"Such a state… You are, indeed…" Boss laughed loudly, a hint of fear hidden in his tone of voice.
Carthage had always been frightening in an explosive manner. Now that he had the ability to change his stances in the blink of an eye, if this led to a fight, it would not do… Boss did some calculations in his heart. It would only be possible to contend with this fellow if he joined forces with Second Brother.
However, as for Second Brother's intentions…
"Let us just divide it equally amongst the three of us. I'm only interested in having a look at this thing anyway," Garen said coldly.
At that time, the eyes of Second Brother were glinting, looking at Garen with some apprehension. Although the swipe just now had been stunning and its execution required at least the Water Mirror stage, but for an unknown reason, he felt as though there was something different about the aura now compared to the Carthage of the past.
"I have no objections," Boss shrugged.
"Then I agree as well," Second Brother could not put his finger on it, so he let it rest for now, and nodded.
"We shall memorize it together," Garen stretched out his hand and held the secret scroll, briskly turning to the first page.
The electric arc curled around his hand, but could not harm his skin in the slightest. This was the natural protection of the force field.
Dense flows of information shot out, forming a beam of a solid pillar with blue electricity in front of the three people, turning slowly. In an instant, the pillar emitted blue light and every rune flashing upon it contained a great amount of information flow.
The three men began to memorize speedily.
It was at this moment that Second Brother's eyes fell on Garen once again. Just now, when the blue light had flashed, the feeling that something was wrong had struck him again. He had met Carthage once and he had been endlessly arrogant! He had also been a bigger germaphobe than Boss, unwilling to let any energy of the outside world touch his body. So how could it be that this man had let electricity fall onto the back of his hand just now?
"This man…" The eyes of Second Brother glinted secretly.
In the blink of an eye, the first page was completely memorized.
Garen also noticed how Second Brother was paying him extra attention. There was a slight chill in his heart as he felt that something was not right.
"The second page," he stretched out his hand to flip to the second page of the scroll.
"It's not right! You're not Carthage!" Seeing his hand come into contact with electricity once more, Second Brother suddenly gave a loud roar.
Clank!
The black line made by the blade of the sword suddenly emerged, swinging towards Boss and Second Brother; Garen grabbed the secret scroll swiftly, before turning around to run.
The red light emanating from his entire body was no longer concealed. At an astonishing speed, he rushed into the pinewood forest.
Countless black swords erupted from Second Brother's body. With a loud crash, the blades were thrown out everywhere, towards the sky and the earth.
At the same speed, he hurried and gave pursuit.
"Hand the secret scroll over!" It was only then that Boss came to his senses and responded. He single-handedly hit and dispersed the blades before rushing out immediately. Both his legs started to twist and change into two black wings. With a strong flap, he shot out as a flash of black shadow, chasing after the two people in front of him.
The others, who had fallen on the ground with heavy injuries could not move. From the moment Anthony had been about to succeed until the three ridiculously strong and horrifying black shadows had rushed out and killed Anthony, the situation had quickly turned sour.
Glory and the others did not know how to react at all. All they could do was pretend to be unconscious, afraid that the three people would be distracted by them. Anthony had been a strong contender whom they had planned to kill for a long time, and yet he had been like a piece of paper before those three men, dying instantaneously. They did not dare imagine the disparity in between them.
The White Ghosts, especially, were lying on the ground pretending to be dead. They did not dare to get up at all and remained motionless.
In particular, upon hearing the name of Carthage, this bunch of people had been so scared that the hairs on their bodies had stood on end. Who did not know how forceful and unrivaled Carthage was? The number of cases where he had killed people merely due to disagreements was not normal at all.
By then, the people on the ground only sat up after hearing the three people leave.
"Disperse!" The junior team leader amongst the White Ghosts growled, and they jumped up quickly and withdrew fast.
The mercenaries looked at Glory and her comrades, sighing.
"We almost lost our lives this time, Miss Glory. Let's consider the favor we owe you settled," the other members of the team were all ashen white in the face; no one could really calm down. They had just escaped death; every heart there pounded furiously.
After leaving some medicine for Glory and the other two, the mercenaries left as well.
On the scene, only the heavily injured Eight-Eyed Giant Lizard was left moaning on the ground not far away.
Glory sat on the ground in a daze, looking at all the mess in the family's secret trove. The other treasures inside had been completely destroyed by the residual ripples of power emitted by the three just now. The door had been destroyed and the treasure trove could not be opened anymore. It meant that they would never be able to get their hands on the treasure.
"Sister…" In the mud, her brother, Beirut, crawled out. Both his legs had been broken by the residual ripple just now, and blood was slowly flowing out from the joints of his legs. Some of the blood had hardened; he did not know how much blood had been lost.
Glory hugged her little brother gently. Unable to hold her tears back, they began to flow out quickly.
"Where… Where is brother?" Beirut asked in a small and weak voice.
Glory lifted her head to look in Angel's direction who was already completely lifeless. One of Garen's residual blades that had been deflected and dispersed, had accidentally slashed through his neck, immediately incapacitating him. Both his eyes stared up into the sky. It seemed that Angel had died before he could even react.
An unspeakable grief surged up in her heart. Her entire family had perished, leaving only so little.
"We need to go soon!" Glory gave a violent start. The three powerful men just now might come back. They had to leave immediately!
She stood up, wanting to unleash her Energy Machinery, only to discover that her horse-shaped Energy Machinery had been broken without her noticing. It was clearly damaged.
Crawling out from the mud, her entire body was drenched with injuries all over her limbs. She carried her big brother's corpse and bound her little brother upon her back, before starting a difficult walk towards the other direction in the pinewood forest.
