Kachak!
With a clear, crisp sound, Garen, who was laying on the deck chair, immediately opened his eyes. He didn't know when he'd fallen asleep on the chaise longue.
He massaged his head as he slowly got up, while pain shot through his body.
"Just now, was that real?"
Black Sethe's voice immediately appeared.
'If you wish to die you can take it as fake. Even the legendary Nine-Headed Dragon Queen Nadia has appeared and you even set a time and place to fight again in the future. Tsk tsk… I wonder how brave you are, this is not the right way to seek death.'
"If I don't make an appointment with her, would she let me go?" Garen calmly got up.
'Of course not.'
"Then there's no difference right?"
Garen stood up from the deck chair. His surroundings were silent and only the chirping of crickets could be faintly heard. The dark forest beside the swimming pool looked mysterious and quiet beside the yellow light.
A female servant was sitting near a door behind the villa as she held onto the door half asleep. Her head was almost at the top of the towel on a small round table beside her.
Garen recalled the situation that had just occurred. It was as if everything was just a dream.
He walked around the swimming pool once and didn't see any trace of destruction. It was completely normal.
Suddenly, his eyes focused on a white chair on the right side of the swimming pool. He squatted down and slowly picked up a small item underneath it.
It was a coin and seemed to be made out of some sort of a metal. It had three circles connecting each other in series imprinted on it.
He flipped over the coin and saw an image of a ferocious dragon head on it.
He immediately recalled back the coin in Nadia's hand before she left.
'This is a coin left behind by her, which will act as a marking and token. With this here, you'll never be disturbed by any normal void creatures until she finds you again.' Black Sethe explained.
Garen gently held the coin tightly. He felt that he had seen this sort of material from somewhere before.
Suddenly, he recalled his memory where he obtained a relic from a black-shirted man and one of the relics was a mask made of a similar material. However, that mask was light black whereas the coin was yellow copper. He wasn't sure why but he felt that these two were connected to each other.
"What is this? What is it made of?" Garen asked softly.
'No idea. Perhaps it's something Nadia created after joining the Void Creatures. Ever since she became a traitor, she would hand out this coin before she officially kills her target out of respect. Why do you ask? Who cares what this is made out of?" Black Sethe couldn't comprehend his thoughts.
"Nothing." Garen didn't say much further.
It looked like he had to start searching for relics from all over the world… He wasn't sure when would Nadia's next visitation would be, but it shouldn't be late.
He kept recalling that mask. His instinct kept telling him that he could obtain an unexpected result if he were to investigate that mask.
In the universe of the void dream, in the endless darkness, two figures swiftly appeared like comets flying across the darkness and breaking apart as both of them were shining brightly.
This was the black dream zone where no one had ever set foot in before. It was the realm between the void and reality, where all consciousness and dreams were created. It wasn't a place in the Material World yet it could affect the Material World.
Two white comets trailed long white tails as they brought light to the darkness.
Within the white lights were two thin and tall people, both male and female. The man's eyebrows and hair were red similar to of fresh blood. He had his hair combed up and was wearing a white cloak with a black circular thorn imprinted on it.
The girl had waist-length blue hair which was smooth as satin. Her facial features were very beautiful but her gaze was dead. Upon closer inspection, she didn't seem to have pupils at all. Instead, what she had were two blue crystal beads. She was in a light blue soft armor with a rippled white metal texture on the side. Overall, she looked beautiful as the soft armor streamlined her body contours as if she was wearing a skintight blue dress.
"This is Nadia's black dream zone. She must be nearby." The man whispered as he used the Ancient Endor's language. "Elfie, do you see any movement?"
The blue haired lady seemed to be trying to listen for something. After a while, she frowned.
"She seemed to have fought with someone… The opponent is definitely not your typical opponent. Both of them were separated when the dream shattered and Nadia left afterward. Her current whereabouts are unknown."
"Who could fight against her?" The man frowned. "Even the white dolls are hard to handle."
"I don't know. Ever since we gave up our flesh and entered the dream world, my eyesight has become poorer over time. I've validated it myself that I'm fine if I were to search for other stuff, but it's different when it comes to Nadia. I suspect that she may have found a way to deal with my ability."
