Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Groudon and Jala shot towards Kohen at top speed.
If Kohen was a point, then he would be the point that would form a right angle based on the direction where Jala and Groudon were charging towards him—Groudon from the north, and Jala from the east.
Groudon growled, his blood vessels bulging as he thrust his red sword towards Kohen, not resting until his sword draws the blood of his enemy.
At the start, Kohen was stunned for a moment. However, Jala lightly pointed at his left shoulder and then pointed at his right shoulder. Kohen was already preparing to draw his sword to strike Groudon, but he saw the look behind her goggles.
The police officer immediately understood Jala’s intentions. Looking at his heavy injuries, he did not think too much. He knew that he would not be able to stop Groudon’s sword and so, he would stop defending altogether.
Kohen then thought to himself, ‘Girl, don’t let me down.’
Kohen’s expression was clear as he ignored the sword approaching him. He gave up his defensive style, passed the saber over to his left hand and resolutely held it in a reverse grip. He concentrated as he waited for the woman’s arrival.
Sure enough, in the next moment, Jala threw the Wolf Limb Blade from her right hand at the aggressive Groudon! The flying Wolf Limb Blade shot straight towards the red-black swordsman’s abdomen from the left.
With her right hand free, she rushed towards Kohen without slowing down.
In the next moment, Groudon’s sword tip reached Kohen’s chest area and the green longsword pierced into Kohen’s abdomen! However, Jala’s flying Wolf Limb Blade streaked across the air and slashed the left side of Groudon’s chest.
Groudon roared. Kohen groaned in pain. Thanks to the interference from the Wolf Limb Blade, Groudon’s thrust shifted a little to the side and missed the man’s vitals.
The Glory of the Stars in his body to surged up swiftly in Kohen’s body and accumulated around the flesh near the injury. Looking at the fierce eyes of the red-black swordsman, he then turned to look at the woman to his right while tenaciously enduring the pain.
He decided to believe in her. ‘But what about her? Would she believe in me?’
Groudon snorted coldly and pulled out his sword, he then headed towards the approaching Jala.
In front of him, the police officer endured the pain in his chest and abdomen. The Glory of the Stars glimmered, and the saber in his left hand fell with a loud crash, stabbing into the ground below. It looked like the final struggles of a heavily injured swordsman.
Groudon seemed indifferent. An entirely different power of Eradication compared to Kohen’s Glory of the Stars surged through his body. He readied his stance. With one move, he would be able to strike the young girl between her eyebrows.
‘You cannot save him. As a result of your reckless actions, both of you will die together.’
However, Jala simply glanced at Groudon and she moved past Kohen, even bypassing Groudon to get behind Kohen!
Groudon was stunned for a moment. ‘She did not want to save him?’
Jala did not choose to take advantage of this moment to attack Groudon by surprise; she knew that Groudon was already prepared to counterattack. Behind her, Ralf rapidly approached together with the wind. The woman knew that there was only one chance.
She then calmly extended her right hand—her survival would be in Kohen’s hands. The police officer gritted his teeth.
Suddenly, he swung his right hand that was infused with the Glory of the Stars fiercely behind him.
‘Now!’
He then saw Jala, who had just passed by his right side, grab his right hand in midair, like passing a baton in a relay race.
“AH!” Kohen roared. The remaining Glory of the Stars all over his body converged into blue glowing spots and gathered in his right arm. With that arm, he yanked Jala back!
The police officer’s left hand held on to the saber stuck in the ground—it served as a pivot point. An unpleasant sound of friction could be heard from the tremendous momentum.
At the next moment, following the police using the saber as his support and pulling her back, the graceful Jala became like a flail. She swung in a semicircle in midair and due to Kohen’s swing, landed on Groudon’s other side. She had changed positions in an instant!
Jala held Kohen’s hand as she would to her lover. Her Wolf Limb Blade in her left hand was held high above, with the blade pointed downwards, and the cold blade slashed downwards!
Shock appeared on Groudon’s face.
