Garen slowly lifted up his hand and looked at his palm. His slightly enlarged palm was faintly glimmering with a black metallic luster.
He felt that the Blood Qi Ball within his body had not release any Qi and blood to assist in the expansion of his body.
"This feeling is different from when I was using the expanded form of Mammoth Martial Art, but it is still slightly stronger than normal. Since the degree of expansion is not large, I'll consider this as the first form."
Garen forcefully waved his arm around, and felt that the hardness of his skin was around half of his defense when he was at full power. At the same time, it was around twice the hardness of his normal state. After mastering Mammoth Martial Art, his defense when using all of his power was four times that of normal situations. This sort of terrifying Body Hardening Technique allowed him to block the attacks of most martial artists using only his eyelids.
Slowly relaxing his body, Garen's gigantic body gradually shrunk like a deflated balloon from 1.9 meters to 1.7 meters. Under his normal state, he looked just like an ordinary person that was slightly muscular. It's just that his powerful physique made him seem more like an adult than a seventeen year old teenager.
Boom boom boom! Boom boom boom!
Suddenly, the sound of urgent knocking sounded out from the door of the dojo.
"Senior brother Garen! There's trouble, the people from Celestial Circle Gate are here!" Imogen Lilliette's voice came from behind the door.
"Celestial Circle Gate! Is it Andrela?" Garen walked over to the locked wooden door and opened it.
Standing at the door, Imogen Lilliette looked frantic and was still wearing black pajamas.
"Calm down, what's the situation?" Garen softly asked.
"I don't know, almost everyone from the Celestial Circle Gate is staying a hotel near the railway station. However, their leaders, Andrela and a few others, were nowhere to be found. What should we do, senior brother Garen!?" Imogen Lilliette was slightly at a loss.
"The Southern Twelve Gates are all targets of the Celestial Circle Gate. Don't forget about the Seven Moon Gate and the Red Obsidian Gate that joined them. There two sects are definitely not pushovers. Let's take a look at the result first. There's no need to hurry." Garen smiled as he comforted Imogen Lilliette, while gently rubbing her head.
Feeling Garen's unworried and relaxed mood, Imogen Lilliette began to relax as well and became less anxious.
Actually, she had no idea why she was so anxious either. When she heard that Celestial Circle Gate had arrived, she immediately panicked.
"The Celestial Circle Gate is walking the just and honorable path by fairly challenging each sect to a duel. If they want to unify the entire southern martial arts world, they need to comply with the rules or it will all be for naught. So we'll only need to face them head on and not have to worry about them playing any tricks. After all, the Celestial Circle Gate is very confident of their abilities..." Garen simply said. "If my guess is right, Andrela is currently already fighting with the Seven Moon Gate."
He was faintly looking toward the direction of the Seven Moon Gate headquarters as an inexplicable gaze flashed in his eyes.
Da da da...
A series of rapid footsteps rang out as a three-storey hotel near the railway station was completely surrounded.
The surrounding area was completely quarantined by numerous police vehicles.
Under the night sky, there was a cold-looking young man wearing black leather clothes. With shoulder length silver hair, a beautiful face, thin waist, and long legs, he expressed an androgynous beauty. If it was not for the fact that he had an adam's apple and no breasts, no one would believe that he was a man.
The man was slowly putting on a black and red gauntlet—with brutish spikes on it—with a calm gaze
"Commissioner Karanan, I am relying on you to help out in the quarantine this time," he simply said.
The middle-aged man with a potbelly standing next to him nodded while smiling. "Chairman Shia is being polite. The fact that I am able to help out the Seven Moon Group is a great honor for me. Not to mention that the governor specifically mentioned that I should fully support the Seven Moon Group in all of your activities. This is also part of our duty as the Metropolitan Police."
The beautiful man called Chairman Shia nodded. Then without saying anything else, he beckoned with his hand.
The men dressed in black outfits in the area immediately created an opening for him to pass through.
Shia walked into the encirclement and looked up the small white building toward the window on the third storey.
"Shia Ludanni from Seven Moon Gate is here to welcome senior brother Andrela from Celestial Circle Gate. Please come out to meet me."
His voice was androgynous and was a mixture of women's softness and men's rigidity, giving a strange sense of indifference and severity.
There was no noise at all. Although there were over a hundred men dressed in black surrounding the small building, there was no sound coming from the building at all. Even the policemen outside the perimeter were affected by the nervous mood and lowered their volume.
There was only silence in the small building and no one replied.
A sneer appeared on Shia's face.
"During the exchange gathering, we really owed it to Celestial Circle Gate. This time, since senior brother Andrela has come to our Dinah City, it's only natural that we, as the host, should properly take care of the guests. Could it be the fellow disciples from Celestial Circle is unwilling to give Shia this honor?"
There was still no reply from the small building.
Shia's face slightly contorted in anger.
"Since senior brother is unwilling to come out on your own, then I'll just have to personally invite you!"
