Chapter 524: Ancient Ruins Expedition 4

Whoosh...

Garen stood in the tunnel, it was pitch black around him, and he had his guard up.

The black shadow disappeared again.

"So you can predict what my next move will be?" Garen was not surprised in the slightest, he had encountered an enemy like this in the Secret Technique World, back then his opponent had used their judgment regarding blood qi and power principles to predict what his move would be. After all, before somebody moved, there would be some inevitable signs, although these signs were very fast and disappeared in a flash, anyone with fast enough reflexes would still be able to interpret them.

Faced with an opponent like that, Garen naturally had his countermeasures, unlike the locals like the Divine God Palace Master and the others, he had plenty of experience against such opponents.

His speed was faster than the black shadow, so all he had to do was give the opponent no time to predict his moves.

The corners of his mouth splitting apart, Garen stomped down hard on the ground, and the corner of the shield carved sparks and debris out of the wall on his right.

With a swooshing sound, he swept his palm and hit these pieces of debris precisely.

The pieces of debris, as large as a fist, shot into countless tiny stone shards in mid-air, and they did not just come from the front, at the same time, his left hand also scattered the mounds of debris, shooting out more shards.

The whole tunnel was immediately filled with a rain of projectiles, with the patter of stones smashing into everything everywhere, the huge force behind them giving these stones an intensely terrifying speed and momentum. With Garen in the center, the space within more than ten meters of him on either side was completely filled with stones. These stones had the destructive power of bullets, and they actually set alight sparks on the wall furthest to the right.

After smashing the stones, Garen did not hesitate, pulling back his hand and kicking out his leg, shooting out a kick above his head.

The black shadow with its single blade just happened to appear in the one safe spot above Garen's head, and took the full-powered kick head-on.

Even its blade could not block in time, with a bam, the black shadow was forcefully shattered into countless black shards in mid-air, and scattered tracelessly into the air.

His face splitting into a grin, Garen held up the Tower Shield and continued pressing forward.

After ten more minutes, he encountered yet another single-bladed black shadow, after finishing it off in the same manner, Garen had to rest for a moment. Under these circumstances, without his special power, it was something of a burden to him as well to use his full power consecutively. Add that to the long journey on the way here, with his guard up the whole time, and even he had to take a short breather.

For the next whole day, Garen encountered more than ten of these single-bladed black shadows, but while they started off slower than him, they soon began to move at the same speed, and even grew faster than him.

But since their area of action was only in that small area shrouded by darkness, and their own defense was not particularly strong, faced with Garen's wide-area attacks and his method of forcing them into corners, one by one, they still tasted bitter defeat in the end.

If most of his powers had not been limited, just fighting based off his physical qualities now, Garen was perfectly capable of instantly releasing his Black Water Mist against these black shadows, and then they would be dropping like flies.

But without his unnatural powers, his own powers were one or two percent of his abilities outside at most, and the other two were probably in the same situation, so the three of them advanced extremely slowly.

Just as the three of them were continuously exterminating the shadow creatures and moving forth, in the goddess statue hall on the first floor, a man in red robes with completely white eyes suddenly walked in.

"Have they already come in some deep?" The man muttered, he was the Light God, the second strongest person under the Cthulhu King, and he was also the person who first 'discovered' these ruins before reporting them up to the Cthulhu King.

But nobody would have guessed, that these ruins were actually his hometown.

At the very beginning, he had been one of the shadow humanoids that had escaped from this place, possessing a young man's body and finally becoming the Cthulhuism Society's Light Cthulhu after a series of events.

Since he was originally one of the local shadows, he was extremely familiar with the three floors of the whole ruins, and he even some of the memories from an ancient time in his mind, plus he especially familiar with the biggest advantage these ruins had to offer, in fact he knew them like the back of his hand.

Standing in front of the goddess statue, the Light God bowed slightly and prayed fervently, in that short instant as he was bowing, his whole body rapidly turned black, quickly turning into a faint, dream-like, translucent image.

Soundlessly, he split from one into three, and shot like lightning down the tunnels, more than twice as fast as the Cthulhu King and the others.

In just a few hours, he was in three places at once, tailing the three of them closely as they traveled down the corridors and onto the second floor.

In terms of power, in these ruins that limited any unnatural powers, even if he was a shadow humanoid, he still did not have any particular powers, he just had the talent to become a shadow for short periods of time, and he would die in an instant if he faced any of them.

But naturally his aim was not to die in an instant, the reason he had lured the three ultimate fighters into these ruins was so that they could clear the obstructions for him.

Those shadow humanoids blocking the way were beyond his ability to fight, his Light God was just one of weakest shadows from the very beginning, and the gulf between him and those powerful shadows deeper in was far too big. Without anyone else's help, there was no way he could possibly reach the deepest parts.

What nobody knew was that after these shadows died, they would leave their purest essence, the Void Core, in the air. These shadow's cores had huge benefits, they were priceless treasures that could heal wounds, and they also had a certain amount of control over certain parts in the ruins, plus they were secret medicines that could directly increase the strength of one's soul. If you were lucky enough, you might even get the legendary Ancient Endor Heirlooms.

And as one of these shadows, if he swallowed them, he could obtain a third of its power, improving all of his attributes at once.

But the Void Shadow Core was traceless, and extremely hard to detect, it would usually hide itself automatically, sticking to the shadowy corners of the tunnels. If they were not absorbed, these shadows would be revived, and once more gather into guardians. This was also the reason why Garen and the others had not discovered them at all.