‘Her goal is… I see. She wanted to obtain the cop’s cooperation, and while coordinating their strength together, they can instantly attack the side where I am undefended.’ He pursed his lips indifferently. ‘A great plan, but in the end, she’s still just at ordinary class. She underestimated the skills of a supra class swordsman too greatly.’
The power of Eradication in his arm was swiftly activated. The green longsword began to move faster than usual as it swung to the right.
‘Before you can strike, my sword wil- Eh?’
Groudon’s expression froze momentarily. He saw Kohen grit his teeth and rush over before he used his body to block Groudon’s saber. Sparks shot up.
*Crack! Slash!*
Groudon’s shoulder bone was sliced off, and his abdomen was cut open. The Wolf Limb Blade slashed Groudon’s right shoulder and tore through the right side of his chest.
*Crack!*
Kohen’s right arm was dislocated and his right rib was lacerated. A large amount of blood from Groudon’s shoulder gushed skywards and sprayed over Jala’s face!
At this moment, Ralf’s wind reached Kohen’s side. Groudon opened his mouth and spat out blood in disbelief. Then, he laughed as though he had freed himself, and collapsed.
‘What a great attack. What great teamwork.’
Groudon gently closed his eyes. Within a short moment, the terrifying red-black swordsman was slain by the unfamiliar, yet tacit, cooperation between Jala and Kohen.
The Phantom Wind Follower saw Groudon’s fate. He could not believe that the Air Mystic’s terrifying supra-class swordsman had the upper hand at one moment, and yet was so easily slain in the next.
However, he did not have time to be shocked, because Kohen roared and stomped with his feet, then he pulled the saber out from the ground with his left hand. Kohen turned to charge at Ralf regardless of his dislocated right hand. The light from the saber flashed.
Ralf laughed softly. ‘How could you intercept the Phantom Wind Follower with this speed? Even while moving at high speeds, I can change directions at any mo- What?’
Ralf was surprised to see that Jala, who was beside Kohen, had knelt down on one knee and then crashed into Kohen’s bosom. The police officer managed to turn around with a painful groan. However, he now shot towards Ralf at more than twice the speed from before!
‘Damn! With this speed, it’s impossible for me to—’
Ralf roared and deployed his Psionic power with all his strength! As the winds whistled, Ralf fished out his hidden blades from his sleeves to forcefully block the police officer’s fatal strike.
However, Kohen’s saber seemed as though it had a life of its own—it twisted and stabbed, suppressing Ralf relentlessly.
Their blades locked. One of the signature styles of the Swordsmen of Eradication was to lock an enemy’s bladed weapon. Ralf then gave up all hope as he saw Jala, who was still with Kohen, pop her head out of his bosom with a grim look.
‘No.’
While he was struggling to break away from Kohen’s saber, the female bartender stretched out her right hand and crushed his throat with ease.
Two people and one corpse fell on the ground at the same time.
The police officer thought to himself, ‘Fortunately, this Psionic had never been on a battlefield before. If he had pushed ahead instead of trying to fall back in the beginning, we would have died.’
Kohen spat blood out in a pathetic manner. His abdomen hurt and his right arm was dislocated. As a result, he was unable to get up.
“You… Who are you?” The police officer weakly asked the girl in his arms.
Jala had exhausted all of her energy and just laid there on his broad chest. She then turned her head and wiped off the blood on her face onto his uniform. The female bartender trembled slightly but still wore a relieved smile.
“None of your business.” The young woman laughed as she replied but her eyes looked distressed.
‘Brat. You should be able to escape.’
*Boom!*
At that moment, a muffled explosion was heard in the distance.
…..
“Qiren, one needs enthusiasm when conducting research. One must not be lazy. Learning is a lifetime of interest and diligence. When you reach my age, you could find yourself alienated. You would become unsociable, indifferent, and you would have difficulty finding enthusiasm.
“You will learn that the things supporting you, in the end, are not vanity, achievements, or contentment, but the speck of pure obsession you had in the beginning.
