Book 15, Priceless Treasure – Chapter 11, Secret
In the middle of the empty desert, there were dozens of broken, bloodstained corpses. Both the forces of the Fiends as well as the forces of Inigo came to a halt in their attacks, while Linley and Delia tightly embraced each other.
“Delia!” Only now did Linley settle down.
Ever since they had been trapped into the castle of sand, Linley had been feeling a sense of terror deep in his heart. He was terrified of Delia dying. Linley would forever remember how Delia had been when she was young and at the Ernst Institute with him. And then, their reunion meeting at the O’Brien Empire.
Decades had passed in what seemed like moments, and Delia had become the other half of Linley’s life.
When he saw her, Linley’s heart grew calm.
And didn’t Delia feel just the way Linley did?
“Thank you, heavens.” Delia said softly in Linley’s arms. “Linley, just now, it was so dangerous. I almost got killed by that Highgod, but I didn’t want to die...I wanted to see you.” Delia, thinking back to the near-death struggle she had just undergone, felt her heart tremble.
In the face of great danger, Delia had really gone all out, using both the Deathgod Golem as well as her profound mysteries of the Elemental Laws of the Wind.
Fortunately, she also knew the ‘Doppelganger’ technique, and was also proficient at the ‘Dimensional Wind’. This allowed her to be lucky enough to escape.
“I won’t let you be in any danger ever again.” Linley held Delia by the hand. Holding his loved one’s hand, Linley felt that his life and his soul were incomparably rich and filling.
Just as Linley and Delia were absorbed in the joy of meeting again...
“Bang!”
A terrifying explosion sounded out in mid-air. A ray of green light and a ray of black light clashed multiple times, each time causing the world to shake. And then, the two rays of light landed on the desert sands, transforming into the green-robed elder and a black-robed Learmonth.
The green-robed elder’s face was ashen. He stared at Learmonth, his heart filled with extreme terror. “This Learmonth’s power is even more frightening than I had anticipated. His sword techniques in the Ways of Destruction have reached such a terrifying level.” Prior to this, the green-robed elder had only wanted to tie Learmonth up for a while.
Unfortunately, Learmonth’s power was far greater than he had imagined.
This had resulted in the green-robed elder being the one to fall into peril instead. He didn’t even dare to allow himself to be distracted by controlling the castle of sand. Thus, he voluntarily released the castle of sand, focusing entirely on this terrifying opponent – Learmonth.
Learmonth held his longsword in his hand, looking calmly at the green-robed elder, a faint hint of a smile playing at his lips. “Your power is not bad. You are worthy of receiving my most powerful sword attack.”
The green-robed elder’s face instantly changed dramatically.
“What? Most powerful attack?” The green-robed elder’s heart turned cold. Before this, he had been able to stay alive, but he had to use all his strength to do so.
The experts who were watching, upon hearing Learmonth’s words, were all astonished.
“Delia, let’s move backwards a little bit.” Linley held Delia by the hand, retreating to where Salomon and Bebe were, watching these experts battle from a safe distance. “I really rather look forward to seeing what their attacks look like!”
Prior to this, when they encountered that bandit ambush, Learmonth’s sword attack had stunned Linley. This chance in front of him was all the more precious..
“Those two old fellows played me!” Inigo cursed to himself. He glanced towards Salomon. “There’s no mistake about it, but we don’t have any more chances. It seems as though Teacher is unable to hold on any longer. It’s best if I leave!” Inigo immediately, stealthily merged his entire body into the sands, disappearing. Right now, everyone’s attention was on those two ultimate experts, and nobody was paying attention to Inigo.
In addition...
On the side of the Fiends, the only one who knew Inigo was that luckily surviving white-horned elder, but the white-horned elder hadn’t noticed the distant Inigo at all.
“BOOM!”
Learmonth’s entire body exploded forth with a terrifyingly powerful sword intent. Learmonth’s body actually emitted an enormous illusory sword that radiated the Way of Destruction. Learmonth seemed to have transformed into the nucleus of that enormous illusory sword, and a fierce, sharp sword energy was swirling around it.