Elfie whispered.
"We are different from those Void Creatures. They're able to absorb energy from the voids of the dream and we can't."
"The other hunters should have their own ways to solve this problem, right?" The man asked.
"I don't know if they're other hunters. Perhaps there's only the two of us within this vicinity… We haven't heard anything from the Headquarters for many years." Elfie softened her tone.
Both of them became quiet as if they didn't have the mood to speak any further.
In the legends of many worlds, the Nine-Headed Dragon Queen Nadia was a forbidden name and she had a lot of names.
The Good and Evil Devil, Mother of all Dragons, Giant Dragon of Destruction, Spirit Realm's warrior, etc…
Her power seemed to be endless as she would come back twice as strong with every death. They had been pursuing Nadia for countless of years and had experienced immeasurable agony and hopelessness.
Countless of hunters have died in her hands. They were once Nadia's friends and partners and that was the reason why they had been left unharmed each time. However, this made them even more eager to pursue her so that they could find out the reason why she had betrayed them.
However, Nadia seemed to be avoiding them at all costs.
"There seem to be auras of other hunters here in this world…" Elfie suddenly spoke.
"Other hunters? Is it Prophet Camado? Or is it Flame's Sicke? Perhaps Giant Sisyphus?" The man asked softly. These people were hunters they'd met within the past few years. Although they were not as strong as Nadia, each of them had their unique escape methods, which was the main reason why they still lived to this day. Perhaps, along with the rest, they were Ancient Endor's remaining hunters.
The remaining hunters were most likely unqualified normal hunters. They were commoners whose Secret Technique had yet to reach its peak and they usually worked together to fend off the void worms at best. As for the white dolls or void devourers, they were not something these hunters could hope to fight against.
No matter how strong they were in the Material World, they would be just fat meat waiting to be cut apart without proper training in the Dream World.
Among the remaining adherents of Ancient Endor, only they were able to freely track Nadia's whereabouts in the Dream World while fighting against the Void Creatures. They were the protectors of the remaining adherents.
The pride of the remaining Mages might end with their generation.
Within the dream world in a certain black zone.
Gas bubbles similar to red balloons suddenly appeared in the area. They were about fist-sized each and soon expanded as if they were being inflated.
Soon the red bubbles had a surface area of about one kilometer.
Inside the bubble.
Nadia was in a white dress and had the huge silver white mark knife in her hand. She was standing quietly on a bloody battlefield, which was the scenery inside the bubble.
There was a crimson crescent moon in the sky of the ancient battlefield. There were no stars and the sky was dyed rust red. The surrounding was filled with black hills and gullies as blood kept flowing in between the hills and gullies. The sound of the flow was very lively.
As time passed, Nadia closed her eyes, waiting for something.
After a few days, blood started to fly everywhere on the black ground in front of her. What came out from the ground were pitch black giant dolls slowly climbing out from it.
Growl…
They growled loudly as the ground split apart while they crawled out. Their heights and shapes were similar to the white dolls. What differentiated them from the white dolls was that they were equipped with thorny black armors from head to toe. It was very strange.
These black dolls were at least six meters tall. They formed a line instinctively as if they knew how to order themselves up. They were so densely packed that no one knew how many of them were there.
"Nadia?" Suddenly a man's voice came from afar. "Why have you come to this place? This is my nest, not a tourist spot for you to sightsee."
"Nothing. I was bored so I came for a walk." Nadia opened her eyes as she said calmly. She glanced at the group of black dolls. "Is this your newly recruited team? They look very annoying…"
She then held her three-meter long sword tightly.
"They're so packed together that they're annoying!!"
With a click, the sword was unsheathed from the ground.
"Three Light!"
Before she finished her sentence, three silver white lights shot out, forming into three groups of vortices, which headed their way towards the black dolls.
With Nadia's leg as the epicenter, three silver vortices with a diameter of tens of meters shot out. These vortices were like silver mouths as they went towards the black dolls.
"Nadia!!" The man shouted with rage as his voice was mixed with the cries of the black dolls. The three vortices started to devour the whole team and within tens of seconds, only broken limbs were left of the black doll army as they were all destroyed.