553 Situation 1

Chapter 553: Situation 1

"Let’s go! We’ll find that damn fatty!" She pulled her two subordinates and headed towards the street deep within the jetty fiercely.

Within a few minutes, the three of them saw Zhao Qinglan, who was showing off by beating up another little boy in the street, she was tall and heavy, her face covered with flesh, and her hair tied up into two swirls, she wore a powder-white coat, that intimidated anyone who looked at it.

"Yoo-hoo! Lindsay, you finally got the guts to challenge me?"

"Cut the crap, this fight decides who’s stronger!" Lindsay jumped straight towards the side of the street, as soon as she stepped out, the young children who were surrounding and watching them instantly opened up some space for them.

Heh!

Zhao Qinglan spat some saliva onto her palm, rubbed it, and pounced forward, dashing at Lindsay will a speed and agility complete unlike her appearance, moving extremely quickly.

As soon as the passersby looking over at them noticed that she actually had some rhyme and reason to her moves, some others stopped walking and began to watch.

With that pounce, and according to Zhao Qinglan’s strength, it should be more than enough to knock Lindsay to the ground. Once she had the other person pressed down, and unable to get up, that would mean Lindsay could only lie down and be pummeled blindly.

Seeing Zhao Qinglan pounce at her, Lindsay panicked for a second, she had not thought that her opponent would be so fast despite looking so fat.

Before she knew it, her right leg was pulled back abruptly, hiding behind her left leg, and her blood qi, wound up like a spring, was pressed into her right leg in pace as she adjusted her breathing.

Psst!

Like a released spring, in that instant, her right leg naturally shot out, like a black whip, but even more like a pouncing poisonous snake. The tip of her foot was the fangs, making a hissing sound as it swung through the air.

The Snake Style Leg that she had been training constantly these past few days was used ever so naturally.

Bam!

The leg touched the right side of Zhao Qinglan’s pouncing body, and her whole body rolled away, falling at the empty space by Lindsay’s left foot, still swaying.

"Ouch!" She heard a cry of pain.

That Snake Style Leg only had one percent of its true power, mainly because Lindsay used it with the power of a child, and she was extremely unfamiliar with it, so it was far from actually embodying the shape of a snake, and hissing like one.

But that one hit was enough to make Lindsay’s heart jolt.

For the first time, she truly knew for the first time, just how powerful this Snake Style Leg actually was.

The kids around her cheered, these captains’ children who had grown up with Lindsay had disliked Zhao Qinglan for a long time, and seeing her fall now, they all jumped with joy.

"This is the secret you learned from that punk you picked up halfway?"

Suddenly, a deep middle-aged man’s voice came from beside Lindsay.

"Snake Style Leg? Hehe, to think there would be someone who would simply teach others secrets!" The man’s voice suddenly sounded happy at their misfortune.

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

"You surviving vermin from the Southern Sky Gate! Die!!"

With a boom, the man in black flew into the sky, a terrifying humanoid pitch-black aura rioting behind him.

The woman stiffened for a second, and his palm hit her directly, sending her flying and coughing blood. She spun several times in the air with a groan, before finally falling hard onto the ground.

The woman stumbled but finally managed to steady her footing, and she actually began to run slightly faster, borrowing the momentum from before. Like a graceful swallow, she darted into a copse of trees beside her, and disappeared after a few turns.

"Get her!!" She vaguely heard a low yell from the man in black behind her.

The man in black took a hand towel offered by the subordinate beside him, and wiped the fresh blood off his hands, his expression hard and cold.

"She can’t escape! We finally managed to catch that little rat, I have set down an inescapable trap, and the main players inside can never escape!"

A short woman in black laughed beside him. "Once the Divine Master(1) leaves the palace, we will just nicely have the leader of the Southern Sky Gate as a present. The Young Divine Master Jessian has personally promised, that as long as we, the North-West Nine Iron Gate can complete this matter, they will personally help us conquer the Bronze Gate’s copper mine, I wonder if this is true?"

As the two of them spoke, large groups of strong black-clothed fighters rapidly rushed into their woods, looking everywhere for her.

"The Demon Gate Demoness Lola is also about to re-emerge from her meditative retreat, the Young Divine Master is probably doing this to prevent any future threats, as long as he settles this matter with the Southern Sky Gate completely, perhaps the Divine Master might place more importance on him." The man in black nodded.

"I heard that the Young Divine Master has already entered the fifth level of the Omniscient Eye, and is now only two steps away from the highest peak-level. once he re-emerges this time, he will surely go toe-to-toe with the Demoness Lola. Add that to the Divine Master’s tremendous power, once he comes out of his meditative retreat this time, he will surely achieve the highest peak-level, the Demon Gate is surely in trouble this time." The woman in black pressed her voice down low.

The man in black instantly looked thoughtful.

The Immortal Palace and the Demon Gate were the two main holy sites of the combat world, controlling countless powerful battle skills and secret techniques, so they had the highest position in the combat world. The Divine Master and the Demon Soldier were the two strongest fighters of the whole combat world, but now the Divine Master was coming out of his meditative retreat soon, and allegedly had the biggest breakthrough, achieving the highest state of secret technique training.

But regrettably, on the Demon Gate’s side, the Demon Soldier had sealed himself into a meditative retreat, but it was said that he had failed and died, so with the rise of one side and the fall of the other, the Immortal Palace had practically become the strongest power in the combat world.

Before this, the survivors of the Southern Sky Gate had managed to live because the Demon Gate was holding them back, but now the chase was getting tighter, with Grandmasters of Combat looking for them everywhere.

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

Garen got off the cruise ship slowly, looking at the jetty in front of him.

