Mystical Journey

In the sky above the Kovistan Kingdom

A hemispherical silver veil of light was rapidly spreading towards its surroundings.

Like a hemispherical glass cover, it kept expanding, quickly expanding in all directions.

All the people and objects covered by the veil of light didn’t change in the slightest.

Some people looked up and stared at the sky blankly, watching as the veil of light disappeared into the distance before vanishing at the horizon.

A few black Stone-Armored Rhinos in the bushes turned their heads towards the direction where the veil of light had left.

Moo~~~

The rhinos called out in their deep voices.

A group of large white birds flying quickly in the sky were shocked by the veil of light that brushed past in an instant, and scattered.

In the distance, the veil of light went across the mountain, crossed the plains, leaped over valleys, and scaled hills.

An oval shroud of light seemed to have fallen over everything around the Kovistan Kingdom. It completely covered a large area of and around the entire Kingdom.

The shroud of light was fully silver-white, and was slightly translucent, the shadowy figure of a man’s top half with his arms held wide open appearing vaguely at the very top.

The man seemed to be hugging something, his gentle gaze looking down, as though carrying endless nostalgia. His lower half was directly connected to the shroud of light, his whole body glowing with a faint silver light, himself vaguely translucent. As though he was an unbelievably huge statue of light.

Countless people and animals raised their heads, trying to decipher the man’s shadowy face, but they couldn’t see him clearly no matter what.

The shroud of light lasted for a few minutes, and eventually disappeared totally together with the figure of the man.

Just then, the endless black sea of monsters swept over heaven and earth, all surging towards the direction of the Kingdom.

The innumerable monsters gathered together, like a black tide, rushing madly towards the Kingdom.

Roar!!!

Within the sea of monsters, a black centaur-like monster, several dozen meters tall, threw its head back and howled at the sky.

It had black curved goat’s horns on either side of its ears, the neat and dense fur on its back burning with crimson flames, as though they would never go out. The flames danced constantly, scattering bits of red sparks.

All the monsters around this goat-horned centaur moved faster than the others, their bodies considerably lighter.

There were several hundred of these goat-horned centaurs in the sea of monsters, and others kept showing up quickly behind them.

A huge grey stone statue of an angel in the sky held a huge sword in its right hand, flying towards the Kingdom. It was followed by large herds of little red monsters, the groups of red Unihorn Lizards screeching as they flew around the angel, mixed with some huge, fully white bats.

There were also some floating eyeball-like monsters. They occasionally shot out beams of black light. The beams splashed apart when they hit the floor, turning into countless dots of black light, sticking onto the monsters within several hundred meters of them, causing these monsters to keep expanding as though their bodies were being inflated with air, becoming stronger and stronger.

Bam!!

The first huge black wolf monster stepped onto the ground that was covered by the shroud of light.

In an instant, it howled in agony, its whole body rapidly burning starting from its feet, the white flames engulfing it from bottom up. In the blink of an eye, it was completely lit on fire.

The huge wolf darted out several meters away, and turned into black ash with a whoosh, disappearing completely.

Hot on its heels, countless monsters rushed into the area covered by the shroud of light.

In an instant, countless white fire torches were lit on the ground.

Bam-bam!

The huge goat-horned centaur swept aside the other monsters around it, and ran directly into the area covered by the shroud of light.

Roar!!!

Its whole body was instantly ignited with an intense milk-white flame, holding its arms out, it suddenly began howling madly, the scarlet flames on its back rapidly extending downwards, as though trying to stop the white flames.

But eerily, the red flames were directly absorbed into the white fire, and the flames grew stronger.

The goat-horned centaur was more than twenty meters tall, but it only lasted several seconds, and was directly burnt into black ash, scattering in the wind.

The endless sea of monsters kept rushing into this area of white fire, and then turned into countless black flames.

Strangely, the more monsters rushed in, the faster the white flames burned and destroyed.

A-wooo!!!!

The huge wolf had a wolf’s torso but its bottom half was that of a giant python, pale white flames burning around its body but somehow not igniting anything else around it, as though it was just an illusion.

The huge figure, more than thirty meters tall, stood like a coral outside the area of the shroud of light.

"Purified Land…" The white wolf actually spoke in a deep voice. It was the Enderian language! "To think that after all these years, I could still see Kovistan’s Wheel of Purification, Caeserton."

"It can only last thirty years, after thirty years, we can still continue to rule this earth." The other, largest stone angel statue slowly landed beside the huge wolf, and instantly trampled large masses of small monsters and dead babies. It was somehow speaking Enderian as well.

"Or maybe it won’t take thirty years…" The wolf licked its lips. "Once the President(1) wakes up, we won’t need to go to all this trouble anymore."