“So, you must understand Professor Chen’s stubbornness and madness—That’s probably the only obsession he has left in his life.”
Thales shook his head. He kept another recalled piece of memory back into his head, and then pulled himself out of the rubble.
As the boy climbed out of the rubble, covered in blood, he looked up and saw Asda gazing down at him with a complicated expression.
The Air Mystic’s clothes and long hair were still pretty and pristine. It was as though he had never experienced the explosion.
‘Insane and paranoid,’ Thales criticized silently. He was extremely exhausted and unable to continue resisting, so he simply turned to lie down in the rubble. He was a little tired of the lawless world where power was respected.
“You… Mystic, do whatever you like.” Thales gasped and breathed heavily.
‘A lunatic who kills people for a wrong word—no wonder the Mystics lost the war.’
Asda silently watched Thales with a strange expression. After a while, he emitted a peculiar laugh. “Hahaha, is this also a coincidence?”
The strange Mystic gently waved his right hand and lifted Thales up into the air, but did not attempt to kill him again.
He waved again and the atmospheric pressure began to change, instantly staunching all the boy’s bleeding wounds.
Thales was helped up by the Mystic, his two feet touched the ground. However, the boy still looked at the Mystic with enmity; he no longer harbored any hope of holding any sort of rational conversation with Asda.
“Child, you had just used some kind of power to break my mystic barrier—the thing you called an ‘Air Wall’,” Asda softly said with an excited tone. “Only supreme class masters can do this, but you are only… Moreover, the power in your body could interfere and affect my mystic energy. Do you know what this means?”
“I don’t even understand what you meant by supreme class.” Thales replied weakly, “Even if I knew, I wouldn’t want to tell a madman who just tried to kill me!”
Asda stopped smiling and gave him deep look. “Child, looks like you do not know your own nature. But never mind. Everyone will experience a first in losing control over themselves, and we all start from ignorance.”
‘Who would want to… Eh?’
Thales calmed down for a moment and thought about the meaning of Asda’s words. He immediately looked up in surprise at the Mystic who had just tried to kill him.
“Experience a first in losing control over themselves?… We?”
Asda gazed at the child with the eyes of a fanatic. “Yes. We, Mystics.”
Thales began to feel fear, for some unknown reason. Looking at the Mystic’s fervent expression, he subconsciously took a step back and shook his head in terror.
However, the Mystic firmly stepped forward and spoke with a terrifying fervent, and insane tone, “Yes, child. What you said earlier is true. Your value in the future is worth my while to spare your… No, it is worthwhile for me to do my utmost to guide you! Child, what is your name?
“Ever since we were betrayed by those two bitches and lost the Battle of Eradication, our numbers have become fewer! You will become the leading member that will help us turn this situation around. They will not even realize it…” Asda held his shoulders tightly as though afraid Thales would run away the moment he let go.
“I… I don’t even know what you are…” Thales murmured and took a step back, but Asda held on to him tightly. Asda’s smiling expression was rather morbid.
He was like a person who had not smiled for many years and had forgotten how to smile. He suddenly spread his lips wide, enough to reach his cheeks.
“Today is the day your fate turns.” Asda said ecstatically, “Follow me…”
For some reason, Thales remembered the three ‘human spheres’ in the cellar. He also recalled the man trying to kill him in the basement. Seeing Asda’s morbid smile, other than panic, he had a strange feeling.
‘God.’ Thales remembered Asda’s strength and could not help but gulp, ‘Mystic… But this… is a lunatic who kills without batting an eye. Should I go with him?’
Thales opened his mouth with much difficulty. “But…”
He had finally broken away from the Brotherhood; from being a beggar, after so much hardship.
”But…”
In the next moment, as though Errol heard his voice, he no longer needed to decide.
“You can say ‘no’, but you cannot refuse. This is only the first time you lose control. Every- Urgh!” Asda, who was still chattering away nonstop, suddenly had his expression freeze.