The power of the sword intent was rapidly rising!
“Crackle...” The sword intent actually caused space to shudder.
Everyone seeing this had their faces change. The Infernal Realm was one of the Higher Planes, and its stability was far greater than that of a material plane’s. The sword energy hadn’t even been released yet, and yet it already possessed such power. At what sort of level then would Learmonth’s most powerful sword attack be at?
“Madman. He’s truly a madman.” The green-robed elder’s heart was cold.
Learmonth’s power had already caused him to feel dread.
“Hmph. So what if you are powerful. The Elemental Laws of the Wind are the best for fleeing!” The green-robed elder, faced with Learmonth, had already been awed and frightened by him. Suddenly, he transformed into hundreds of doppelgangers, dispersing in every direction.
One of the nine profound mysteries of the wind – Doppelganger!
“So many doppelgangers?” Delia was shocked, and Linley let out a surprised breath as well.
When Delia used the Doppelganger technique, she was only capable of nine doppelgangers. This green-robed elder, however, had transformed into hundreds of them. The same profound mystery, ‘Doppelganger’, when used by people of different levels of ability would have tremendously great differences in power.
“The Doppelganger technique is indeed an excellent fleeing method. Hundreds of doppelgangers, all of whom are hard to tell apart by their aura. Learmonth will find it hard to catch the right one.” Linley said to himself. However, Linley continued to watch Learmonth, waiting to see what his reaction would be.
“Fleeing? How disappointing.” Learmonth’s voice rang out.
At the same time...
“Rumble...”
In an area of a thousand meters surrounding Learmonth, out of nowhere, countless surges of sword energy appeared. The hundreds of fleeing doppelgangers were smashed into powder by the sword energy. In the blink of an eye, all of the hundreds of doppelgangers were annihilated, leaving behind only a single green-robed elder.
“How is this possible?!” The green-robed elder’s face changed dramatically.
Learmonth flew towards him at high speed, striking out like a viperous dragon. Wherever his body passed, many ripples in space appeared. The speed of Learmonth wasn’t lower than the green-robed elder at all.
“I won’t be able to flee!” The green-robed elder instantly understood this upon witnessing the other person’s speed.
The green-robed elder retreated backwards, while at the same time, a silver, string-like sword appeared in his hands. “Since I can’t flee, then I’ll go all out!” The green-robed elder’s eyes were now filled with a ferocious killing intent as well, and green energy swirled around his body, forming into a what appeared to be a solid dragon.
“Groooooowl!” The massive green dragon bellowed.
Watching the battle, Linley felt astonished. “Essence of the Wind and the Profound Mysteries of Music.” Linley could immediately tell how powerful this attack by the green-robed elder was. “That enormous green dragon is not only capable of protecting his body, it is also capable of creating musical attacks to affect the enemy.”
This was a support ability.
“Haha...Starpoint Explosions!” The normally calm, emotionless Learmonth was now revealing his wild side. Laughing madly, the longsword in his hand shot out.
The longsword pierced through the air!
As it did, in mid-air, a black ‘hole’ appeared as the longsword twisted through the cracks of reality. Wherever the longsword passed, tears in space constantly appeared, and everything around it was transformed into nothingness.
Facing Learmonth’s most powerful attack, the green-robed elder slowly brandished out that silver thread-like sword.
“Rumble...”
The silver sword was even longer and even narrower than Bloodviolet. It lashed out like a whip. Crack! Under the lashing of that silver sword, space itself split apart, creating an extremely narrow spatial tear, as a strange music rang out.
The entire desert was utterly silent.
Linley and the others were all utterly astonished by these two sword attacks. One was a terrifying sword that contained within it the Way of Destruction, while the other used the sharpness of the Elemental Laws of the Wind.
“BOOM!”
The silver sword, moving in a strange way, struck down upon the edge of Learmonth’s longsword.
“BANG!”
The silver sword suddenly exploded, transforming into countless silver shards which flew everywhere.
“Swish!”
The tip of the longsword almost instantly pierced through the green-robed elder’s forehead. It was so fast that the green-robed elder wasn’t able to dodge at all. His eyes were filled with shock, and fresh blood slowly flowed down from his forehead.