Confusion indistinctly filled the hearts of the two people.
Anthony had died. Not at their hands, but killed so casually by three stronger black shadows, as though they were merely stepping on a tiny ant.
Such a high degree, such high levels.
Angel had died as well, to an accidental residual ripple. Had their family been avenged? They did not know what was going on in their hearts. The only thing they felt was being at a loss.
How would they walk down this path in the future? They had no idea what to do at all…
******************
"Leave the secret scroll!"
In the dense forest, a terrifying pillar of white light suddenly erupted, rushing out of the pinewood forest and creating a round hole amongst the leaves and branches at the top of the thick forest.
It caused light to shine through, falling upon the three people who were in a mad run in the forest.
Garen did a flying leap and kicked off against a tree trunk forcefully, turning his body to rush towards a small river to the side.
Smack!
Both his legs landed on a large piece of limestone in the middle of the river. Red light immediately spread open on his back like a pair of wings.
"Blood Eagle!"
He made a low sound, like the cry of an eagle and rushed into the sky.
"Trying to run?"
Boss, who was behind him, jumped up; his terrifying Scarlet Snow Technique rolled up a huge snowstorm, which hurtled towards Garen's back.
"Meditation Imprint!" At the same time, a cold, icy blue imprint shot out from the pinewood forest, heading directly towards the side of Garen's arm.
The white snowstorm and the blue imprint were rushing towards Garen at the same time, to stop him mid-air.
Garen unleashed a sudden burst of energy, and the wings of red light on his back moved faster. This drastically increased his speed. Missing the two attacks by inches, he dashed into the airspace above the forest.
"Great speed!" Boss sneered, "But do you think you can escape at such a speed?"
His right arm suddenly changed, growing longer and darker very quickly. It turned into a claw, like that of a wild beast. Immediately, it was lifted up, before taking a vicious swipe at Garen, who was in the sky.
"Snowstorm Palm!"
A clear, white palmprint shot out as fast as lightning from the claw and caught up with Garen in an instant.
Garen did not have time to turn around. He felt a chill run down his spine from behind at that moment and the hairs on his skin stood on end. Unable to think too much, he used all his might in a backhand. The Dual Blades were drawn out and put together with a clang.
"Double Prison Lock!"
The Demon Blade exploded at maximum power and black line was drawn from top to bottom by the black slash of the blade and crashed straight into the palmprint behind him.
Bang!
The white palmprint was blocked by the black slash but the horrifying and powerful Scarlet Snow Technique broke through the blockade forcefully, enabling the palmprint to continue hurtling towards Garen. The power of the Double Prison Lock had only weakened the palmprint slightly.
"Die!"
Boss's claw tightened.
Controlling the direction of the palmprint from afar, he made a grabbing motion towards Garen's head.
Bang!
Huge amounts of snow flew about, falling from the air.
Garen gave a snort, as his body flew towards the opposite direction like an arrow leaving a bow. A bit of blood was splashed into the air.
"Skillful!"
Borrowing the powerful momentum of the Snowstorm Palm, Garen's wings unexpectedly flapped again, quickly propelling him to an even further distance. It looked as though he was about to escape from the attacking range of the two men.
"Second Brother!" Boss was unable to catch up. He turned his head and bellowed.
"Spiritual Net Imprint!"
The moment the words came out, a vast, icy blue net suddenly appeared in front of Garen, completely blocking his way.
The huge net was like a spider's web, entangling Garen immediately as though it was catching a red flying insect for food.
The entire net was pulled into a very sharp point by Garen's momentum but bounced back into shape very quickly.
Garen had not expected they would have such a trick to stop him. He struggled, wanting to escape the great net but he was unable to expend his energy. The Scarlet Snow Technique on his entire body had been suppressed tightly by the great net. Slivers of bone-penetrating chill began to spread through his body without ceasing.
Turning around, those two men were already less than a hundred meters from him!
"Cold Radiation!" A chill suddenly emanated from his whole body, stacking onto the Scarlet Snow Technique. Garen's skill level instantly increased by a stage, reaching the eleventh stage of the Scarlet Snow Technique. This increased his chances slightly of struggling and escaping the stickiness of the net.
However, it was still not enough.
Garen put his two hands together, wielding the blades, and swung mightily towards the net.
The great momentum and power were transformed into a gentle strength through his martial arts skills. The shifting from soft to hard, and vice versa was a technique and skill often used by masters of martial arts.
Bang!
A strand of the spider's web finally broke. However, there were hundreds of the web's silks stuck to Garen. There was no way to break all of them in one hit.
"Do you still want to run?" Boss jumped into flight, "Snowstorm Palm!"
Another snowy white palmprint hurtled towards Garen's back.
The terrible energy that he was utterly powerless to stop had not even gotten close to him but was already causing him to lose his breath. Boss had used all his might in delivering this hit.
The white palmprint flew and hit Garen's back. Everything happened within that instant.
Whoo…
Out of the blue, there was a howl of a wolf as a blue shadow rushed into the sky. Its great momentum and Garen's full force explosion of the Scarlet Snow Technique combined, pressing down violently upon the other side of the blue net.
Poof!
Finally, the entire blue net was broken through.
Second Brother, who arrived late, had moved at a slightly lower speed. Seeing this, his expression grew cold.
"Damn it!"
Garen had broken through the blue net and was hurling out from the other side. However, he had not yet completely evaded the horrifying speed of the Snowstorm Palm's palmprint. The palmprint hit him on the back.
Bang!
Numerous snowflakes scattered into the air.
Garen launched his wings, borrowing energy for yet another rush, instantly disappearing into the distant horizon.