Mystical Journey

After guessing her the level of her opponent’s strength, Angel’s mind began to calm down slightly.

"General-level is still alright. As long as I use the right moves, I should be able to counter it. But how did he manage to do it exactly? Seeing that he wasn’t afraid of the toxins on the Black Panther’s claws at all?"

Thinking of this, her fingertips suddenly lit up with a green flame, as she quickly drew a gesture in the space in front of her.

"Shared Vision."

A smile appeared on her face, as she saw that there was still one Black Panther that had not been destroyed yet. Her vision immediately transferred to look through the creature’s eyes.

Suddenly, her face contorted into an extremely ugly expression.

Hiss!

The Clouded Leopard beneath her crotch stopped abruptly, its four claws scratching black marks into the grass below.

In front of the woman and the Panther stood a bald man who had both his hands stuffed inside his pockets, looking at her and smiling.

"Hey," he said as he rushed towards Angel and waved his hands at her.

"You forced me to do this!!" said Angel as she finally exploded with anger. She glared at her opponent’s legs as he stepped on her Black Panther. All ten of her fingers on both hands began dotting the air rapidly with spots of green light.

Immediately, thirty dots were placed together in close proximity, and began floating in mid air.

She clasped her hands together and combined all the dots, forming them into one gigantic ball of light.

"Triple Speed!! Go!" she said as her fingers pointed towards the only unharmed Clouded Leopard left.

The green dots of light rapidly shot inside the Clouded Leopard’s body.

Roar!

The black coloured Clouded Leopard howled loudly as every trace of it disappeared in a blink of an eye.

Bang!

Garen stretched his right hand outwards, barely blocking the Clouded Leopard’s black claws that were pointed straight at him. Between the claws and his palm, a blue-black light has begun to pierce through, and caused shards of black light to fall towards the ground.

Crash!

A black shadow surrounded Garen and attacked him from all sides, its speed exceeding the limits of a normal living creature. With every attack, the green claws began to rip out shards of black rays from the blue-black light.

Garen began to have trouble keeping up when the Totem Light on his body began to violently break into smaller pieces. But moments later, it seemed like he had gotten use to the black Clouded Leopard’s attack rhythm, elbow and fist movements, as well as the sweep of its legs, as the Clouded Leopard continuously rushed at him.

He decided to close his eyes and feel the Clouded Leopard’s rapid attacks carefully, as it hit against his Totem Light agitatedly. While in a trance, he felt something suddenly, and realised that if he took the initiative and accepted the attacks, the consumption of Totem Light would be significantly less than if he moved or attacked.

If he merely stood in his spot, it would take two minutes before the Totem Light on his body was completely broken through. However, if he came forward on his own to accept the attack, it would take at least two hours for his Totem Light to be depleted.

Furthermore, he could vaguely feel that under this high pressured attack, his Totem Light was beginning to elicit a tightening sensation around his body

"This feeling…" he said as he shut his eyes and concentrated on this rare sensation.

Suddenly, everything on the outside stopped, and the Clouded Leopard’s attacks faded away in a blink of an eye.

"Huh?"

Garen opened his eyes and looked at his surroundings, before noticing that the woman had escaped again.

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

Angel rode the weakened Clouded Leopard as it staggered through the forest.

"Die! Die! Die!" she cursed angrily. "The Triple Speed move… I’ve definitely just seen a ghost!! Even a mere totem user could withstand three minutes of the Triple Speed. That monster!!"

Three of her totems had been destroyed by that baldy, and now only one remained.

The other totems had cut off all communication from her. This also resulted in her Totem Light defense decreasing from Form two totem user’s level, to a Form one totem user’s level.

Once a totem was destroyed, it’s Totem Light would also fall apart instantly. She was only left with a layer of black totem light on her body.

For a totem to be killed by a totem user, this was definitely a strange phenomenon.

A totem user on their own was only capable of defense. Therefore, even if a human had undergone extra training, they could still never catch up to a totem that had already been equipped with extra moves, right? Besides that, a totem user’s attacks were considered as physical attacks, and were not supposed to be able to inflict serious harm on totems, much less destroy them.

Angel’s heart beat wildly inside her chest, she had been escaping the north for so many years and had encountered numerous powerful, prodigy Totem users during her killing sprees. However, she had never come across someone like this, who could match the speed and strength of an Improved Totem, and could even use his flesh body to kill a Silver Totem.

The time ticked away, and soon two hours had passed…

As she raced through, suddenly a yellow bonfire could be seen in front, where a caravan of people were sitting around two bonfires, cooking something to eat.

Beside the caravan, a young man and woman who looked like aristocrats were talking quietly to each other. Both of them had the totem user’s special short storage stick hung around their waists.

Angel’s face began to light up. There were so many people here, including Luminarists. According to the rules, the guy from earlier who worked for the War Guild was not allowed to start a fight where in a place with so many people.

Suddenly, she felt that something was wrong, and decided to climb back up unto the Clouded Leopard and turn tails.

