Book 18, Highgod – Chapter 24, Fortune? Misfortune?

“Hurry, let’s go!” Linley’s face was savage as he barked furiously.

The others, hearing Linley shout so frantically, didn’t dare to dawdle and see what was going on. All of them, like Linley, quickly fled, advancing forward.

“There were actually so many green snakes. What is going on?” While flying forward, Linley was frantically pondering this question. “In addition, when we entered the gray fog region originally, we didn’t see so much as a single green snake. But here, there’s so many! These green snakes....how are they able to merge into the green leaves without causing any energy ripples at all?”

When Deities used techniques such as Worldwalking or the Flamebody technique, they too would transform their bodies into energy. But these sorts of techniques would result in energy ripples. There was no way they would be like the green snakes, so silent and stealthy that those nearby wouldn’t be able to notice anything.

Linley felt that this was extremely bizarre!

But at this moment, he didn’t have any time to think carefully.

“It should be about time now. Those green snakes won’t be chasing after us.” Bebe sent back mentally. “Continue, faster.” Linley didn’t hesitate at all.

As Linley’s group of four fled forwards, suddenly...

“Swoosh!” “Swoosh!” “Swoosh!”

In an instant, dozens of green blurs shot out into the sky. They seemed to be primarily coming from both the sides as well as from behind, with only a small number of green blurs coming from the front. The green snakes flew forward at an astonishing speed...they were like green arrows, instantly slashing through the skies. The number of them was too great!

The faces of everyone in Linley’s group changed dramatically.

“Rumble...” The Blackstone Space suddenly expanded.

It expanded from a diameter of five meters to fifteen meters.

Every single green snake which entered this Blackstone Space slowed dramatically, but they still charged at Linley’s group of four. The strange thing was...not a single one of these dozens of green snakes attacked Bebe. They all attacked Linley, Bloan, and Valette instead. Each person suffered an attack from nearly ten green snakes.

Linley’s eyes turned cold. Instantly, with a ‘crackle’ sound, the space around him formed into an earthen wall.

“Crunch!” The green snakes easily pierced through the earthen wall.

Linley wielded Mirage in his hand, and it instantly transformed into a gust of wind, consecutively slicing countless times towards the green snakes like multiple sword blurs. After having battled the green snakes, Linley knew...that to kill them, he had to completely obliterate their heads. However, the green snakes were too agile, and their heads were too small. To kill them and crush their heads was very hard!

One green snake after another entered the Blackstone Space, and they too felt the tremendous impact of it.

“Crackle...” The countless rays of sword light were like a meat grinder, instantly crushing one serpent after another.

Within the Blackstone Space, the green snakes were ‘slower’, yes, but that was comparatively speaking. Their original speed was simply too astonishing...and within the space of less than ten meters, they still worked hard to dodge past Linley’s sword blur. In an instant, of the nine green snakes attacking Linley, six of them had their heads smashed to a pulp, and they immediately fell to the ground.

As for the other three green snakes, although they were wounded, they still charged towards Linley.

“Swish!” Linley’s draconic tail flashed out, smashing two of the green snakes into pulp.

The remaining green snake...just as it was about to bite Linley, it was smashed to death with one palm blow!

“The two of them...” Linley turned to look.

That violet-haired youth, ‘Bloan’, had actually been able to deal with the green snakes very easily, given how their speed had been dramatically lessened. The violet-haired youth had first relied on his devilish longsword to slaughter five of the green snakes, and then set up a field of lightning fog around his entire body.

Those green snakes had already been slowed down within the Blackstone Field. Once they entered the lightning fog field, they had been slowed yet again.

The violet youth naturally found it very easy to slaughter the remaining green snakes.

“Valette...” Linley frowned.

Valette was an expert who trained in the Edicts of Death, and he dispatched a few green snakes as well. But there was still a single green snake which broke through Valette’s hand, tunneling into Valette’s body.

“Is he alright?” Bebe and the violet-haired Bloan all looked as well.

Valette was still standing there, not moving at all.

Moments later...

“Everyone, I’m fine now. Let’s continue.” Valette laughed, but his face was somewhat ashen.

“The snake entered your body. What’s it like?” Bebe asked.

Valette nodded and replied, “When the green snake entered my body, I immediately grew frantic and used both divine power and spiritual energy to simultaneously attack!” Linley laughed to himself; if the green snake had entered his body, he probably would have hastened to use the same methods.

