Mystical Journey

Half an hour later…

The whole cargo ship turned around suddenly, heading for a navy port somewhere in America at full speed.

There was the occasional gunshot or scream coming from the ship. It was the Blood Breeds that Tu Lan had controlled with Hypnosis killing their companions.

Tu Lan was sitting in the control room, looking exhausted. The Hypnotized Blood Breed captain was changing the direction of the ship obediently, accelerating as they went.

But even with her Death Apostle level and power, it was still unbearably exhausting to temporarily control so many Blood Breeds at once.

After all, Death Apostles were just Blood Breeds who were slightly stronger than upper levels, their biggest advantage was their immortality. For everything else, they were not nearly as far away from upper level Blood Breeds than others thought. At the very most, one Death Apostle was equal in combat power to four or five upper levels working together, with Ashen being the obvious exception.

So the Death Apostles’ biggest strength was their immortality, their own bodies were not overly powerful. Temporarily controlling so many Blood Breeds at once was a heavy burden even to Death Apostles. Thankfully, Tu Lan practiced the Fantasy Fist, so she could use the Fantasy Fist Fist Technique to influence the humans on the ship. However, this fist technique was only effective for a short while, or it could cause memory loss, it was just that effective in altering memories. That required concise changes to the brain, so she had no choice but to rely on her Blood Breed Hypnosis first, and use the Fantasy Fist as support. The effect was not bad, she could more or less control the whole gigantic cargo ship into changing direction.

And by now, an hour had passed.

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

Dusk

“The mask is fake?” Hochman hid behind a large black rock by the sea, holding his phone to his hear and listening to the voice coming from the other side.

“Tu Lan has succeeded, return here now,” Garen said calmly through the phone.

Hochman took out his two masks slightly reluctantly, and checked them carefully. Upon closer inspection, he vaguely noticed that this mask did not seem as old as he thought. It was not noticeable at first glance, but when he looked closely, he could see markings to make it look older. Normal people may not have noticed it, but with his upper level senses, he could still notice some little things were amiss.

Bam!!

He smashed the mask onto the stone hard, and it shattered into countless pieces, while a large crater appeared on the rock as well.

Hochman’s expression was cold, those Blood Breeds played him! Ever since he started off, he had never suffered quite so heavy a loss.

Pressing the injury on his shoulder, his expression grew even colder.

“I understand,” he replied on the phone quietly. On the other side, Garen seemed to have noticed that he was pissed off as well, and hung up immediately after a soft ‘Mm’.

Tu Lan was at the level of a Death Apostle, he could not do anything to her. But there should still be one mask with Dahm…

A hint of cold flashed across Hochman’s face. Picking up the phone again and trying to dial it, he went through all his powerful personal connections in his heart. Looking at the incoming call on his phone, however, he quickly decided on the best person for the job.

After dialing the number.

“Hello, I’m Hochman, is this Miss Muneteru Riko? I need your help for a little favor here.”

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

On a luxury cruise ship

Muneteru Riko had just sat down in her room, still shell-shocked, when her phone rang.

Glancing at the caller, joy flashed through her eyes, and she hurriedly picked up the call.

“Hello, this is Riko. Is this Mr. Hochman? What do you need my help with?”

“Yes… Yes, yes… I understand.” Hanging up the call, Muneteru Riko heaved a long sigh.

There were too many things she wanted to ask, but after picking up the call just now, her brain had gone completely blank, so she could not ask anything.

Hochman and those two people who look like they were filming a movie, what on earth were they?

She had heard of rumors in her supernatural circles, but she had always assumed they were only rumors. Everyone repeated them baselessly, they were merely exaggerated fiction, but she never thought that she would have the chance today to witness such a phenomenon herself.

She quickly dialed a few numbers and made some arrangements as Hochman requested, then she hesitated, and called her father’s number after all. But after the call went through, she hesitated, and only told her father about her plans, without mentioning anything about the cruise ship.

She got up and walked out of the cabin, but found a pale young woman standing guard in front of her door.

She recognized her, the woman was one of the bodyguards who followed Hochman around.

“It’s still very dangerous on the ship, it would be better if you don’t leave your room.”

“Alright.” Muneteru Riko nodded and retreated back into her room.

Judging from that, the assailants must have been chased off the ship, or rather, the assailants had left. It was temporarily safe, then. She released a long breath.

Returning to her room, she suddenly remembered seeing some records about the Sleepless Faces in the books back home. Her family had once purchased a large collection of books from a European family after they weakened and fell, plus she liked reading since young, so she had snuck in and read a lot of them before. She also had a certain level of understanding towards the Sleepless Faces Hochman was looking for, those books had this bit of detailed information about that mask.

When the twelve masks were gathered, one needed to go to a certain spot to find a clue about the Final Mask. And according to the theories of that old family, there were two possibilities for that spot. All of it was recorded in that book, these things were only meant to be a record of ancient history for archeological purposes, and had no value but in collections. When Muneteru Riko thought about it now, however, she vaguely felt her chest beat fiercely.