Scratch…

The grass on the ground was torn up badly.

"Damn! You again!!" Angel’s face was extremely haggard, as she looked at the young man strolling out from the forest. In her eyes, the gentle smile on his face seemed as frightening as the devil himself.

"What are you trying to do?!!" said Angel in an exasperated voice. She was mentally and physically tired. No matter where she escaped, this person would always find her again in a matter of time.

"You have lots of experience, I would like to learn from you," said Garen, smiling.

"Like to learn, my ass!!" said Angel, sounding as if she was about to cry.

Bang!!

Garen’s fist landed against Angel’s small abdomen, as he forcefully propped her against the tree trunk behind him. Next, he swung his left arm, causing the Clouded Leopard that charged towards him to be sent flying.

He straightened his palm, allowing Angel to clearly see the side of his hand.

"My hand has been laced with my totem’s specialised poison and toxic powder. Therefore, I may not be able to hurt totems, but I can still catch up to them, and place the poison on their bodies. That’s how I got rid of three of your Black Panthers. Obviously, I’m going to do the same thing to you."

Angel was held tightly down. Her pale face glared at Garen.

Cough cough…

As she was let down from the tree trunk, her face began to turn blue, as if the symptoms of the poison were already starting to show. She hurriedly took a little black bottle out and opened it, before pouring some medicine into her mouth.

Seconds later, her bluish complexion began to become slightly better.

Garen returned to his original spot.

"To punish you for your potty mouth," he said with a wave of his hand.

A grey shadow descended with a hissing noise before violently scratching the body of the last Clouded Leopard.

Immediately, Angel felt the last layer of Totem Light on her body fall apart. She looked at the deep gash in the Clouded Leopard’s forehead as it turned into a pool of silver mercury, and an unknown sense of despair washed over her.

Bang!

Garen kicked up a stone, and it hit Angel’s right arm precisely.

A soft cracking sound could be heard. It was the sound of bones breaking. Angel let out a low moan as she held her right arm and crouched down.

Garen did not move again. He truly wanted to learn something from this woman.

From the acceleration tactic in the beginning, to the poison curing tactic, and finally to Triple Speed and Shared Vision.

This woman had grasped at least four different types of impressive tactics. Furthermore, out of all the totem users he had met, she was probably the strongest, aside from Goth.

"Don’t worry, I’m completely useless at tactics. I think that the tactics you use are extremely practical, and much better than the ones used by other totem users. That’s why I’m hoping that you’ll teach me," said Garen earnestly.

"You should have said so earlier…" said Angel as she leaned against the tree trunk and sat down, her emotions running wild. This was the first time she had encountered a totem user who could suppress her speed. She was currently facing what the totems users who fought against her in the past went through.

"Only when a person is in a state of serious danger, will they unleash their true potential. This is what I’ve believed all this while," said Garen as he walked over slowly. He moved his right arm and deflected the Black Panther that had snuck up behind him.

This Black Panther had been hiding all along, and was the fifth Black Panther in the pack. It rolled on the ground after being hit, and crashed into a tree trunk violently. The strange thing was that after it got hit, the supposedly unharmed Black Panther began to howl in pain, and after tumbling a few times on the ground, began to stand up with much difficulty, looking as it if was unnaturally weak.

Angel backtracked, and with moved a step backwards each time her opponent came closer. She noticed that on the surface of Garen’s Totem Light, there was a light layer of glowing blue dust, and within that layer hid pools of sticky green liquid. Apparently it was the poison and toxic dust that her opponent had spoken about earlier.

"I’ll give you all the tactics you want!! I stole all of them!" Frantically, she took out all the little scrolls that she had kept on herself and threw them at Garen.

"And how would I know that all these are authentic?" said Garen as he shook his head. "You still have substitute totems on you, right? Just take them all out."

"You want this too?" Angel swallowed her saliva and stared at Garen. Without saying anything else, she removed the little purse from her waist quickly, and threw it on the ground. "These are all of my assets that I have on hand. I have savings of up to twenty million stored in one of the Kovitan Empire’s banks. As long as you swear to let me go, I will give you the password for all this money."

"Twenty million…" Garen’s heart began to falter. This sum of money would be enough for him to do a lot of things. However, he was now worried that he had run of out time…

He stared at Angel who stood before him, and his heart wavered on whether or not to kill her.

"I still have three sets of totem orders at the Rafelia Workshop. The money has been paid in full, and as long as you promise to let me go, I’ll tell you the password to collect my orders! Or I could take you there to get them too!" Angel continued to sweeten the deal. She could tell that her opponent was hesitating.

"You have so many totems, and their Appraisal is definitely of the highest rank, but why have you not evolved even one of them into Form two?" Garen opened his mouth and asked suddenly.

Angel did not expect him to ask this question, and a confused look appeared on her face immediately. "I…"

"Have you heard of the Code of Elya?" Garen continued to ask.

"Code of Elya?" Angel looked dumbfounded. She stared at the man in front of her, her mind racing uncontrollably. "I’ve killed too many people already…"