Chapter 336: Strength 2
Two days later…
Sunlight was shining brightly, and the air was warm, as everything was basked in a layer of golden light.
The rapidly gushing river looked like a glittering golden river. Beside the river, a few Deep Swamp Crocs had bitten a large black water anaconda and had dragged it up the river bed, and were now tearing it to pieces and eating it.
Garen sat inside the carriage and nodded his head in satisfaction, as the carriage passed the shallow water bed slowly, and travelled forward in the direction of the railway bridge. In front, a thick and densely-packed forest could be seen.
******
One day later
Under the light drizzle, the entire forest was covered in a layer of rainy mist.
An elegant, snow white coloured large flying dragon flapped its large wings gently and dived downwards.
Whoosh!
A large gust of ashen air landed directly on the backs of two large black bears. There were lots of blue-coloured bone shards growing out of the black bear’s back, and when it crawled on the ground it looked like a stegosaurus.
When it felt the ashen breath blowing against its back, the Thorny Back Black Bear let out a roar and all of the spikes on its back sprung forward. At once, they petrified themselves into two stone statues.
As the thorns rained down, a few white imprints soon appeared on the White Dragon’s hard scales.
The White Dragon dived downwards again, and grabbed both of the Thorny Black Black Bear statues with its claws, with one in each claw, and immediately flew towards the faraway sky.
An hour later, a troop of carriages passed by the area slowly, and travelled across the road in the forest that headed towards the Kovitan Empire. Three of the carriages were black, while the last one was silver. In the first carriage, the windows and curtains had been opened. Garen looked at the White Dragon flying in the distance with a blank expression on his face, and pulled the curtains closed again.
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Kovitan Lush Forest district
Vanderman mansion
Vanderman sat on the sofa in the hall on the first floor and chewed on a black pipe that had run out of cut tobacco a long time ago. His eyes were glued to a piece of paper in his hand.
Opposite him sat his two loyal subordinates, Edney and Maxilan. Both of them were clad in strange black-purple armors that looked sturdy and majestic, except for the dark red crystal lines that were embedded on top. The lines looked like blood vessels and contained red liquid that flowed through it endlessly, which also caused bubbles to float around in the liquid occasionally.
"What is Aquarius planning to do now? Seems like I forgot to beat her up properly the last time. Lost two form two totem users but still unrepentant…" Vanderman’s expression darkened as he tore the piece of white paper up slowly. "Right now, Her Highness the Twelfth Princess is planning to arrive in person immediately, and no matter how much she struggles she won’t be able to pull anymore tricks out of her sleeve anymore. Except…"
"Except what, my Lord?" Edney stroked the small knife in her hand gently. "You just need to wait for Her Highness the Twelfth Princess to arrive, before you ask Master Masuya to lend you his strength, and then you’ll definitely be able to get rid of that disgusting, ugly woman. If two form three totem users go up against her, she can struggle with all her might, but that will still be useless."
Vanderman lay face up on the sofa.
"It’s just that this letter arrived in such a timely manner, a sign that Aquarius’ side is well-informed…" he said as his face began to contort.
"That’s true, her messengers are too well-informed," Maxilan nodded as a slightly disturbed expression appeared on his face. "We too only received the news this afternoon."
"Why should we trouble ourselves with all this? As long as our power is strong enough, we can just get rid of any situations we face immediately!" said Edney, unfazed.
Vanderman nodded, his complexion had improved slightly.
"Right now the main war is there, and I’ve heard that they’ve started using Spiritualized totem users. Once this kind of war weapons that can greatly influence the outcome of battle have been released, it clearly shows that it has come to the White Heat degree already. We’re still alright here, so I’d assume that the main force has been sent to other places already."
"I’m worried that the Obscuro Society has deployed a Spiritualization totem user to Aquarius, which would be troublesome for us. Aquarius can single-handedly control one form three and five form twos. Meanwhile, these Spiritualized totem users are all war weapons, and the pressure they exert upon their enemies through their Spiritualization is too strong, and will also be too strong for us to handle as well!" said Maxilan as he furrowed his brows. He had followed Vanderman for so many years, but this was the first time he had encountered such a difficult situation.
