Mystical Journey

"To be honest, you really did find a rare one."

"He does have the skill though." It was as if Andrela was trying to comfort himself. "I apologize for the explosion earlier. He is, after all, on the wanted list from the Federation."

"It’s okay. So what’s your plan now? We just have to wait for Palosa’s response. If he were to accept our proposal, the four of us should be able to take on any situation." Garen said softly.

"We have to make our move regardless of his acceptance. The exchange with Duskdune Shura should be able to gives us some reliable information. We will definitely have a lead if we follow the Immortal Palace." Andrela said with confidence.

After some thought, Garen softly clapped his hands.

A person soon came out of the small building with a black metal box. Two servants carefully placed the box onto the white ground, greeted Garen with a bow and left.

Garen walked towards it and opened it with a flick of the lock. What appeared in the box was, unexpectedly, another smaller box.

He opened it again and it was filled with small ice cubes, and among them in the centre was a test tube covered by a white silk. A dark red liquid filled the inside of the test tube.

Garen took out the test tube and shook it in front of Andrela.

"The Blood of Eternal Life that I have obtained from Behemoth Gate."

"You’re really daring. Aren’t you afraid that they will ambush you?" Andrela was speechless. "You even let your underling guard this."

"I couldn’t find a good opponent that could fight me evenly." Garen grinned. "I took away their stuff as I defeated Clark. The whole Behemoth Gate’s scheme in the southern region has been foiled by me. What’s left is just trash and not worth mentioning."

"Just be careful."

"I understand."

Andrela felt emotional as he took the box of Blood of Eternal Life. "We’ll just have to see what kind of information Duskdune Shura can give us."

**********

After a few days of resting in the manor.

Garen and his team finally received Palosa’s response: ‘3 months later.’

It wasn’t specified if he would be attending the operation three months later or he needed another 3 months to consider. Or maybe he meant he would give an answer in March?

The three of them couldn’t wait any longer and brought the Blood of Eternal Life to meet up with Duskdune Shura. They had decided to exchange the Blood of Eternal Life with information regarding the Immortal Palace and a precious secret technique. At the same time, it was to clear off any resentment among them as well. This was the agreement between Duskdune Shura and Garen.

Within their own spaces, they communicated with each other with an encrypted tool without any face to face contact. Duskdune Shura had been extremely careful.

After some negotiation, the Garen trio obtained information of the Immortal Palace and Garen also obtained a special secret technique: White Peacock.

Under the suggestions from the King of Nightmares, they decided to name themselves the White Peacock as an alliance among the three men. This secret technique was able to make use of the user’s qi to mark the enemy for a long period of time. The secret technique would secretly release a special smell that was very hard to suppress within a radius of two kilometers. Only users who knew this technique could notice the smell.

Those who were under the effect of the secret technique would be like a peacock, especially eye catching during day time.

This secret technique was purely used for tracking. It had no known side effects and was very effective.

Garen tried to invite Duskdune Shura to the White Peacock but was unfortunately rejected. The old man had been very careful after his battle strength waned due to his serious injury and had decided to stay hidden after obtaining the Blood of Eternal Life. Garen predicted that he had planned to pass down his skills to a disciple and heal himself afterwards.

Their purpose was barely met. However they planned to follow their plans anyway and went to Picardi as per Duskdune Shura’s intel.

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

Few months later…

An uncountable amount of flowers, pink and white, covered the mountains and plains, dying the hillside a pinkish red.

There was a gray-white car lane among the sea of flowers. The road had separated the sea of flowers like a thin, white ribbon.

Occasionally, there would be horse carriages or cars travelling down the road, and with them carried the sounds of bells and car engines.

The afternoon sky was showered in a pale golden color, with a dark blue on the edges in the horizon. There was a pale red within the gold sky which, when on the cloud, looked like the cloud was aflame with light.

The color of the clouds changed from gold-red to pale gold as the sunset light radiated through the sky like a slow crawling ladder.

There was a silver car en-route to the capital of Picardi through the white road. Its speed was so fast that it kept overtaking the rest of the carriages.

Behind the seat of the silver white car sat a tall man with short hair.

The man was in a suit. It looked like he was asleep with both of his arms on his knees. Although this guy was not particularly handsome except for his exceptionally smooth skin and golden white complexion, he had a presence that couldn’t seem to be ignored.

There were a total of three people inside the car. The driver was a handsome man with an eye patch with long hairs. He looked sharp yet gentle.

There was another man with a sturdy body and a cool face sitting in the passenger seat. He looked exactly like the man who sat behind.

The driver looked at the scenery through the window.

"We have reached the Four Season Road. This road spans about ten kilometers, and we’ll be reaching the capital of Picardi, Ansela soon." He looked sideways at asked. "What’s the plan, Garen?"