This was evidently a decently-sized jetty by the bay, the whole jetty was like a circle, an oval with a hole in it, and the path into the ocean was that only hole.

There was a faint mist over the ocean, and nothing could be seen in the distance, but he could vaguely see rows upon neat rows of Chinese-style houses and buildings, on the streets between the houses, the red-skinned strong men carried their naval cargo, but there were mostly fishermen wearing their hats and preparing to go to sea. There were also quite a few bull- and horse-drawn carriages, mostly parked beside the many large ships.

The ship that Garen himself was alighting from was already considered a large ship here, and by now there were already several horse- and bull-drawn carriages stopping beside it. The merchants and travelers getting off the carriages were discussing something with the crewmembers from the ship.

"Mr Garen, may I know if you have any plans after getting off the ship?" Captain Whitman said from behind him, after he found out that his daughter obtained a secret kicking technique from Garen, he had gotten even more passionate.

He would fulfill each and every one of Garen’s wishes, evidently taking him for a legendary Grandmaster of Combat.

Garen shook his head.

"I have no plans, but I’ve come out this time to see the Combat Festival happening soon."

"The Combat Festival is naturally something everybody passionate about combat and martial artists will want to see." Captain Whitman chuckled, "But I heard that the location this year is on a small island in the ocean. It is not too long from now, that the Festival will begin. Why don’t you stay with us and be greeted together with our Navy Alliance, Mr Garen? What do you think?"

By Navy Alliance, he did not mean just his own ship, but the large alliance of the sea formed by the merchants trading and buying here in the East Continent. This huge power had also recruited several power martial artists, and although they did not know exactly how many Grandmasters of Combat there were, even the pirates by the sea had to be wary of such an alliance of over a hundred merchants. As large ocean alliances would sometimes come across rich targets, they would also take down their merchant flag and put up pirate flags to perform the fastest deal to earn money. Nobody could truly differentiate merchants and pirates.

"That sounds fine too." Garen thought about it, his return this time was only to see how Ying Er and the others were doing for the last time. And then, if he had the chance, he wanted to see if he could discover the mysteries of the Black Smoke Pot.

Over the past few days days, he had also tried to use his Listener’s Imprint to enter the inner world, but it seemed that there was no inner world here at all. When he was in the Totem World, his Listener’s Imprint could feel something mysterious. It was a feeling, as though the world itself was living.

And it was soon proven that the Door to Heaven, as the representative final product of the Totem World, did indeed have its own life and instincts.

But once he returned to the Secret Technique World, Garen could not feel any of that sense of life. The whole world’s air seemed dead and stagnant, the Listener’s Imprint did take effect, and was not affected by this planet, so he could feel the waves from inside, but this place simply did not have any inner world, so Garen had no way of getting in.

He had a theory, that these planets were all different, the world of the Totem Planet had a planet’s will, which was the Door to Heaven. And this place, the Secret Technique Planet, probably did not have such a thing.

Perhaps not all planets were the same type, once he thought about it that way, he felt that it was understandable.

The universe was endless and powerful, containing space, time, and everything else. It was probably only natural that there would be different planet systems and conditions.

His thoughts turning instantly, Garen looked at the bearded captain in front of him.

He was utterly penniless, but he could not always depend on the charity of others, so it was convenient for both of them if he was recruited by this Ocean Alliance.

"Before the Festival begins, I’ll have to continue bothering you, Captain Whitman."

"You’re too kind." Whitman hurriedly replied in a low voice, intense joy filling his face.

Martial artists who had secret technique secrets these days were all powerful people, they moved quickly, and any normal person with a gun within ten meters would be sitting doves to them.

The two of them chatted a bit, when suddenly they heard the soft sounds of an argument nearby.

Garen looked towards the direction of the noise, and vaguely saw Lindsay facing off against someone else in the fog.

"Something seems to have happened, I’ll go over there and have a look."

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

"Who taught you the Snake Style Leg?! Tell me!" The middle-aged man with the cold eyes glared hard at Lindsay, his right palm was at least twice as thick as his left hand, shining with a faint purple glow, as though all of his skin was dyed with a layer of purple. This man wore a grey-green military costume, and there was even a young man about as tall as him standing next to him.

The East Continent was currently in a state of warlordism, these private soldiers and gangsters were all over the place.

That person was just walking past the jetty at first, but he happened to notice a child performing a prohibited secret technique, the Snake Style Leg, and was instantly overjoyed.

Ever since the Immortal Palace declared the Martial Prohibition, anyone who caught the practitioners of those secret techniques involved, would have the right to exchange them for a secret technique or secret of equal level. Although the Snake Style Leg was only one of the lowest-level secret techniques, but for some reason, it was also one of the secret techniques that the Immortal Palace had strictly placed under prohibition.

Of course he would not know that the Immortal Palace hated the White Cloud Gate and the Southern Sky Holy Fist Gate to the core, especially the White Cloud Gate, back then the White Cloud Gate Master Garen was unrivalled, using a normal secret technique to make it all the way to the peak, such a story seemed like a legend, no matter how you looked at it.

And so the descendants of the Immortal Palace began to think that it was highly likely that the White Cloud Gate and the Southern Sky Holy Fist Gate had something special which allowed Garen to skyrocket upward. After a hard chase and intense search, they still could not find any clue, so they decided to put all the White Cloud Gate’s and the Southern Sky Holy Fist Gate’s techniques under prohibition, since they could not find the reason, then they might as well make sure that nobody could learn those martial arts techniques.

This was actually the very foundation of the Prohibition. It was also the reason the current White Cloud Gate did not even dare to practice their own inherited secret techniques.

Translator’s note:

仙主, lit. Deity Maste