A few of the men dressed in black slowly drew out black daggers as cruel sneers appeared on their faces. They were the most elite of the core teams within the Seven Moon Gate. The reason why the Seven Moon Gate was able to develop so much and obtain the best territories in the entire province was due to the efforts of teams like theirs.
As the sound of light and hurried footsteps rang out, more than a dozen men dressed in black charged toward the entrance of the small building. Before they could reach it, a silvery flash of light suddenly appeared, drawing a semicircular arc in the air.
The men all groaned at the same time and flew backward. There was a slit that was sliced open on each of them, but it was only their clothes that got cut and not their bodies.
At the entrance of the small building, a man with reddish purple hair slowly walked out. He was wearing a white outfit with a silver cross star symbol on his chest.
"If you want to see our senior brother, you need to get past us." He calmly stared at Shia who was standing at the front as a trace of severity flashed in his eyes.
"I am one of the Four Circles of Celestial Circle Gate, Xin Luo," He slowly announced his name. Immediately after, two other figures slowly walked out from behind him. One of them was a tall woman and the other was a short and thin boy.
"Xin Luo?" Shia's eyes narrowed into a straight line and his entire being was both sharp and cold. "I've long heard that the Four Circles of Celestial Circle Gate has always been four people. Why is one of you missing?"
He knew very well that the Four Circles of Celestial Circle Gate were the four strongest disciples below Andrela. They were also the most promising candidates to vie for the position of senior brother and were definitely not weak.
The moment he mentioned that matter, the faces of the three turned slightly ugly.
"Tenstar Ni getting killed was his own fault for being unskilled. Since you dare to speak that way about Celestial Circle Gate, let's see how strong you are!"
Before Xin Luo even finished speaking, he applied force to his legs and started spinning to the left—like a spinning top—into the surrounding teams of men dressed in black.
Ding ding ding!!
A series of clashing between metal sounded out as half of the men in black were injured by the black shadows of the sword. Only a few veterans were able to timely parry the thin sword.
More than a dozen of the men dressed in black did not retreat, but attacked instead. They were unafraid of getting cut by the thin sword as they stabbed toward Xin Luo with a dagger in each of their hands.
Ahh!!
One of the men dressed in black suddenly retreated while clutching his right hand and screaming in pain. His right palm was sliced off at the base of his wrist and blood was rapidly spraying out like a fountain. Two men from the back immediately arrived to take care of his wound.
"Step aside! Let me do it!" Shia's expression went cold and he suddenly rushed out. The gauntlets on his hands drew a dark red line in the air.
At the same time, the men dressed in black suddenly spread out, creating an opening in a well-trained manner that was just enough for one person to enter.
Shia punched toward Xin Luo's chest with his right hand that was clenched into a fist, while silently aiming for Xin Luo's abdomen with his left hand formed into a spear-hand while hiding it behind his right hand.
This was Seven Moon Gate's most famous Yin Interception Finger. Once it made contact with a person's body, it would cause the blood vessels to burst and create an internal hemorrhage, while the skin remained unharmed.
Shia's fingernails on his left hand were slightly purple and gleamed with a strange luster. Hidden below the gauntlets, they were like a venomous snake hiding in the shadows and were both malicious and covert.
The two of them instantly collided together.
Kacha!
The black shadow of the sword clanged as it struck between the spikes of the gauntlets and was twisted into pieces by the spikes.
Shia's Yin Interception Finger—that was aiming for Xin Luo's abdomen—missed as it was parried away by a knife hand from above.
Both of them each took a few steps backward as a fearful expression flashed across their faces.
"No wonder you dare to show up with so few people. Very well!" Shia's expression did not look well. Even though he had the upper hand, Xin Luo was only weaker than him by a tiny amount. They were both stuck at the level right before Grandmaster of Combats and there were two other exponents at the same level as well. Not to mention, there was still Andrela after them.
He was originally planning to quickly get rid of these people and directly recruit Andrela. He did not think that...
"As expected of the Celestial Circle's Four Circles! Attack them!"
He suddenly beckoned and the hundreds of men dressed in black in the surrounding immediately surged forward.
Puff...
Garen heavily breathed out.
Ever since he returned to Huaishan, he had been thinking about how to perfect his martial arts system.
He had always been walking the route of focusing on strength and defense. However, this type of route lacked speed. Once he met an opponent who was much faster than him, he would be stuck in a situation of getting beaten up. Even though he had yet to meet such an exponent, it did not mean that it would not happen in the future.
A perfect martial art system should be able to deal with any kind of situation. An excessive shortcoming was just a fatal flaw.
When faced against Sylphalan's illusionary power previously, he did not have any way of dealing with it either.
This was his weakness and weaknesses needed to be overcome.
"Speed…" Garen was sitting cross-legged in the dojo. The morning sunlight was gently beaming on him, plating his topless upper body with a layer of light golden glow.
He got up early in the morning and started to adjust his condition. Since Celestial Circle Gate had already arrived, a battle could occur at any time. This was a battle in front of everyone and if he lost, it would imply that the White Cloud Gate that he was representing had lost.