“But who would have imagined...the green snake actually transformed into a ray of green energy and threw itself at extremely high speed towards my mind? Still...the green snake constantly weakened under my spiritual attacks. I had to go all out in order to just barely, completely obliterate all of that green energy!” Valette said with a hint of fear.

Linley nodded to himself.

“So these green snakes, when under spiritual attack, will constantly weaken!” Linley began to somewhat understand. The ‘green energy’ which formed the green snakes should be something akin to spiritual energy based constructs.

“Alright. Everyone, be even more careful!” Linley said. “I’ve done all I can to help out. Whether or not you’ll be able to survive is up to you.” Linley continuously maintained the Blackstone Space, and with it present...Bloan and Valette were under much less pressure as well.

Otherwise, the two would have died long ago in that earlier situation.

“Linley, thank you.” Valette and Bloan both felt rather grateful. After all, Linley was absolutely capable of just discarding them.

“Let’s continue.” Linley said.

Shortly after Linley left, a brown-haired man slowly emerged from the ground, his gaze as cold as the deep sea. He carefully inspected the surrounding area.

“So many green snakes...” The muscular man’s eyes slowly brightened. “It’s been so many years. I’ve forgotten the very existence of time itself. But this day has finally come!” The muscular man was so excited that his body trembled. He then carefully inspected the surroundings, and then, as though he sensed energy ripples from up ahead, he hurriedly advanced forwards.

Linley’s group never would have imagined that after having fought with such a large number of green snakes not too long ago, after having travelled for a short period of time, they actually suffered yet another attack from a large number of green snakes. In addition...the scale of the attack from the green snakes was clearly much greater than last time. There were more than a hundred green snakes.

And it was just the same as last time...

The green snakes didn’t attack Bebe, only attacking Linley, Valette, and the violet-haired Bloan.

“Hiss...”

A large group of green snakes threw themselves towards Linley in mid-air, utterly crazed.

“Boss!” Bebe scurried over as well to help Linley.

“These snakes are insane!” Linley’s godspark sword, ‘Mirage’, began to move. In an instant, Linley had created countless sword blurs, and those green snakes which were struck by Mirage were all crushed into pulp. Of the nearly fifty snakes, only a single one broke through Mirage’s block.

And this one was captured by Bebe.

“Hey, Boss, why is it that your sword is so much faster than last time?” Bebe asked in astonishment.

Linley let out a calm laugh. “Because this time, I used the Elemental Laws of the Wind!”

Linley, too, had to sigh emotionally. All these years, because his insights in the Laws of the Earth surpassed his insights in the Elemental Laws of the Wind, Linley almost exclusively used the Laws of the Earth...it had become a matter of habit. But just now, when faced with so many green snakes, Linley finally came to his senses! Given how powerful his body was and how sharp his godspark weapon was, his attacks were more than strong enough to slaughter the green snakes.

If he used the Laws of the Earth, the only effect would be to make his attacks even stronger, to the point of causing space to tear apart!

But against these green snakes, his Dragonformed strength and Mirage was more than enough! Further strengthening his attacks would be a waste.

His swordplay with the Laws of the Earth was indeed powerful, but it didn’t improve his speed much.

As for the Elemental Laws of the Wind...although each sword attack with Mirage wasn’t improved in power, the speed of each attack was thousands of times greater. Even though there were many more green snakes this time, almost all of them were crushed into pulp.

“Only, my rate of improvement in the Elemental Laws of the Wind is too slow. It has been nearly two thousand years, but I’ve only been able to fuse the Profound Truths of Velocity with the Profound Mysteries of Spatial Wind just slightly.” Linley sighed to himself. There were nine profound mysteries in the Elemental Laws of the Wind, and he had only managed to master the Profound Truths of Velocity back in the Yulan continent, when he merged the ‘fast’ and ‘slow’ profound mysteries together.

The Profound Truths of Velocity and the Profound Mysteries of Spatial Wind were somewhat close in nature, which was why Linley was just barely able to begin fusing them.

But he was still far off from completing fusing them.

“Still, against this sort of group attack, using the Elemental Laws of the Wind is already enough.” Linley let out a relieved sigh.

In terms of attacks, his attacks with Earth were clearly more powerful, but against this sort of group attack by green snakes, it clearly gave him some trouble.

Still, only someone like Linley was capable of using a method like this!

This was because each individual green snake had very strong defense as well. It was fairly hard to kill them. One had to have enough attack power! How could Bloan and Valette be like Linley, who could kill the green snakes just based on physical strength and the sharpness of his weapon?

