Boom!
Thunder rolled in the night sky, accompanied by a flash of lightning. The grassland below was illuminated for an instant, turning it snow white.
This grassland was located somewhere at the border of Canada, and the United States was completely deserted now. Even the people at the nearest villages and towns had been relocated by the government’s army beforehand. There was not a single soul for hundreds of kilometers.
A gust of wind passed by. The grass which stood higher than a person’s knee waved in the breeze and produced swishing sounds.
On the grassland only tens of meters away from a jungle surrounded by mountains and hills, the grass there was currently ignited, brightening up the surrounding sky.
The flames spread with the wind, burning up towards the distant grassland.
A bunch of people was standing on the burnt grassland.
Hochman was surrounded by the people and soldiers from Holy Fist Palace. Quentin and Xander were staying focussed in order to deal with anything that might happen and Tu Lan was scanning the periphery.
Outside the crowd from Holy Fist Palace was a man and a woman leading another bunch of people. These people were all Blood Breeds and Vampires dressed in black with black cloth covering their faces, leaving their blood-red eyes exposed.
The atmosphere grew tenser.
“Tu Lan, why are you siding with the Holy Fist Palace when you should be a Death Apostle?” the handsome blonde man covered in black spoke.
“I just feel that compared to the Blood Union, the Holy Fist Palace was more suited for me. This is where I can pursue my goals,” Tu Lan answered seriously.
She did not lie. Only by staying at the Holy Fist Palace was she able to receive Garen’s Soul Primer, and at the same time, she had the freedom to train in Fantasy Fist and other Secret Techniques which gave her a new goal to pursue. As compared to the boring past where she simply ate and enjoyed life, this was far meaningful.
After tasting the pleasure of constantly getting stronger in the Holy Fist Palace, she would rather die than going back to her former life in Blood Union.
Now, she was also a Death Apostle, the same as the other side, she had the right to make her own choices.
“Are you really going to be standing on the side of the Holy Fist Palace?” the man frowned.
“Herein lies my goals, my dreams, not at the Blood Union,” Tu Lan confirmed. “Maybe I was unwilling yet forced to at the start, but it’s different now.”
“What a pity….” the female Death Apostle shook her head slightly. The number of Blood Breeds and Vampires in their surroundings were increasing.
However, the same was happening for the common soldiers on the Holy Fist Palace side.
Bomber aircraft and fighter jets were flying across the sky above them and the sound of helicopters grew nearer.
The Blood Union and Holy Fist Palace were both mobilizing troops on a large scale. The forces gathering in this small area were increasing in numbers and strength.
“Although it’s a little hasty, today is the day that Holy Fist Palace’s myth is broken,” the female Death Apostle looked up at the helicopters in the sky. A red light flashed by in her eyes.
Suddenly, a helicopter turned and violently crashed into the side of another helicopter.
Boom!!
Both helicopters crashed together and exploded, turning into a ball of flames.
In an instant, countless messages were spread through their communication channel and instructions for them to retreat were conveyed. The aircraft pilots quickly fled the area in horror.
Tu Lan observed their actions coldly without any sign of doing anything. She had guessed that the other party’s intention was to use Holy Fist Palace’s top members as bait with Hochman and the mask in his possession to lure Garen to personally come and rescue them.
Apparently, they had prepared something to deal with Garen.
At the same time, Tu Lan had the utmost confidence in Garen. As long as the Fist Saint came, any predicaments would not be able to stop him from advancing.
Hochman did not expect that things would develop up to this point. Without meaning to, he seemed to have become the trigger for war between the Blood Union and Holy Fist Palace.
He gripped the mask tightly and tried to restore his strength as much as he could. Unfortunately, he had pushed himself too much and he had not sufficiently replenished food and water, causing the recovery rate of his body to slow down. He could only barely prevent his internal injuries from worsening while stopping the bleeding.
“Now the mask is the only trump card for my survival…”
He could sense that whether from Holy Fist Palace or Blood Union, there were several lines of sight on the mask in his hand. Obviously, both sides had the intention to snatch the mask.
Swish Swish!
Suddenly, two more figures appeared beside the male and female Death Apostles. They were Wellington and Scarlet Moon.
One was dressed up in a white suit and the other looked as though he had traveled far and wide. He did not have the demeanor of a Blood Breed.
“Mongo, Marianne, everyone is here,” Wellington’s sight coldly swept the surrounding, “I’ll like to see how Garen can escape this time!” his expression was calm but the words he uttered gave off the feeling that he was gnashing his teeth. Apparently, he was still holding the grudge from the time he was beaten black and blue.
“Don’t worry, we won’t let Garen return this time,” the blond handsome man said and smiled, “Holy Fist Palace, in the end, is short-lived, and today will be the day it’ll be wiped out.”
