Mystical Journey

No sooner had he finished his sentence, the two-faced person immediately vanished with a slight disrespect. It seemed that even with the obligation to protect Garen and stick with him because of the distorted seed, as a Level 10 expert, he was unwilling to fall on his knees for him.

Once the projection disappeared, it struck an unhappy chord among a number of Level 9 Peaks.

"How outrageous," a woman couldn't hold her tongue.

"So he thinks he can just take flight, huh?" The wrinkled man chuckled in a low tone.

"Fine, let's not bother about him and just handle our matters. Be careful not to leak the plan and do not rush to give out items," Garen reminded.

"Understood."

"Relax."

They all responded. The projections immediately disappeared.

Garen sat alone in the room and started to carefully inspect the arrangement for possible loopholes. Should the plan succeed, the possible outcome could be fairly horrifying.

Holy Lord Level experts, especially Holy Lords of Energy Machinist has emerged in large quantities. This definitely would create an irreversible impact on Chinande's plan. The more it was so, the more he as the parent body needed to hide in depth or if Chinande were to find that he was the source of all, he would reel in the highest animosity.

"It's really... hard to execute..." Garen sighed and closed his eyes, focusing himself into a quiet meditation.

******

The competition went on as scheduled. There were a total of three completion arenas.

Representatives of various sects received the qualification notifications from the alliance. Osho Ice-Ocean was solely in charge of everything for the Scarlet Snow Sect and there was one who specially took care of any problem for the Scarlet Snow Alliance.

Garen directly received a VIP seat sent by the alliance in his room.

The sect master, as well as deputy sect master of a few major and medium-sized sects that paid him a visit similarly received the credentials of VIP seatings.

Talking and laughing with these bunch of people, Garen blended in within the high position crowd of medium and large-sized sects. They headed to the third competing arena together.

While on the way, he kept an observant eye. Although it wasn't the break of dawn yet and it was still early, there were many that crowded the entrance of the competing arena. Many of them were still making way towards the entrance.

It was only discussions pertaining to the completion were heard while on the way. The entire city of Nagadako had transformed into a farmer's market. If he didn't transmit voice with his Willpower, he wouldn't be able to make clear of the conversations.

Spaceships after spaceships came and went, transporting incoming representatives of major sects.

Garen and his group of higher level sect masters were also arranged transportation by spaceship in which they flew past the main gate and landed in a parking ground within.

Walking out of the spaceship, Garen could sense a furtive scent close by. If he didn't keep a little of Jeros' scent from before as well as absorbing the energy essence of the blood bead, he wouldn't be able to sense this minute difference.

"They must know that I broke away from control and will strike during the competition," Garen came to a realization while carefully detecting any possible suspects around.

The third competing arena was huge. The completion was on an elimination basis. It was between two competitors and the one that succeeded would move on. The winner would advance while the losers would compete again for the following winner to move on. This elimination process would continue on until a ranking was confirmed.

It sounded simple enough but the rules were complicated as the losers would continuously be determined and between the losers there would be winners. This way, it would be defined with precision. There would also be voting by the committees and referees involved.

Garen couldn't care less about this rule. He was now at the twelfth section of the third competing arena. All around him were medium-sized and small-sized sects. Although the Scarlet Snow Sect had only recently made waves, they only showcased a sect of Level 8 experts so they were marked as small-sized. Being assigned to this competing arena was not out of the norm.

Garen swept his glance past all participating sects and found there was none worth the attention.

There was only one that was at Two-Moons Level with difficulty. He could be considered as a tough competitor.

He was sat in the middle of the VIP seats' row. On his left was a female sect master of a small-sized sect while on his right was an elder of a medium-sized sect.

"I heard the Scarlet Snow Sect is recently expanding rapidly..." This elder from the medium-sized sect narrowed his eyes in laughter while twisting his mustache.

Garen was dressed in a white robe and wearing a golden helmet. It was uncertain what expression he carried as he showed no response.

"Your representative of the Aerial Upright Sand Sect doesn't look too good," a female sect master of a small-sized sect on the left remarked. She had earlier argued with this elder.

"Seeing the Scarlet Snow Sect Master like this, you must be confident in your disciples or else you wouldn't be firmly sitting here without a finch. See, there are elders from certain sects who personally came down to boost their disciples' morale," this elder continued without any sign of rage.

"What is Elder Gong Neng trying to say?" Garen duly replied.

"Nothing, nothing of concern," this elder continue to avoid eye contact and looked below at the two representatives preparing to take the stage.