“Those two...” Linley turned to look.

The violet-haired Bloan and Valette were still standing there.

“Valette died.” Bebe said with resignation.

In that dangerous situation, Linley had to completely focus on himself, and Bebe naturally helped Linley. Valette and Bloan had to rely on themselves.

“Whew!” Bloan opened his eyes, his forehead covered with cold sweat.

“Valette died?” The violet-haired youth, Bloan, was stunned.

“Right.” Linley nodded.

Bloan looked at Linley, a complicated look on his face. “Linley, where should we go next? I keep on having the feeling that something is off. The first time, we were attacked by tens of snakes, and this time, by more than a hundred. I’m worried...that next time, there will be even more!”

Bloan had lost his confidence as well.

This was because just now, a green snake had entered his body. Luckily, Bloan’s soul defense was very strong, and so he had just barely managed to extinguish it.

“Where should we go?” Linley looked at the surroundings.

𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

The area was surrounded by fog, dwarf trees, and mixed bushes. Linley didn’t know where to go either.

“Straight forward.” A voice rang out.

Linley, Bebe, and Bloan immediately turned to look. A muscular, brown-haired man emerged from the ground. The brown-haired man glanced at Linley, whose aura and posture in Dragonform caused the muscular, brown-haired man to unconsciously frown slightly.

“Bloan!” The muscular man turned to look at Bloan, his face wreathed in smiles.

The violet-haired youth, Bloan, upon seeing this man was completely dazed.

“Big Brother...” Bloan called out in disbelief.

The muscular man immediately laughed.

“You...you are still alive, Big Brother?” Bloan’s formerly cold face was now filled with excitement, and even his tears began to fall uncontrollably. Bloan would never forget...those days he had spent by his elder brother’s side as they had roamed the Netherworld. When the two of them had been together, he had relied on his elder brother!

He had never feared anything, because his elder brother had been with him!

But on the very day he became a Highgod, his elder brother had gone to the Abyssal Mountain! But then...countless hundreds of millions of years had passed. Bloan couldn’t even be sure as to how much time had gone by. He had thought his elder brother had died long ago, but...

“Haha.”” The muscular man laughed and immediately walked over, embracing Bloan.

The icy, cold Bloan seemed to have become a child. He tightly clutched the muscular man. “Big Brother, you didn’t die. This is wonderful, wonderful!”

“Big Brother, let me make the introductions. These two came from the Infernal Realm. He is Linley, while this other one is Bebe. I was only able to just barely stay alive here in this gray fog region thanks to Mr. Linley.” Bloan said.

The muscular man gaze Linley an astonished glance, then said, “Mr. Linley, my name is Bailey [Ba’le’lei]. Thank you for looking after my little brother.”

Linley nodded.

“Bloan, follow me.” Bailey grabbed Bloan, wanting to move forward.

“Big Brother?” Bloan just looked at him, puzzled.

Bailey glanced at Linley, then laughed straightforwardly. “It can be said that you showed kindness to my little brother, so I’ll tell you...normally, there’s no way so many green snakes would appear within the gray fog region. Countless years ago, when I first arrived here, I encountered the very same situation. That time...the Abyssal Fruit appeared within the gray fog region. However, that time, someone else acquired it. Based on my predictions, most likely, the reason there are so many green snakes is because the Abyssal Fruit is about to appear once again. You showed kindness to my little brother, so I’ll give you this chance. The Abyssal Fruit will belong to whoever acquires it!”

“The reason the snakes are attacking you is because you are headed the right way. If my predictions are correct, a thousand meters or so up ahead is where the Abyssal Fruit lies!” Bailey said.

Bloan was stunned.

“Big Brother...” He wasn’t surprised at the presence of the Abyssal Fruit; rather, he was puzzled at why his big brother would actually tell this secret to Linley and Bebe.

“Let’s go. It can be considered that we’ve repaid your debt.” Bailey immediately strode forward. “However, if you encounter the Abyssal Fruit, that can be said to be both a stroke of fortune as well as misfortune. If you want to acquire the Abyssal Fruit...you need to be prepared to lose your life.”

Linley gave Bailey’s retreating back a curious glance.

“Bebe, should we go?” Linley laughed calmly. Originally, Linley hadn’t planned to go after the Abyssal Fruit, as the chance was too low, but...it had now appeared.

“Of course we have to go take a look.” Bebe laughed.

Linley and Bebe, not hesitating at all, hurried forward.