A smooth blade of a sword suddenly stabbed through Asda’s chest. Asda lowered his head incredulously, looked at the blade sticking out of his chest, and let go of Thales.
Thales was also shocked. He took a few steps back, tripped on a plank of wood, and then fell to the ground. However, Thales did not see any fear, alarm, or bewildered emotions in the Mystic’s eyes. It was as though the man had not been stabbed but bitten by a mosquito, and with an astounded expression, had asked, ‘Why are there mosquitoes?’.
He looked as though he did not even feel the pain.
‘It obviously pierced his heart,’ Thales thought in horror.
Asda stared at the blade strangely.
“Impossible.” Asda frowned. He looked up and thought carefully before he spoke to the person behind him, “Even if you are a supreme class elite, it is impossible not to breathe; it is impossible not to move the air as you move; it is impossible for there to be no pressure in your body. As long as there is breathing, air flow, or pressure change, it is impossible to escape my detection.
“How long have you been in Red Street Market? How did you hide from my mystic powers? No, you could not break through the air wall either. Otherwise, you would have made your move in this room sooner, correct? Tell me.”
There was no reply.
Asda looked belligerent as he turned around, ignoring the blade stuck in his back. He then coldly said to his attacker, “Tell me.”
This time, Thales saw the person who attacked Asda. The attacker stood quietly. He was dressed in black clothing with a hood over his head, his gloves and boots were also in black.
Stranger still was that the attacker wore a dark purple mask. The mask had two dark lenses in the position of the eyes.
The man was motionless, like a ghost. At that moment, anger passed through Asda’s thought, which was formed with mystic powers. After all, anger was a human emotion that had left him a long time ago. So the mystic power in his body surged. It quickly made him calm and rational again.
“I believe you must be very patient,” Asda softly said. “You waited for my mystic power to become unstable. You perceived the drop in power and ambushed me?
“Wonderful. You did it; you managed to ambush a Mystic.” Asda ignored the blade in his chest and stared unwaveringly at the attacker wearing the strange mask.
“So, who are you? Did you accidentally discover me when you noticed the disturbance at Red Street Market? With this sort of skill… Which family are you from?”
A barrage of questions, but the masked man still remained silent.
Asda frowned. He had asked a lot of questions, but could not feel the air pressure in the strange man’s body change. ‘Could it be that he is neither surprised nor glad, and has no reaction at all to these questions?
‘After hundreds of tests, my mystic air perception in mind reading is no longer effective? I can only use brute force.’
“Did you think this would kill me?”
Asda approached one step closer. He gently raised his left hand, his eyes expressionless. The air began to flow as his fingers moved, squeezing around the strange, masked man.
‘This cannot spread beyond Red Street Market,’ Asda thought to himself, ‘If the Kingdom’s Wrath or the Black Sword noticed this and rushed over, today’s actions would be meaningless. Using a bit of mystic power is enough, I just need to deal with this masked man.’
This time, the masked man spoke, “No, a Mystic cannot be killed.” His faint voice came through the mask.
“So you were neither dumb nor deaf.” Asda gazed at the two lenses on the mask. However, he saw nothing except complicated machinery and gears behind the lenses.
Doubts rose in his heart. “You don’t seem to be completely ignorant about us either…”
Thales almost exclaimed aloud. This was because the masked man’s voice was the same hoarse voice that had been difficult to distinguish—it was the same voice that told him to lower his head during the fight between Jala and Ralf. With this in mind, Thales’ trembling hands slowly began to calm down.
The masked man lightly stepped forward and went past Asda. It was as though the frightening air pressure could not even hinder him!
While the Air Mystic was caught off guard, the masked man stretched his hand out and pulled. The dagger disappeared from Asda’s back and appeared in his hand.
It was a shortsword with a gleaming blade and a dark-hued cross on the cross-guard.
Asda became somber. It was unusual for him to be unable to respond. He glared at the uninvited guest coldly and took the current situation into account.