"Seems like you’re doing pretty well with this clone, aren’t you?" The huge stone angel statue glanced at the wolf in surprise.

This statue, the largest one, was more than sixty meters tall, twice the height of the wolf, but the two of them seem to be equal in standing, without any difference in level due to the discrepancy in height."

"Although I don’t have the brute power you do, what’s important is that I don’t spend as much either. And I can control it perfectly," the wolf replied. "Since the Wheel of Purification had finally appeared, do we still continue attacking?"

"There’s no need, although our plan only succeeded halfway, the change in the situation is already enough. What’s important is Daniela. My real body and the other two clones are there, but I’m not powerful enough, this side is a lot easier."

"Then I’ll go meet my other clone, I can’t simply lose the Distorted Beads." The wolf retreated slowly, and turned around, running back towards the direction it came.

"There are fifteen nest leaders, and three of them are Form Four nests, hehe… If this plan completely succeeds, the entire Kovistan won’t be able to fight back, unfortunately…"

The stone angel stared at the faraway Kingdom, and after standing there for a moment, it also spread its wings, flying back the way it came. Among the countless advancing monsters in the crowd, its figure was totally unassuming, and rapidly disappeared into the sea of monsters.

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

Outside the area shrouded by light around the Kingdom, in a small and isolated valley

Beckstone opened his eyes slowly, lying in the mud with his face covered in black dust.

"Ugh…"

He propped up his body, his entire body covered in wet black mud, his long robes completely sullied into a black-grey color.

The bearded uncle was lying not far away from him, and the Eleventh Princess Tina lay beside him, the two of them cushioned by a white object that looked like a circular mushroom, protecting the two of them perfectly.

Cough cough…

Beckstone bent his head and coughed a few times, spitting out a large mouthful of foul mud. He raised his sleeve to wipe the mud away from his face, but it just made his entire face even more filthy.

He looked up to see what was above their heads, and saw that a hole, several meters wide, had been punctured through the previously dense forest canopy. The sunlight shone down through the hole, and the Black Crow King was nowhere to be seen, which meant it had probably thrown them off after a struggle, and escaped on its own.

The three of them were already grievously injured, their Totem Lights punctured through, and their core totems useless. They only had the Totem Light of their support totems in case of emergency. Before they ran, they were hit by the Nine-Headed Dragon’s poisonous gas spray, and Beckstone still felt utterly weak even now, the Solidifying Tactic he had on him, Purifying Spirit Light, had been completely countered. He could clearly feel it, the poison swirling in his chest, like a cold snake.

Touching his waist pouch, Beckstone was just planning to take out his pocket-watch to see the time. But his hand found nothing. His waist pouch had long since disappeared in their bid for escape. Who knew where it had fallen.

Actually, now that he really thought about it, he didn’t have many memories of his hatred or his surprise towards the Nine-Headed Dragon, Garen. In this period of time, after finding out a lot about Garen from Mr Emin, he had a clearer understanding of this man who had once been Acacia Trejons.

After his escape this time, he also felt that Garen wasn’t really in all that much of a hurry to kill them. It felt as though he was simply killing time, or playing with some toys. He didn’t really want to kill the three of them.

Although he didn’t know why, but add that to the previous incident, and Beckstone was slowly starting to feel his hatred towards Garen fade.

Since then, it wasn’t just with the Nine-Headed Dragon, he experienced many things in many other situations as well, and this had completely rubbed away Beckstone’s past arrogance. He understood as well, that in this world, talent wasn’t enough to take you to the top. Talent merely put your starting point slightly higher compared to others, but the of factors that truly decided how high you could go, one was the accumulation of time, and the other, persistence.

He surveyed his terrible condition.

"How pitiful." Beckstone smiled bitterly. He took off his filthy overcoat and threw it directly to the ground, but the clothes inside had mostly been soaked through by the mud as well. Not only had they turned gray-black, they were also emitting an intense odor. Some bugs he couldn’t name were crawling all over them.

After some hesitation, Beckstone raised his left hand, and twisted the black metal ring on his little finger.

The finger did not react.

Beckstone blinked, and twisted the black ring on his ring finger instead.

He waited a moment, but there was still no reaction.

Beckstone froze, his gaze falling on the yellow wooden ring on his middle finger. Neither of his communicative rings had any signal to reach others. Now all he had left was the one ring he didn’t want to use in the slightest.

The person who gave him this ring had so connections to Terraflor, but was instead a totem user with Obscuro. Each of the people these three rings could reach specialized in providing a certain service.

In exchange for a price, he could obtain temporary hiring, medical, or protection services.

It was like an elite fighter’s seal, one ring could usually equal to one commission.

And now, of the three rings he had prepared this time, two of them were useless, leaving him with the final, most dangerous one.

Translator’s note:

社长, lit. president of a/the society