CHAPTER 655 HOLY WILL CRYSTALS

The figure's emergence seemed to bring the world to a stop, including the battle between Darren and

the human-shaped blood creature.

Still in midair, the two combatants broke apart, separated by the sheer, ominous significance of the

newcomer.

Darren watched uneasily as his foe turned toward the newcomer, knelt down in submission, and went

still.

No longer caring about finishing the duel, Darren flew back to join his companions, who were visibly

stricken.

"He's far too powerful for us," one of them told him. "We're doomed!"

Brave as Darren was, he couldn't find it in himself to disagree. His heart pounded wildly as he returned

to his human form.

"Maybe he just won't attack us," one of the others said doubtfully. "It's possible, right?" This material belongs to .

Their impulse for nervous chatter died as the cause of their terror drew near. Unseen power crackled

and radiated out from him, pressing against their very souls until they thought their hearts would burst

within them.

Soon he stood a hundred feet off from the group, as fearsome and unapproachable as a god.

A dreadful moment passed as he stared them all down with a cold, emotionless gaze. Worse yet, nine

black vortexes appeared behind him, roiling with titanic bursts of lightning. He was haloed by a display

of world-ending power.

At last the men could stand it no longer, and one of them called out, "Sir, have mercy! Forgive us if we

have displeased you!" Immediately there was a chorus of similarly terrified pleas as all those gathered

bowed down in midair, trembling.

All, that was, except for Darren, who still retained some of his earlier courage, not to mention his pride.

Staying upright, he withstood the blood figure's glare and returned it. A fierce, hot wind tossed his black

hair behind him.

Knowing he had been affronted, the figure gave no warnings or second chances. Only a single word

escaped from his mouth, hoarse and inhuman, "Die."

With that, he raised a hand and dropped it toward Darren.

It was a simple, almost indifferent movement, as if to smash an insect. Yet even that motion sent a

lattice of black space cracks rippling outward. The whole space shuddered as peerless power swept

through it, and Darren's companions were even more paralyzed than they had been before.

Darren's level of relative calm surprised even himself as he watched the blow come down to meet him

like a moon falling from its orbit. "Is this the real Holy Will?" he murmured aloud.

No one thought to answer him. Nor did anyone have any thought of escaping.

Everyone within a hundred kilometers would be absolutely obliterated when the falling hand struck.

There was no outrunning the power at this being's command. Their doom approached, agonizingly

slow. Each second seemed magnified to the length of a century. Darren, at least, was resolved to not

face it begging for his life.

"How dare you!" roared a booming voice.

As though rocked by the sound, the terrible blood figure fell back two steps, withdrawing his hand.

"Who is there?!" he thundered, looking around for the one who had spoken.

Darren and his companions quickly passed from that monstrous figure's mind. Compared to whoever

had just struck him, they were of no importance at all.

The voice of his endless challenger came again, full of endless anger. "Leave this place! Leave at

once, or you will regret ever coming here!"

Retreat, however, was the last thing on the fearsome figure's mind. "Come out and fight me!" he

retorted, and a burst of Holy Will erupted from him. Behind him, the nine black vortexes he had

summoned whirled with impossible speed, yawning as if to devour the whole world.

The voice responded, "Well? Fight you? You are no match for me."

No sooner had the voice stopped than an enormous black fissure opened in the void. In the next

instant it closed, swallowing the fearsome blood figure completely.

The stunned silence that followed lasted a long moment. "What happened?" somebody said at last.

"Where did he go? Who is helping us?"

At first, no answer could be given. Darren was as stunned as anyone else. Who indeed had dared to

confront a holy warrior on their behalf?

As he processed what had happened, however, he realized that the mysterious voice was actually

familiar to him.

Overjoyed, he sent his spiritual sense to the Ancient Void Battlefield.

There was no difficulty, and he transmitted a message there. "Finley, have you reached the Holy

Realm?"

Finley was there, all right, standing on a vast plain in a glorious white robe. With hands clasped behind

his back, he stared into the void with a look of indifference. He seemed oblivious to Darren's question.

Still watching with his spiritual sense, Darren tried him again. "Finley, say something. What are you

doing?"

For a long moment nothing happened.

Then the cold, calm passivity melted from Finley's face. The corner of his mouth twitched in a grimace,

and blood spurted from it.

"Darren," he replied at last. "Run, run as fast as you can!"

"Wait, tell me what just happened!" replied his friend, as anxious now as he had been relieved. "Are

you the one who saved us? That was a holy warrior! How did you do it?"

"Yes, it was I who did it, but it was only a bluff. His body isn't made of the same stuff as you or I. It's an

extremely strong holy body. I might be able to scare him off, but I can't kill him. Listen, Darren, you

need to get out of there. Head west. I sense there is a safe place there."