‘What is he relying on? According to the intelligence updated yesterday, Judgment Spear is on the Western Frontline, the Motionless Bow is at the outskirts, and the Constellation Staff is at the Rejuvenation Palace. All that was left is the mysterious Supreme Sword and Shield. Supposedly, some say it is being kept away but others say it is at the Broken Dragon Fortress. The other anti-mystic equipment in Eternal Star City was also not enough to seal a supreme class Mystic.
‘So why is this masked man still so calm?’
Thales could barely believe what he saw. When the masked man had taken out the dagger from Asda’s back, the wound that should have been bleeding emitted a small blue light.
The light turned into his clothes, appearing like new. It was as though he had never been stabbed in the chest.
‘A Mystic.’ Thales started to believe in Asda’s insane words. ‘What kind of monster is a Mystic?’
Before Thales had time to clearly think about this, he was shrouded by a figure. The strange, masked man walked in front of Thales. Before the boy could react, he had already enclosed him in an embrace.
Thales struggled but the masked man lightly held the back of his neck. The boy felt his strength slowly disappear and became limp in his arms.
In a daze, Thales saw Asda lift both his hands up in the corner of his eyes. “Hey, be careful of his—”
The boy wanted to speak but the masked man had covered his mouth. Asda stood behind them, no longer intending to continue observing.
‘This boy is too important.’
“Since you know Mystics cannot be killed, why did you act?” Asda’s mystic energy started to move, he gathered the air within fifty meters around him. “You cannot be a True Class but you should at the very least be at the peak of Supreme Class. You even have a way of hiding from Mystics.”
With a nasty expression, Asda waved both his hands. Thales then felt the surrounding air pressure change.
The Air Mystic was about to attack.
“But no matter who you are—” Asda’s words were then interrupted by the terror in his eyes. “This! What is this?!”
Following this interruption was also a change in the surrounding air pressure. Thales looked across the shoulder of the masked man and saw that Asda looked frightened. The Mystic trembled and took a few steps back, a purple light shone from where he had been stabbed. This was the first time Thales saw alarm in the Mystic’s eyes.
The masked man lowered his head towards Thales and his hoarse voice echoed, “A Mystic cannot be killed, but they are not invincible.”
For some reason, Thales suddenly felt calm. He felt much safer with the strange person compared to the lunatic behind. The alarmed Asda looked terrified as he covered his chest. It was as though the purple light was about to explode from there.
“No. No…” He then looked back up at the masked man. Fear and hatred were evident on his face. “This is… the Sovereign State’s… legendary, anti-mystic equipment!”
The masked man reached out and covered Thales’ eyes.
“This weapon… I have never seen this before… No… No… Those two bitches…”
Thales could not hear the rest of Asda’s flustered words because as Asda gritted his teeth resentfully, he turned into hundreds of light rays, and then exploded into a burst of unlimited energy. Thales felt as though he had entered another space where all the light and sound had disappeared from his senses.
He knew he was already far away from Red Street Market, and that the night was over.
…..
When Jala awoke, she found herself being carried on solid shoulders. Both sides of the street slowly retreated. She became aware of her situation and impatiently hit the back of this familiar man.
“Hey, Edmund! Let me down! I still need to go back!”
The fat cook snorted impatiently. “Let you go back to that pretty boy? The cop? What if Big Sis knew… hehe…”
Jala’s face turned red. “That cop is not my lover!”
“I clearly saw you lying in his arms. That look of happiness…”
“Did you not pay attention to our surroundings?”
“I did! It was dark and windy, late at night, amidst the flowers in the moonlight, a rendezvous between…”
“Your main point is wrong, fatty!”
“Whether I am wrong or not, we will know in the future.”
“Sigh. I don’t want to talk nonsense with you, I still need to look for someone…”
“Everything is like this now. Don’t expect me to let you go back.”
“Damn fatty! Lousy cook! Let me down! I want to challenge you to a battle!”
“Fight with you? You are only amazing as an ordinary class. Come back to me once you reach supra class.”
“Ha… I really have someone important to find.”