The man who was sitting at the back slowly opened his eyes, revealing calm, dark red eyes. "I will find a place and stay first. You guys can decide where."

"According to our intel, The people from the Immortal Palace will be here during the full moon. Although we don’t know how many people they will bring along, we are sure that they will definitely be here so we have no need to rush. We just need to wait patiently." The long haired man said as he nodded.

"You two shouldn’t make any move yet. I need to go and scour for the strength of the Immortal Palace. Whoever had provoked me, the Saint Mammoth Garen shall die!"

Garen suppressed his urge to hit him as he stared and growled softly at the strong man in the co-pilot seat.

"King of Nightmares, you better revert back!"

Another ‘Garen’ hmph-ed. "Are you provoking me as well? You have to know that provoking me means provoking the whole White Cloud Gate!"

"Stop messing around King of Nightmares." Andrela who was driving the car said helplessly.

"Alright alright…" ‘Garen’ raised his hand and surrendered. "It’s been so long I had so much fun. I don’t know why but I admire Garen so much when I see his strong body and streamlined muscles."

Andrela shivered.

He even turned into a beautiful woman before she went to bed in the hotel last night. He became the strong Garen the next morning… and cuddled with him in ‘Garen’ form…

Truthfully he was very excited when the King of Nightmares turned into a woman and stayed with him. However, it could also be horrifying as what he had experienced yesterday.

He almost vomited out gastric when he saw ‘Garen’ leaning in for a kissed as they cuddled in the morning.

"If you pull a prank like yesterday night again, I will never touch you again." Andrela said with a serious face.

"Alright alright. I’ll be careful." The King of Nightmares replied lazily as he smiled.

Garen, who was at the back of the seat, was completely speechless. The only way to differentiate them was their odour when the King of Nightmares transformed into him. Even Garen himself found it hard to differentiate them purely from look. He was slightly worried if the King of Nightmares decided to impersonate him and create trouble everywhere…

Suddenly, his eyes were brimming brightly.

"King of Nightmares, you can transform into anything right?"

"Of course." King of Nightmares nodded.

"Have you seen any members from the Immortal Palace?"

"Are you planning to…" The King of Nightmares furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.

Andrela smiled as he understood Garen’s intention.

"A simple and effective idea. The strongest influencer in Picardi, the Argentism is lending us a hand in this operation. There are also other external forces from the locals as well. We will depend on you during that time."

The King of Nightmares nodded helplessly.

"Yes yes yes. In the end I will be doing the most work."

"An able man should do more work." Andrela said with a smile on his face. "It would be best if the members of the Immortal Palace were to not appear. If they did…"

"As long as it’s not Sylphalan, don’t butt in." King of Nightmares said calmly. "Especially Flamingo… That guy still owes me an arm…" His eyes were burning calmly in red as his tone was cold and calm. "What about you Drela? What do you plan to do?"

Andrela pondered for a moment: "I’ll need to arrange to avoid any unexpected events. It all depends on you. It’s my time to shine if all goes well."

"Let’s hear about the overall situation this time." Garen asked softly from the back.

"According to Duskdune Shura’s intel, there is a collector in Picardi’s capital, Ansela. This collector showcased a strange looking ancient mirror during a public collection expo. The people from the Immortal Palace believed that it was the ancient Mirror of Secret Text, passed down from the previous generation. They then arranged for a few people to steal it. The Mirror of Secret Text contains knowledge of ancient secret techniques which the Immortal Palace have always laid their eyes on."

He continued after stopping for a while. " The identity of the collector is the high priest of Argentism. His strength is decent and his authority is even stronger. Those who are assigned to safeguard the collection are three of Picardi’s most famous and strongest warriors from Argentism. I have never seen their skills but they should be at least the same level as the Grandmaster of Combat. Furthermore, they also have a group of military army guarding the surrounding with heavy weapons, which has its own threat."

"It’s obvious that the Argentism are trying to show off their strength when they invited powerful individuals to attend the collection expo. I suspect that they have some hidden powers as well. We should take note of the Behemoth Gate too. However, their likelihood of attending should be low, since Garen you just severely injured them. At the moment, they should not be able to mobilize a large force."

Garen nodded: "That’s true. So only the Argentism and Immortal Palace are worth taking note of?"

"That’s not necessarily true. Perhaps there are some unexpected masters within the civilization?" Andrela laughed. "I have a list of the masters’ names. Do you want me to read it out?"

"Don’t waste your time naming the small fries." The King of Nightmares covered his face with his arm and his face started to slowly change. His body shrank and his body figure became more and more slender. It was like rubber moulding into another shape.