"Okay, fine. You can explain everything when I'm safe."

With that, Darren set his priorities straight. The important thing now was to get to safety. He had

probably wasted too much time already.

Turning to his companions, he bellowed, "Come with me!"

Without waiting up, he flew to the west, and they all followed at once.

They kept up their retreat for a full week without stopping. After the encounter they had just survived,

nobody was interested in taking any chances.

"Surely we'll be safe for a little while now," one of them remarked.

Whether or not that was true, they were extremely exhausted after such an exertion. Seven-star grand

warriors or not, they couldn't fly at top speed forever.

"I agree," Darren said. "If that didn't buy us at least a little time, then we're about finished anyway."

Saying this, he descended toward the ground, and the others joined him there.

The place where they found themselves was desolate indeed. It was a barren wasteland of black sand,

baked by a sun the color of blood.

"Just look at this place," one of the men said dejectedly. "And here I thought we were going to just get

some treasure. What was I thinking? First we almost get ourselves obliterated by some ultra-powerful

being, next we're wandering in a hellish desert. I should never have come."

Darren, who was simply grateful to be alive, smirked at him faintly. "If you had not come, how would

you have found out what was in the Life Forbidden Zone?"

"Oh, who knows?" interjected one of the others. "What difference does it make, now that we're here? I'll

tell you one thing, though. If I get out of this alive, then I'm going to live in seclusion for the rest of my

days. This is more than enough excitement to last me."

They all were miserable and despondent after meeting the powerful creature. Had they not been

saved, he would have crushed them all like ants, and they knew it.

Darren was the only one among them who had done anything but cower in fear, but even he hadn't

gotten them out of danger on his own.

Before long, their depression ignited into violent frustration. Finally one of them bellowed, "Those old

bastards! It's all their faults that I went on this damned fool's quest! To hell with them!"

Saying this, he smashed his fist against the ground. Finally free to vent their frustration, the other men

did likewise, attacking the desolate landscape around them.

Only Darren controlled himself, watching dispassionately as their blows smashed rock formations into

powder and blasted masses of dark sand into the sky.

By the time they were through, they had created a sandstorm hundreds of kilometers across, blotting

out the sun for several hours before it began to settle.

"Where are we going now, Darren?" one of them asked finally, when the group had finished calming

down.

They'd had enough of taking out their frustrations. Now it was time to think about their next move.

"I don't know. My friend said it would be safe out here. Let me see if there's anything else he can tell

me." Saying this, Darren made up his mind to communicate with Finley again.

Right as he was about to, though, he overheard one of his companions saying, "Wow, look at that! It's

so bright. What is it?"

The man who said this was pointing to one of the sand pits which he and his companions had furiously

smashed out of the landscape. Within, they could see groups of what looked like little particles which

held a brilliant glow.

While his fellows murmured, the man flew over, and picked several of the strange particles, and

brought them back.

"Wow, look at these," he remarked, holding them up. "They sure are colorful. Might be worth it to get

our hands on more of them. They'd make great jewelry."

While he said this, Hobson took one of the particles in his hand.

He inspected it carefully, then pinched it between two fingers, and unexpectedly cried out in pain. The

little stone had cut his finger, whereas he had thought he would crush it with ease.

"What are these things made of? How is it so hard?" Saying this, Hobson focused his internal energy

on the particle and tried to refine it.

Before anyone could blink, there was a flash of light as energy exploded from the particle.

The others leaped back, shielding their eyes. Hobson himself was thrown away, crashing into a sand

dune.

Darren and his companions stared dumbfounded for a short moment before Hobson burst out of the

sand, looking none the worse for wear. "It contains Holy Will!" he shouted excitedly as he flew back to

join them. "These are Holy Will Crystals!"

"What, seriously?" someone replied.

Then they all began rushing about, finding the holes they had created in the sand and searching

through them.

Each man found a few crystals of various colors and set about trying to refine them, though more

carefully than Hobson had his first one.

'These really are the Holy Will Crystals, ' they thought. 'They are so precious! What a discovery!'

Obsessed over their discovery, the men forgot their earlier frustrations completely. In fact, they even

started digging more and deeper holes in the sand, hoping to find more crystals underground.

As the others dug themselves further down into the earth, Darren burrowed a little down into another

sand pit by himself, where he found another one of the crystals.

He took it in his hand, but hesitating, simply feeling it instead of refining it.

"That aura," he said to himself. "It feels like Holy Will, but it's... weird."

It was the Fringe Holy Will that Darren felt, and it made him exceedingly uncomfortable. He wasn't sure

where it was coming from.