She realized, that this might be her chance to really delve deep into the supernatural world!

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

Dahm crawled out of the underground palace, exhausted. The moonlight shone down from outside, landing on his body and reflecting a shade of deathly white.

Psst!

Thin threads of blood shot out of his arms and thighs suddenly.

Quickly tapping some acupoints to stop the bleeding, Dahm propped his body up and barely ran towards the meeting spot.

This was the result of his activating the First Star and then using the Final Profound, he was completely burned out.

The communicator hidden on his body had already been destroyed in the intense battle just now, so now he could not contact Caesar and the others who were outside, and could only rush out by himself.

Stumbling out of the temple’s forest of stupas, he used the dark corners to sneak his way out of the temple, arriving in a dark alley next to it.

“Where’s the item?” Caesar appeared at the entrance to the alley with a few others in tow.

“With me. Let’s go, now!” Dahm said weakly.

Seeing how weak Dahm looked, a hint of cold hesitation flashed through Caesar’s eyes.

He was wondering if he should finish off Dahm right now, Dahm was so weak, and he had so many people on his side, so he might actually manage it if he tried. After he got the mask, he could easily say that Dahm was killed by the Blood Breeds.

His only concern was whether or not Dahm was truly that weak, or whether it was all just a facade.

Caesar could not resist the temptation of the mask.

This was a chance to increase his longevity and martial arts! See how Hochman and Dahm reached the upper level in just a few years under Lord Fist Saint’s training. At such a speed, if it was Caesar and the others, they should be able to reach upper level as well!!

Since Lord Fist Saint only needed a few years to train up an upper level fighter, he probably would not worry too much about one of them dying…

Before he could help it, Caesar’s gaze on Dahm had changed.

“I’ve informed the intelligence group before coming here, they’ll send reinforcements right away! Let’s go now, before the Blood Breeds get here!” Dahm’s gaze flashed, and he spoke quickly.

Only then did Caesar pull back his gaze slightly.

“Everyone, guard the Marshall, we retreat now!” He waved his hand, and the people from his family hurriedly helped Dahm up, the whole group rapidly retreating from the alley.

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

Holy Fist Palace

Garen opened his eyes and looked at the time on the alarm clock, there were several minutes left.

He reached out his hand and held the bottle of blood above Tu Lan.

He squeezed the bottle until it shattered, and the blood inside began to drip down slowly. It looked like the most viscous oil-based liquid, or something like a sugar syrup, slowly dripping onto Tu Lan’s forehead.

Strangely, not one second after the blood dripped onto her, it was rapidly absorbed into Tu Lan’s skin, without leaving a trace behind, as though her skin had absorbed it all.

Psst!

In the pool of blood, Tu Lan opened her eyes abruptly, and her unfocused pupils began to dilate rapidly.

Hsss…

She took a deep breath, and then released it, her chest expanding massively and then deflating like a balloon.

“How is it?” Garen asked quietly.

“Not bad, I’ve handed it over.” Tu Lan nodded, and was not perturbed at all to show her naked body as she stood up in the pool, yanking some robes off the hangar.

“I have two masks here, but they’re hidden somewhere in the cargo ship, so we need to check it. Send someone careful over,” she said quickly.

“No problem,” Garen understood. “Two masks… That’s truly some good news…”

“I also have some bad news,” Tu Lan said with a frown. “I heard from an old acquaintance that all the Blood Breed Death Apostles have vanished, they all went to–”

“To look for the remaining masks?” Garen completed her sentence.

“You know about it?” Tu Lan was slightly surprised.

Garen looked calm.

“It was not hard to guess.” He was already this close to his second Soul Seed, he could gather it at any time, but he kept feeling as though something was missing. Even if this second Soul Seed had not been completely created and hatched, his spirit had already reached an unprecedented peak because of it. His heart was completely clear and light, like a pure mirror of water, without any ripples whatsoever.

In the critical moment when he is gathering his Soul Seed, there must be as few impurities as possible, only the purest will could gather all the power of the soul, and highly compress it. This was also a little trick that Black Sethe taught him to speed up the process.

“Aren’t you afraid that they’ll destroy the masks as soon as they obtain them?” Tu Lan asked in confusion.

“If they obtain the masks, they won’t destroy them so easily…” Garen said calmly. “Nobody would be willing to give up that chance. This is a chance to be the first to break the Death Apostles’ myth of immortality…”

Once they obtain the Final Mask and achieve the Original Bloodline, they would be able to truly threaten and suppress the other Blood Apostles. Blood Apostles would no longer be symbols of immortality, and when that happens, the one possessing the Original Bloodline would truly be the only dictator, the strongest in the world!

Even at the level of power that Garen was at now, he still did not dare to wage full-on war with the Blood Breed Death Apostles, simply because he could not kill the Death Apostles. If he could not kill them, that just meant both sides would end up injured, and both would have lost.

That was not what Garen hoped for, and neither was it what the Blood Breeds wanted.