“Don’t be careless, Mongo,” Scarlet Moon gave him a look, then closed his eyes to meditate.
The other two no longer said any more words and closed their eyes to prepare.
The pressure given off by the four Death Apostles was like the ocean pressing down on all the people here, making it hard for them to breathe.
Tu Lan secretly activated the Fantasy Fist and signaled for everyone to get close to her before inching towards the weakest link in the circle of Blood Breeds.
Strangely, the Blood Breeds did not seem to have any intention of stopping them.
Tu Lan suddenly looked at the trembling mask and immediately understood.
“These Blood Breeds must have brought all the masks they’ve acquired here. They must have some sort of special skill to activate the resonance between the masks. If the mask was used as the bargaining chip, there is no need to worry that Master would not appear.”
“What do we do now?” Quentin and Xander whispered.
“Prepare to respond to any changes, as long as Master is here, everything will be alright,” Tu Lan said.
Half an hour soon passed by, the people from Blood Union remain unperturbed, showing their patience.
Just then, a great tremor came from the distance.
It was as if something was shaking violently but soon the tremor had quickly vanished.
“Here he is!” Scarlet Moon turned his head and looked at the horizon. At the gap between the hills, black armored vehicles were heading in this direction.
The vehicles came to a stop far away. It seemed the other side knew that the average person had little effect in this kind of fight.
With the opening sound of the car door, a tall masked man came down from the car. This man also had blonde hair but his eyes were not blood red. It was a clear dark blue.
The man’s attire was from the Holy Fist Palace. It was black with white edge embroidered with the word ‘Holy’ both at right chest and his back.
A thin and wrinkled little old man also got down together with him, holding a cane and wearing tattered clothes. He seemed as though a gust of wind could blow him away.
This man was AG who had just come out from the vehicle. He had just received the news about the war between Holy Fist Palace and the Blood Union and had hurriedly come. Not only him, there were also the experts from Lightless Alliance. The leader of Dark Colors Witches Association, Nasira was hiding in the vicinity, ready to lead her people to fight. They were preparing a very strong magic circle to act as support.
As soon as the two got off, the armored vehicles immediately evacuated. Apparently, they did not plan to stay behind on the battlefield. These armored vehicles looked tough and hard but when facing opponents on the level of Death Apostle, particularly the veteran Death Apostles, they could only be massacred. Their ability to control humans had reached the level where as long as their glance swept overhead, humans were likely to fall under their control.
If they did not hold back from acting against the people from the Holy Fist Palace, most likely Quentin, Xander, and the others would not have been able to wait until Garen’s arrival and would’ve been forced to commit suicide under their control.
The rain finally spilled down following the sound of thunder, giving off a depressing ambiance.
The night sky turned darker and the moon was hidden by thick clouds. The aircraft no longer flew in the air. Under this kind of weather, low altitude flight carried a very big risk and their effects in this fight were next to nothing.
Soon, a large number of human forces also received the orders to retreat. In such a battle, their bullets were not able to do anything to the veteran Death Apostles. Whatever missiles they had had difficulty in pinpointing their locations. The chances of damaging their allies were higher, and so it was better to withdraw their own people and plan their next move.
Garen and AG looked at the four Death Apostles from the Blood Union. He also saw Tu Lan, Quentin and the others in the encirclement and Hochman with the mask in his hand in the middle.
“The situation is a little complicated.”
“What are you going to do?” AG asked calmly.
“What the Blood Breeds want was just an opportunity to fight a battle to the death with me. They want me to willingly fight them. Without resorting to such means, they won’t get what they want,” Garen said. “The mask and the besieged people are used to threaten me. Of course, they may also covet the mask.”
He clapped his hands and two figures appeared behind him. They were both males wearing the white Holy Fist Palace’s attires. The two men carried a black sealed metal box and came behind him.
With a snap sound, the box opened. Inside were all the masks that Garen had collected up-to-date. One by one the masks stacked together and were constantly trembling. The trembling was not strong but strangely, the lips of the masks were slightly open and they were getting larger until they eventually became black holes that looked like they were howling. Even the mask that Garen was wearing was no exception.
“Sleepless Faces…the Blood Breeds must have brought all their masks here. Adding the mask in Hochman’s hands, altogether there are twelve masks,” Garen calmly said.
He looked at the potential points in his Attribute pane.
‘Strength 7. Agility 7. Vitality 10. Intelligence 12. Potential 33124%. Soul Limit 30.’
The two masks that had just arrived in his hands, gathered by Tu Lan herself, had provided him with a lot of potential points. Now that he had gotten himself more than three hundred potential points, he could upgrade his attributes by another margin. However, he hesitated and did not use them immediately.