"What’s done is done, it won’t make any difference even if we spend more time thinking about it," Vanderman waved his hand. "You should go and rest first. My old friend is looking after the mansion, so there won’t be any problems there."
"Yes, sir."
Both of them stood up to open the door and leave, while the maid closed the door carefully and left the hall herself, to avoid disturbing Vanderman.
Vanderman stood up and only then did he notice that his pipe was already out of tobacco, and the fire had extinguished long ago. He mashed his lips together to get the pipe. He walked towards the front of the fireplace unconsciously and looked at the dazzling fire, before noticing the black and white photo that was hanging above the fireplace.
A sea of green grass, himself sitting on a chair, Acacia standing behind him with a small smile on his face and a joyful expression.
He looked at the photograph quietly for a good while, before exhaling a deep breath, and reaching his arm outwards to take the box of tobacco under the photo frame.
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Lush Forest district
Inside the secret underground room in the Aquarius mansion
"Right now most places have been cut from all contact for a long time already, and we won’t be able to support everyone on our own for much longer. We need to make up our minds soon," Aquarius furrowed her brows as she looked at the crystal ball in front of her. The white crystal ball began to give off a dim red light from the inside. It caused the entire secret underground glow to light up dimly.
"You need to stabilize that area first, this division here is also facing difficulties. The interior of the main section defected a few of its members, and the frontlines of the war have barely made any progress either. Daniela is facing rebounds, but those were the messages from a few months back, we don’t know what the current situation is like over there. The areas here where I require support troops are far too many," said an old man’s voice as it sounded through the crystal ball.
"I don’t care. Anyway, you still need to make the necessary arrangements here for me quickly, because I cannot bear to stay here any longer!" Aquarius said furiously. "This goddamn, disgusting, rotten to the point where he should be used to feed the dogs Vanderman has nurtured a final form, and last time it almost broke my left arm off! Out of the eighteen other mountainous spots, you could send me to any one of them and I’d be fine with that!"
"Don’t be anxious, I’m merely a Brigadier General, I don’t know anything about the arrangements made by the higher ups. The Kovitan higher command center is located in the Kovitan capital and Iron Tank City. They’re too lazy to even care about our message reports," said the old voice impatiently.
"Anyway, just do as you see fit. I’ve already given Vanderman the letter already." Aquarius turned the crystal ball off angrily at once. Regarding these new toys, she had yet to understand them fully yet, but that did not hinder her from using it to increase her power.
The crystal ball was kept properly, and she walked towards the right side of the secret room, pulled out a secret drawer, and took out a black envelope.
Aquarius then tore open the envelope , took the letter out, before she began to carefully translate the words one by one using the secret language.
As the translated contents increased, the expression on her face improved as well.
"This thing is still happening?" Finally, when she put the letter down, her facial expression had become much better by then. The corners of her mouth were also curling up into a strange smile.
**************
"Ooh… Erm… Oh…!!!!" Leila pulled Garen’s arm with all his might and used his entire body weight, causing his face to turn red.
"Could you not let out these constipated noises?" Angel stood at the side with her hand on her forehead. "If you want to test your arm strength just do that, you don’t have to make these disgusting noises as well…"
"Can you feel the blood flowing through my veins? That’s true strength! Oh oh oh~~~ My strength is burning!!" Leila roared as he furiously push Garen’s arm downwards again.
Garen looked at the other man wordlessly and used his left arm to arm wrestle with Leila. Due to Vicky’s broken totem light, because she was exposed to air, she now had a fever, an obvious sign that her physique was lacking. As they got bored during the journey, everyone decided to squeeze into the biggest carriage to engage in some entertainment for training purposes.
