“What plans?” a man behind him repeated softly, “I’m doing very well in Spain right now. I found a school, and now I’m teaching children.”
A slender man suddenly walked out of the pitch-black shadows on the roof. The man was dressed completely in white, and had white hair. Even his skin had a translucent sheen of white. There was an indescribable sense of freedom in his eyes. He was completely different from when Garen first met him.
“This sure is different from the Ashen I first met,” Garen said mildly.
“I really like this kind of life right now. No battles, no plotting, it’s very calm and normal.” Ashen seemed to have become a lot more cheerful.
“I never would have thought,” Garen turned around, “that the strongest Blood Breed in the world would become a teacher in a human school.” He looked at the strongest Blood Breed, Castine, who had suddenly invited him here. Connecting that with the information he just received, he too felt something that he could not quite describe.
“How are Arisa and Isaros doing?” he asked quietly.
“Not bad, my wedding with Isaros is coming up soon, you’d better come join the celebration,” Castine laughed. Although the sound still seemed soft and weak, it gave off a crystal clear feeling.
Garen sighed a little inside. He had just found out that Isaros was getting married, and the person she was getting married to was the Blood Breed Ashen Castine. When they met the parents back then, tables were nearly flipped at the family gathering.
Afterward, he found out that after Ashen was critically wounded in the battle with him, Isaros had found him while he was recuperating, hoping to remove the Scarlet Moon Holy Technique deep in their consciousness. Perhaps a lot of things happened when they were interacting.
Apparently Scarlet Moon had appeared in the process as well, and assuming that Isaros and Arisa were on Garen’s side, he tried to kill them. Ashen saved their lives, and somehow or another, the two of them fell in love.
Garen finally understood why the sisters kept giving him that indescribable feeling, this proved that the feeling was right. As a result of the Scarlet Moon Secret Technique, she had actually gotten hooked up with the number one Death Apostle. No one could have imagined this wedding, perhaps there was another long story behind it.
“I don’t want to bother with these things anymore, isn’t your Holy Fist Palace doing a good job with it? With Tu Lan around, the Blood Breeds have a place to return to, and the world is at peace again.” Castine chuckled, as though he had truly let go. “I just want to live a peaceful life, like a normal person.”
“Do you know what they’re doing?” Garen suddenly asked out of the blue.
Castine froze for a moment, and his smile vanished.
“I don’t want to care, and I can’t. Besides, with you around, no one would dare disturb the order, isn’t that right? –”
“I’m leaving,” Garen interrupted him.
Both of them fell silent.
There was only the sound of the wind blowing past the roof, carrying a hint of cold.
“Humans are never satisfied. Once they have power, they’ll want more,” Garen said calmly. “In order to attain immortality, they will come after you sooner or later.”
The Holy Fist Palace was now the number one power, and many of the higher-ups were the people in high positions from before, such as Cece, such as Quentin now, Xander, and many other higher-ups from the combat club who joined later.
The Royal Fist Technique could extend one’s lifespan, but how could it compare to the Blood Breeds’ natural immortality? The battle had just died down, if it weren’t for Garen iron-fisted suppression, there would probably have been many people who tried to research the Blood Breeds’ immortality with violent means, and even others who would be deeply interested in the mystery of the Death Apostles. Out of the only remaining Death Apostles, Tu Lan had a high position, so no one would dare touch her. But Castine was different, he was alone outside, and his personality was unnaturally weak, if someone caught the people important to him and threatened him with them, he’d give up in a heartbeat. That was exactly how the secret party could ambush him last time.
The human greed was limitless.
Castine wanted a peaceful life, but that would never be more than an illusion.
“You’re leaving?” Castine paused, “Where to?”
“I probably can’t ever come back…” Garen replied calmly. Recently he could feel the repulsion of the planet grew stronger and heavier. No matter how powerful he was, he was still just a single individual. Even Nadia could not fight against a planet on her own, much less Garen. Faced with this repulsion, he could only stay for a few more days at the most.
“Then what do you plan to do?” Castine looked at this young man, rumored to be in his twenties, and suddenly felt that his mind was far older than twenty.
“At first I planned to pass on the position of Holy Fist to you, but now that seems impossible,” Garen said calmly. When he found out that Castine was somehow Isaros’ husband, he had that thought. After all, he was the most powerful, with him in the throne, he could lord over all the Blood Breeds and humans, but now Garen could tell that he was set on retirement.
“Come back to the Holy Fist Palace and become Vice Palace Master, I’ll pass the position of Holy Fist to Tu Lan.” They were the only two suited for the job, neither of them had many ambitions, so they could hamper the Lightless Alliance and AG’s plans from the throne.
This was especially because he would soon be retrieving all the soul primers. When that happens, the Holy Fist Palace would no longer be bound by anything material, so they would need a powerful force to keep them together.