“Don’t tell me it’s a cop. Even if you want to look for a prince, it is useless!”
“Damn fatty! Still harping on this issue? Sheesh! Can you just let me down? Pretty please? Uncle Edmund…”
“You’re already twenty and still acting spoiled? Do you think you are still a little girl? Don’t you feel shame?”
“Why would I? Uncle, you are already forty but don’t you also act like you’re three years old?”
“Hmph. Mentally, I am still a young man… Eh? Something is not right with that sentence.”
…..
At the same time, on the other side of the street in the distance, Kohen was awakened by a slap in the face.
While dazed, he realized that the person in front of him was his immediate superior, the police chief, Lorbec Deira. But this time, the chief looked concerned as he treated Kohen’s serious injuries. When Lorbec noticed that Kohen had regained consciousness, he said angrily, “Has the hero woken up? Did you manage to eliminate the Brotherhood and the Blood Bottle Gang after your stroll?”
“I…”
“How dare you? You openly disobeyed orders and acted on your own! Are you proud of yourself?”
“But…”
“But what? If it was not because I wanted to save your father’s reputation, I would have already shot you! Or do you think we came to look for you when we saw the sword beams?”
“Bu—”
“But what? I really have the world’s worst luck to have a subordinate like you! Do you think you are the protagonist of the Dark Night Temple’s drama? Then that girl just now must be the female lead?”
“She…”
“Do not mention that girl! If your father knew you came to the Red Street Market in the middle of the night to look for women…”
“No…”
“How can you still speak without shame? Even the hot favorite of the Laya Club, Miss Lilian, reported that you visited her in her bedroom in the middle of the night.”
“That…”
“Security Captain, Class Two police officer, openly violated orders to seek pleasure at night! You better be prepared for a suspension when you return!”
“Ha…”
At this moment, another loud noise carried from the center of the Red Street Market.
*Boom!*
The whole city heard the terrible explosion.
*Boom!*
This time, the explosion sent shockwaves reverberating into the sky. Hot dust from the explosions suddenly flew in from afar. Chief Lorbec and the dejected Kohen were astonished as they stared at the center of Red Street Market.
“This is bad.” The chief muttered, “The funds that had just been approved for construction…”
“Chief, what is with that evaluation?”
“Those who don’t manage money or family, just shut up!”
On the other side of the street, the cook Edmund and Jala, who was on his shoulders, were both shocked by the aftermath of the explosion.
“Little Jala,” Edmund muttered, “luckily we ran quickly and are far away.”
“Is that the point?’
“Didn’t Big Sister say ‘safety first’?”
“You… are really my three-year-old uncle!”
“Hey, how can you speak like that?”
…..
When Thales’ feet touched the ground again, he fell onto the floor and coughed. All his wounds began to feel painful at that moment. The strange, masked man stood still by the side as though nothing had happened.
“Asda… Is the Mystic dead?”
“No, the weapon is not perfect and cannot seal him permanently,” The hoarse voice replied. “However, he should not reappear for at least a dozen years.”
Thales’ heart tightened at first, and then calmed down. The Mystic was crazy and extremely abnormal. The impression he had was too profound.
‘Ten years is enough to come up with countermeasures.’
Thales suddenly looked up and remembered something. “I still have a companion. She protected me…”
“She is alright,” The hoarse-voiced person seemed to understand his thoughts and immediately replied. “Right now, she is on her way back to the Lower City District.”
Thales breathed a sigh of relief and then collapsed. However, he immediately remembered an extremely important detail. “You… Sir…” Thales asked with the greatest care after remembering his previous contact with the Mystic, “Who are you?”
Thales did not have high expectations of a secretive, masked man to give him a friendly reply. However, the next scene almost caused his jaw to drop to the ground.
The masked man still had a murderous look the previous moment, but he suddenly took a step back and placed his right hand on the left side of his chest, while his left hand was placed behind his waist as he knelt down on one knee.
The man then respectfully and solemnly replied, “My name is Yodel Cato. I am at your service.”