The current event was arm wrestling, and the unfortunate part was that Garen was single-handedly beating everyone without any competition.
After Garen had defeated the three women and Ansa, his thin body suddenly gained the interest of Leila. This bastard assumed that this was a good opportunity for himself, so he stepped forward as the last person who would conclude the legend of Garen’s undefeatable account.
Leila used of his might, and now a leopard’s paw was hidden behind his left shoulder. The paw belonged his totem beast, and suddenly a surge of powerful strength rushed forward.
"Haha, bet you didn’t expect that I’d still have this final skill!" He was giddily happy, as his leopard totem possessed exceptional concealment, especially his secondary totem the Shadow Leopard, and currently no one had realised that he was cheating.
Suddenly, he noticed that Garen had been distracted by something that Big Sis was saying.
"And now!"
The man and the leopard attacked, and he pushed its paw downwards and pressed hard.
"Ah!! Your legend!! Will be ended by me!!" "Roar!"
Bang!!
The hand and the paw smashed downwards violently, and pressed against Garen’s left hand.
After that…
There was nothing after that.
"What did you say just now?" Garen turned around ignorantly and looked at Leila. "I think I heard you saying something about my legend?"
Leila stared at Garen’s unmoved arm blankly, before turning his head upwards, and looking at his opponent.
"Nothing… I didn’t say anything…"
"Oh…" Garen turned away and continued the discussion on the previous topic with Angel.
Lala and Vicky who were standing on the sidelines both covered their mouths and laughed secretly. Ansa stood on another side and checked the slots in the carriage, and shook his head wordlessly.
Frankly, everyone had known about Leila’s cheating, and recognized his signal, but this guy was still the clown of the group, and no one had seen through him yet.
The carriage travelled forward slowly at a fixed pace. After a fixed interval, everyone would take turns releasing their totems outside to monitor the situation, but there were still no form two monsters to be seen. Everyone felt that this was extremely strange.
"It’s unbelievably calm," Angel shrugged, and looked at Garen. "Do you have some sort of good method to avoid them?"
"That’s a secret," smiled Garen mysteriously. "If I tell you it won’t be worth any money anymore. I’m still planning to use this to get something good from the Kovitan capital, you know."
"Always hiding something. But recently, why have you been wearing a glove on your right hand?"
Angel looked at the black leather glove on Garen’s right hand. This guy had one ungloved hand, while the other hand was gloved, hmm… It as unsaid that he ended up looking really cool. At a glance, he looked like powerful boxing champion.
As a totem user, she had always been in awe of physically fit professionals.
"This is because my right hand got injured, and I didn’t want you guys to see it, so I decided to hide it under a glove," Garen explained calmly. He was looking for an opportunity to test out the true strength of his right hand.
He placed his Black Striped White Tiger core totem with Ansa, to allow the other man to help him repair it. In Aisley City, due to the totem light on his body breaking completely, his totems either suffered light or serious injuries. The core totem suffered the most, and had almost half of its body destroyed. This made Garen, who had painstakingly searched for the Striped Crystal, extremely furious. He faced a lot of difficulties evolving it, and never expected to encounter this problem as well.
The difficulty in fixing the core totem, as well as the difficulty in evolving it, drew Garen in the direction of creature totems. According to his plan, these creature totems were the only ones that could help him reach his goal.
After chatting to the others in the carriage for a while, he got off soon after that.
At night, it was completely quiet, except for a mooing noise that could vaguely be heard from the distance, that came from an unknown monster.
On the top of the largest silver carriage stood a silver owl that had a pair of light yellow eyes that were giving off a soft blue light in the darkness. They were like two large light bulbs.
The owl stood on the roof of the carriage but did not move, as if it was just a sculpture.
Garen glanced at it before turning around and walking towards the back of the carriage troop, disappearing into the darkness quickly.
He stretched his right hand gently. This time, he wanted to test out his arm strength with the strongest Dual Headed Salamander, and see the true strength and upgrades that the Troll Grip had given him.