“I’ll consider it.” Castine lowered his head and thought for a while, but still nodded slightly in the end.
Isaros and Arisa had no parents, so they had basically become part of Garen’s family. Isaros also learned all her martial arts from Garen, and that saved her life many times. A whole series of ties made the two sides unspeakably close, until they were practically one big family. With that in mind, Garen had no reason to harm him.
Garen had a feeling that after he left, the whole world might descend into chaos once more. The Blood Breeds’ longevity, and the Blood Breeds’ immortality, these were all the root of all chaos. On the surface, the Holy Fist Palace looked stable in power, but in truth, he had created all this with his iron fist, so once he was gone, all the factions from all over would definitely start to grow restless.
But none of this had anything to do with him anymore, he was most concerned with his arrangements for his family. As the most loyal students of the Holy Fist Palace, Ninox, Quentin, and Xander were all reliable, and Ashen’s personality meant that he was no problem either. With this group banded together, even if Tu Lan had any other thoughts, she would not make a move easily.
Nevertheless, nothing in the world is absolute, and even the most perfect or secure safety measures would one day be broken.
Garen knew very well that after he left, no one in this world would be able to surpass the Blood Breed Death Apostles, and Ashen would always be the number one Blood Breed, no competition.
After all, no one would have Soul Seeds, or attribute talents. Even the undying Blood Breeds would not be able to reach the highest heights since their secret techniques were not good enough.
Garen sighed inwardly, in the end he still decided not to leave behind any of the true peak-level secret techniques he practiced. Other than the Fantasy Fist, be it the original Waterbird Fist, or the Shooting Shadow Secret Technique, or even the White Cloud Secret Technique, all of these secret techniques were only powerful because his soul primer maintained them at top form. They were mostly good for fighting and killing, not for leveling up and cultivating. Dahm and Hochman were only so powerful because of the soul primer.
Once he called back the primers, their battle ability would drop a notch, and the effect would be felt the most in their practicing speed. That speed would drop drastically, the reason they could level up so quickly before was also because the after-effects were shared by the soul primer, so they did not have to worry. Once he retrieved them, that meant they would have to carry the burden of these after-effects themselves. That was when they would see just how cruel a demonic technique could be.
They leveled up quickly and grew very powerful, but one misstep, and they would die very quickly too…
Only when he thought of that did Garen realize just how big an impact his leaving would have on the whole Holy Fist Palace.
“Aren’t you afraid that the Blood Breeds would train in the secret techniques and become unstoppable?” Castine asked.
“The strongest Blood Breed with secret techniques would still be no match for you, secret techniques were tailored for humans after all, they would reach a certain bottleneck and be unable to progress from there, because their make-up is different,” Garen said, shaking his head. He glanced at Castine. “If you can’t help it, retire.”
This sentence came out of nowhere, and Castine did not understand, but Garen’s expression when he said it carved those words deep into his mind, until he could not forget it even if he tried.
********************
Holy Fist Palace
The huge palace on the snowy mountain, matched the snowy-white ocean of clouds beneath it, made it look like it was built on the clouds, with the same airy feeling as a divine palace of the gods.
The many people walking up the mountain were all members, come to visit, to look around, to learn, to exchange. There were also several teams from the Palace in charge of logistics and the like, practically forming several long lines, flowing into the Holy Fist Palace from all directions like streams flowing into the ocean.
People walked in and out of the Palace, Garen was holding an internal conference, the external matters were mostly handled by Tu Lan. By now, the Holy Fist Palace had swollen up to an extreme degree, while the combat club and the Nighthawks grew bigger and stronger.
“You guys go rest, I want to walk around on my own,” Raffaele said to the two young ladies taking care of her as they walked down a corridor in the Palace.
“Alright, please contact us with your communicator if you need anything.” The two girls were happy to get a break as well, smiling as they quickly retreated.
Raffaele watched as they slowly disappeared down the corner of the corridor, and felt her heart lighten up a bit. Then she quickly walked towards the place she had committed to memory from before.
Ever since she received the news of the Blood Alliance’s overwhelming defeat, Raffaele understood for the first time just how powerful the Holy Fist Alliance was. Apparently the Fist Saint Garen had defeated the four Great Death Apostles all by himself, and was as unstoppable as a demon god!
This difference was worlds apart, and it let Raffaele truly understand what Mother meant by the root of chaos. In just twenty years, he had surpassed the Death Apostles’ accumulation over several thousand years, this was an existence that should not exist, it went against the rules of nature. His very being was a tumor that disrupted the natural cycle of life.
But according to Mother’s predictions, this Fist Saint Garen, known as the strongest in the world, still had a fatal flaw. Or rather, according to the prediction, this flaw was also the whole Holy Fist Palace’s flaw. She just had to break that flaw, and she could directly destroy the foundations of Garen’s martial arts, as well as those of the entire Holy Fist Palace higher-ups.