“Bang!” The green-robed elder’s corpse fell down.
“That soft sword...that simple whipping and chopping motion...” Linley’s heart suddenly grew agitated. It was as though something had come to his mind, and he immediately shut his eyes quietly.
In the desert. Everyone else was still watching those two experts. But Linley was lost in meditating and in his insights.
Indeed. The green-robed elder’s power was slightly weaker than Learmonth’s. But as far as his insights into the ‘Elemental Laws of the Wind’ went, he had already fused quite a few profound mysteries.
That simple whipping motion included multiple profound mysteries.
Recently, Linley had been stuck in a bottleneck with regards to the Profound Truths of Velocity. He had been pondering on how to break through this bottleneck and completely fuse the ‘Fast’ and ‘Slow’ profound mysteries.
After the life-and-death struggle within the desert castle, as well the fluctuating feelings of worry and then calm, and now after seeing the green-robed elder’s most powerful attack, Linley had already begin to create cracks in the ‘bottleneck’ of the Profound Truths of Velocity...
The green-robed elder’s corpse lay there on the ground.
Learmonth let out a sigh. This sigh contained within it a hint of disappointment.
Learmonth glanced at the corpse of the green-robed elder. “You both use flexible swords, but your power is far too weak when compared to the Bloodviolet Fiend. Your time seems to have been all spent in defense and in trapping people. With regards to offense...too weak.” Learmonth said softly.
A person suddenly appeared from within the green-robed elder’s corpse. It was the divine clone of the green-robed elder. Only, this divine clone was a mere God.
“Learmonth. You speak the truth.” The green-robed elder said astringently. “Only, in the future, I’ll never be able to train in the Elemental Laws of the Wind again.” The green-robed elder didn’t try to flee. His divine clone was only at the God level. How could he flee?
“Mr. Learmonth, please kill him.” The white-horned elder walked over, his eyes filled with hatred. “He’s already killed my brother. I hope you will kill him, or allow me to personally deal with him.” The white-horned elder’s heart was filled with hate.
Him and his elder brother, the black-horned elder, had been together for many years. Although they had known that this return trip to the Jadefloat Continent would be dangerous, when his elder brother had died, the white-horned elder’s heart was still filled with rage and hate.
“No need for you to personally act.” Learmonth said.
In Learmonth’s mind, although the green-robed elder only had a God-level divine clone left, he was once an extremely powerful expert. Experts would not tolerate being humiliated.
The green-robed elder glanced at him, then said to Learmonth, “Learmonth, I accept my loss to you. If you are willing to let me live, I will tell you a secret!”
“What are you doing?!” The white-horned elder immediately grew frantic.
The green-robed elder laughed coldly. “Are you afraid?”
“Swoosh!” The white-horned elder immediately flew forward, his eyes filled with a killing intent. Only, a sword flash suddenly struck out upon the white-horned elder, knocking him flying back.
“Mr. Learmonth, you!” The white-horned elder
Learmonth let out a calm laugh. “I’m a little curious as to what this secret is.” As he spoke, Learmonth looked at the green-robed elder.
The white-horned elder was frantic.
The green-robed elder glanced disdainfully at the white-horned elder, then nodded and said, “Fine, I’ll tell you. In truth, this employer who you have been escorting on this mission is in reality, an old servant of the Boyd clan of the Coldcalm Prefecture of the Jadefloat Continent...”
“You...” The white-horned elder was utterly frantic. “Learmonth, you...how can you!”
Learmonth glanced at him coldly. “Shut your mouth.”
The green-robed elder’s face immediately had a hint of a smile appear on it. He continued, “After the Boyd clan was destroyed, these two old fellows took the vast fortune which the Boyd clan had accumulated over countless years and fled. Learmonth, I think you too can imagine...how astonishing the amount of wealth which a powerful clan accumulated over countless years is.”
The white-horned elder’s face was ashen.
At this time, next to Bebe, Nisse’s face was filled with rage as well. But Salomon only watched coldly.