Garen maintained his composure. He knew that Chinande's original plan was to bring home the title and then when the three Great Holy Lords poured energy into the champion as an award, he would launch a revolt and trigger a string of explosion with the property of the combo to severely wound the three Holy Lords so being the champion was imminent.

The Energy Machinists' higher positions must have predicted so regardless of the party, no one was going to let this competition go on with sportsmanship. There would certainly be some dirty tricks involved, and he as the troublemaker would possibly be eliminated at an early stage to prevent any variable.

He took one glance at the crowd and instantly discovered the peculiar scent that presented earlier.

Sitting in the grandstands were two figures in black capes within the shadows of the crowd. Many amongst the Energy Machinists that were unwilling to reveal their identities would drape all kinds of camouflage and black capes were a common choice. These two didn't draw attention. If it weren't for Garen's detailed search, he probably wouldn't trace them in the crowd.

After internally keeping a close watch on the two, Garen averted his attention to the two participants up on stage. In this competing section, only two representatives from the medium-sized sect that could barely match up with the trio of Scarlet Snow Sect.

And now one of them was on stage.

"Throne Sect versus New Aurora. Participants, please be ready," a sweet female electronic voice was heard.

Two youngsters quietly took a stand on stage.

With a buzz, it began.

The two released their Energy Machinery at almost the same time. A black bear up against a green fox.

Strangely, the fox was larger than the black bear by a tad, doubling the height of its opponent. It looked like a huge monster, a giant fox.

Upon releasing their Energy Machinery, the two individually stood apart. It was obvious they were testing the waters of the another.

Up to a certain standard, the Energy Machinery would be able to sense the Willpower, degree of purity and endurance of their opponents.

Both of them had a go and with the testing completed, they abandoned the preparation works and welled up their Willpower to charge at their opponent for close combat.

One of them even opted for close combat with firearms as at times there were highly destructive laser beams discharged, impacting the protective barrier and causing ripples.

"Both of them are at the New-Moon Level. So they're just some representative from unknown little sects," The old man beside Garen whispered. Among those sitting here, Garen from the Scarlet Snow Sect was the only one he couldn't read so he made attempts to probe Garen the whole time.

"The two of them aren't that bad. They seem to be the kind that doesn't spend all day cultivating in the sect," the female sect master on the other side lowered her voice.

Garen gave a slight nod in agreement.

The competition continued on with a minute end result. Instead of triumphant between the Energy Machineries, it was a slight miscalculation from the female Energy Machinist that caused her the competition and her dreaded exit, earning New Aurora the win.

The second round started immediately. The winners' winning counts decided the upcoming ranking distributions. This was a way to test their ability to reserve endurance in battle.

The contender of the second round appeared to be a disciple without any battle experience. He was nervous and despite his senior's efforts to cheer him on on the outside, with one look, he didn't react from being swept away by the tail of his opponent's giant fox. He knocked onto the protective barrier and lost consciousness. He must have been mollycoddled in an overprotective environment.

Then it was the third, the fourth, the fifth. There was quite a bit of Energy Machinists without real battle experience. There were even those with high Willpower at Two-Moons Level but no one was spared from being taken down in a jiffy.

This sort of academic group of Energy Machinists researching theories was not a small sum. They made a large population in competitions annually.

Everyone was not surprised and many were already yawning.

Those up on stage at this time were only testing the waters. The actual strong representative of the sect hadn't made their way up yet so it was the crucial moment when it came to rankings.

Normally, sects would place their strongest disciple at the back of the line. As long as one person out of three disciples was able to snag a higher ranking, the rest didn't matter as the names were arranged by rankings.

It wasn't long with a match after another, it was the turn of Scarlet Snow Sect's White Night.

Garen had regained some of his spirits.

The opponent of White Night had already been through over ten rounds. Hence, her sect replaced her with another person.

White Night first bowed towards the direction of Garen and then proceeded to size up his opponent.

"One move! It's all I'll take you down with," White Night gently raised his arm and did a slicing motion complete with a face of disdain.

His opponent was obviously enraged.

"Anyone knows how to talk big!" Even so, facing the representative of one of the three strongest sects in this competing arena, he brought his serious face. He slightly bowed and released an equally black giant fox in front of him.

The moment the fox was released, he felt a surge of cold air around. White Night who was earlier standing before him had vanished and the warning device he wore on him blared a sharp alarming sound.

Left!!

He immediately turned and saw a white shadow glided by.

"Snowstorm Palm!"

With the rupture of vast white snowflakes, White Night marked his palm on his opponent's chest. Massive freezing palm force surged into his body, recklessly destroying all vessels and nerves in it.