According to Light God's plan, the second level should not be too hard for those three, but once the third floor was activated, and that strongest shadow came out from the secret room, it would surely get into a tangle with the three ultimate fighters, and that battle would not end anytime soon. But he knew an alternate path, that could go right around the entrance to the secret room and enter the room, so it was absolutely possible for him to take advantage of the time when the strongest shadow was distracted, to obtain the three Living Secret Techniques and the Shadow Demon Mirror.

Light God had been waiting for this day for a long time. Unfortunately, with his power, he could not even enter the second floor, but now he had a chance, with three meat shields in front of him, he was perfectly able to follow behind safely and reap the rewards. Once he got the Living Secret Techniques, and add the Shadow Demon Mirror to that, he would become the new Master of the Ruins! The Demon Mirror could spawn countless powerful shadows, and control all the shadows in the entire ruins, the strongest of which had Form Five peak-level power, with that kind of power, he would not have to worry about the Cthulhu King and the others coming at him for revenge at all. Using the army of countless shadows to surround them, or activating the other traps in the ruins that had shut down or lost control due to the passing of time, he could easily find enough time to retreat safely through the secret escape tunnel shortcuts.

Behind the tunnel Garen was in, Light God's black shadow abruptly appeared where the first shadow had died, and after turning one circle on the spot, he suddenly crouched to a corner on the left side of the tunnel, picking up a fist-sized stone with one hand while the other hand reached towards the shadow amidst the debris on the ground.

Strangely, the shadow on the ground was just like the surface of water, it had none of the hardness of the stone ground, and his black hand reached in easily, sinking inside, as though searching for something underwater. Amidst the sound of water splashing, he quickly found an irregularly-shaped black crystal from inside the shadow.

Light God cackled, and stuffed the crystal into his mouth directly, actually swallowing it whole.

As soon as the crystal was swallowed, his body seemed to grow slightly more solid. Standing up, Light God continued heading down the tunnel that had been cleared ahead.

At the same time, in the other two tunnels, everywhere a shadow had perished, Light God kept finding more Shadow Cores from the corners, and he kept swallowing them.

Light God's body grew more and more solid, larger and larger. But his aura also became more and more hidden, harder to detect.

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

Boom!!

Garen bashed in the large-bodied shadow in front of him with his shield, after the single-bladed black shadows vanished, the next type to show up was this sort of large-bodied shadow, these black shadows were about as powerful as the ones before, and their speed was about the same as the fire people, both were slightly stronger than Garen, and even more shamelessly, they were well-versed in close combat, having two hooks instead of palms, so any touch would rip off a large chunk of Garen's flesh.

And yet what troubled Garen the most was not all these, but the fact that these fatties needed to be destroyed three times before they would die for real.

This time he truly experienced how helpless his opponents had felt when they were fighting him back then.

If he did not have an advantage in secret technique battle skills, wherein one-tenth of his power could function like five tenths, this would probably be where he stopped.

The fat black shadow flowed on the ground for a bit, and finally utterly scattered, this thing was stronger than Garen, and faster, without the advantage granted by the secret technique battle skills, he would really have no idea how to deal with it.

Garen panted heavily, lifted the Tower Shield and continued advancing, it had been more than ten days since he entered the second floor, but he still could not see the end ahead, and the countless shadows that emerged were growing stronger and stronger. By now, one fat shadow took him more than ten minutes to finish off, then further on...

Garen licked his lips, took the canteen from his waist and poured its contents into his mouth, with a splash, a mouthful of clean and clear water flowed into his throat. He brought the canteen down and shook it, there was not much water left inside, only one fifth, it seemed.

Although the opponents were growing stronger, he was not growing tired or annoyed in the slightest, and for a simple reason.

Each of these shadows would give him at least 40 potential points, not 40%, but the whole 4000%, 40 potential points.

The number of potential points corresponded with the level of power, in other words, the actual bodies of these shadows actually had power equivalent to Form Four or Five.

No wonder the Cthulhu King had to find two whole fighters at the same level as him before he dared to explore this place. He evidently had more information that he did not divulge.

These past few days, Garen had directly increased all of his attributes to their current maximum.

'Strength 16. Agility 12. Vitality 12. Intelligence 12.'

His Strength had reached 16 points, so he was no longer at a disadvantage in terms of strength when he faced the fatty, and was instead more or less its equal.

After achieving 12 points in Intelligence, he also finally developed a miniscule power. That was Instant Reflexes.

After reaching 12 points, there seemed to be a fundamental change, after increasing his Intelligence, Garen clearly felt a higher increase in his reflex and reaction times.

And the clearest embodiment of this upgrade in his battles was the appearance of a brand new ability -- Doublecast.

He could multitask, his left and right hands using two different secret technique battle attacks at the same time, or using them separately.

But the strongest was when he stacked on two hits for the same attack, this was using them together, and that was the true terror of this technique.

This ability was not simply stacking up two powers, it was a true stack of two Secret Techniques.

For example, there was a Threefold Fist Technique among the Secret Techniques, and with Doublecast, this could let him use the Threefold Fist Technique twice in quick succession, making it Sixfold!

Its effectiveness would reach a terrifying double of the original!

This seemed to match the way Garen had been using his Intelligence, he had never used it on planning or strategy, but put his all into becoming stronger himself, so now that his Intelligence had achieved a fundamental upgrade, it finally created such a terrifying technique.

Rather than calling it a technique, it was more like a natural ability that had been achieved by expanding on his potential.

Extremely powerful and fast reception and reaction, after changing, could finally more or less activate two types of Secret Techniques at once, using his powerful body as the base, to explosively achieve twice the destructive power.

This was the first morphed technique Garen had obtained from increasing his stats.

It made his heart burn a little with passion, and he began to hold some anticipation for the upgrades the other attributes would have as well.