaders of the Nighthawks could not unleash their full potential, the opponent just pushed them like that, revealing no weaknesses.

  The opposite of Shooting Shadow was Light Speed, both had to do with speed, and with that Garen already had some ideas.

  ‘You’re going to deal with trivial matters? They’re just subordinates, they won’t grow without experiencing some setbacks. Even if they die, that just means they’re not strong enough, they have a better foundation and starting point than these people and still can’t beat them, that’s not your fault.’ Black Sethe spoke.

  "You don’t have many subordinates in Ancient Endor, do you?" Garen retorted.

  ‘Are you trying to say that I could never gain widespread influence with this attitude and style?’ Black Sethe immediately understood what he was thinking.

  "Influence is only there to make things more convenient for me, I just need to help a bit and I’ll have my subordinates do the rest, compared to a life swamped with trivial matters, which would be better and more convenient for training? That would depend on what each individual thinks."

  ‘Don’t tell me you really are collecting antique masks just for that insignificant bit of energy on it?’ Black Sethe was no fool, of course he could tell something was wrong with Garen’s intentions.

  Garen did not reply.

  "Get me flight tickets, I’ll head to Berlin myself tomorrow."

  "Yes."

  Garen picked up the Mask, turned around and walked into another quiet room, he needed the time to completely absorb the Mask’s potential value, so that he could use it to increase his secret technique level.

  ***************

  Elvin, England

  Bailey Estate

  It was a bright and sunny day, with no clouds in sight.

  Kabb sat in his study, dressed in his night robes, wearing his reading glasses to read the information he had carefully.

  After he finished reading it, he put down the info and mused for a while.

  "How’s the situation with Viper?"

  Medis, who was sitting opposite him, replied quickly.

  "The opponent is very stubborn, Viper lost several people before they could grievously injure Hera, but unfortunately they still could not catch nor kill her."

  "What about White Phoenix’s side?"

  "Baldy Kaedun was lucky, he was out on an errand and not in the base, he just left a man to take his place and watch the base. All they killed was a replacement, and instead Baldy counterattacked, seriously hurting and capturing two men, they probably know by now that our Bailey Group is involved. Boss, you best be prepared." Medis reminded him.

  Kabb nodded.

  "The Nighthawks are still considerably obstinate, as expected of Africa’s number one mercenary army, just the three masterminds are individually as powerful as one of Europe’s top ten mercenary groups. With such power, if they were gathered together, perhaps even our number one Titan would not end up much."

  "Indeed." Medis agreed.

  "The Nighthawk King’s reaction would probably be to gather everyone, right? The location would either be where Baldy is, or Berlin, where Hera is. We don’t need to guess, Baldy is the vice, he actually controls the whole group’s power, and Hera is his woman, judging by his character, he would not stay silent once his woman’s been attacked, so he would surely make for Berlin."

  He picked up another file and read that as well.

  "There might very well be a reason why the Nighthawk King does not show his face publicly, in the Stone Clock of Fortune incident, he also only officially showed up after his subordinates were crippled, evidently he has something limiting him, so it’s most likely that he remains hidden for now, letting Baldy and the others gather and come up with a plan."

  "This is just a possibility, what if he does show up?" Medis asked.

  "That’s fine too." Kabb smiled, "Berlin is your territory, no matter how strong he is, he’s just one person, and besides the elite fighters of the Primary Colors are still waiting for him, if necessary, you can help him out a little, you must make it secretive and hidden, to show that we were forced, and the Primary Colors’ White Phoenix are their true enemies. We cannot interfere too much, just act as though we’re observers, as long as we don’t participate of our own accord, no matter who wins or loses later, at the most we’ll just spend some money to call it quits. Try your best to let the Primary Colors face the Nighthawks, remember, we were forced to join, it actually has nothing to do with us. It was actually the White Phoenix who asked for our cooperation."

  Kabb’s gaze turned unreadable.

  "That way, we can earn and profit, and the risks wouldn’t force the other side to retaliate in desperation, their greatest enemy is the Primary Colors Group after all……"

  "Boss, you’re hedging risks here……" Medis said with a laugh.

  "It’s a bit like that." Kabb was surprised as well, but then he started to laugh as well.