Qianye made no movement as he gazed at the incoming Demoness. His indifference actually surprised the Demoness.

“Why aren’t you fleeing?”

“If I escape, wouldn’t I be giving up the Constellation Well for free?”

“Idiot.” The Demoness’ expression was hidden behind a veil of black mist. Countless streams of black smoke appeared around Qianye, cleaving at him with incomparable sharpness.

Qianye slashed through the mist with East Peak, but the dark clouds would reform and drift toward him once more.

Qianye raised his brows. Flames of scarlet gold erupted on the blade as he slashed in four different directions!

The origin flames of Venus Dawn burned fiercely as they came into contact with the Demoness’ invisible demonic blades. The raging blaze devoured the faint mist, reducing all of the demonic blades to nothingness.

Qianye took a step back and put ten meters between him and the Demoness. The latter didn’t chase after him—she recalled what was left of the demonic blades with a wave of her hand, her expression serious. Qianye gazed intently at the flames on East Peak, calculating something in silence.

The confrontation between the origin flames and the invisible demonic blades was, in essence, a head-on collision between daybreak and Evernight. There were no tricks, only a contest of quant.i.ty and quality. Both parties were calculating their expenditure from the previous exchange, using it to gauge the opponent’s strength.

Moments later, Qianye looked up with a cautious expression. The black mist around the Demoness was also rippling, a clear indication that she wasn’t calm.

Both sides had actually exhausted roughly the same amount in that exchange!

Since the day he had successfully cultivated Venus Dawn, Qianye had never encountered an enemy comparable to him in terms of origin power quality, be it in Evernight or the Empire. He never had the chance to trade blows with the elder generation, so they could be excluded temporarily. Among the younger generation, however, even Zhao Jundu’s extreme violet was still one step away from perfection. His early advancement back then still gave rise to some regrets.

But the Zhao clan possessed secret methods to purify one’s origin power while breaking through to the divine champion realm, so the fourth young master could still catch up and reach perfection.

On the Evernight side, both Eden and Edward were a level below Qianye’s origin power. The latter’s purple blood energy contained a great dark monarch’s aura, but it still couldn’t suppress Qianye’s dark golden blood energy. It was also a bit weaker when pitted against Venus Dawn. Anwen was highly intelligent, but smart people were rarely too hardworking. His demonic energy was intrinsically powerful, but it was only slightly stronger than Eden in terms of quant.i.ty.

The only true contender would be the awakened Nighteye. It was just that her current personality was unfathomable, and her inherited powers were beyond imagination. Qianye simply couldn’t see through the quality of her origin power.

Only at this point had Qianye encountered a true match.

From the fluctuation of demonic energy, one could see that the Demoness was far more shocked than Qianye was. Perhaps she had never imagined she would encounter an enemy with comparable origin power quality. Just like her position when she entered the scene, she had always believed she was a peerless existence above everyone else.

The Demoness said slowly, “Back at Indomitable, I had thought that you were strong but not yet my true match. I now take that back.”

Qianye replied, “Perhaps before long, you’ll feel that this notion is wrong as well.”

“Is that so? I look forward to it. Unfortunately, you won’t have that opportunity.”

The Demoness hadn’t finished speaking when her figure fluctuated slightly, and then appeared behind Qianye. A hand shrouded in demonic energy reached for the back of Qianye’s neck.

However, this hand only caught empty air. Demonic energy erupted amidst explosive crackles as a number of slender fingers emerged from the black mist. There were thin wisps of lightning arcing between her fingertips.

A casual clench of her palm produced all kinds of supernatural phenomena—clearly, the might involved was beyond imagination. The vampire experts watching the fight were shocked, especially the counts. They felt a chill behind their neck, because they simply wouldn’t be able to stand this light clutch of hers.

Qianye appeared a hundred meters away and glanced back at the Demoness. He had used Spatial Flash at the critical juncture to evade the lethal attack, but when he looked back, there was only an explosion of demonic energy and lightning. The Demoness was nowhere to be seen.

Qianye’s silhouette flickered and vanished again. A finger appeared through the void to tap at the back of his head, but unfortunately, there was only an afterimage.

By the time Qianye had appeared at a different place, he suddenly noticed a cloud of darkness before his eyes, much like an expanding blotch of ink. The inky cloud became reflected in his eyes, freezing it for a split second. Qianye had used Spatial Flash again during this small lapse and vanished once more.

The ink blotch expanded to reveal the Demoness. She chuckled coldly as she transformed into a streak of black radiance and shot toward the distant air. She was already halfway when Qianye appeared in that location.

But Qianye had long since expected this development. He dodged her charge with a sidestep and vanished once again. Without the slightest delay, the black radiance made a sharp turn and darted toward a different area in the sky.

The two combatants had exchanged several moves within moments. The vampire counts simply couldn’t catch the duo’s movements. All they could see was an interweaving band of black and Qianye’s lingering afterimages. Only the marquises were able to barely keep up with the battle, but they had long since become dumbstruck.

Edward’s group was relatively calm. After observing the fight for a while, Anwen said, “Basil, Edward, you two should go down first. I’ll stand guard.”

Truth be told, Anwen’s suggestion was fairly well-timed. Edward and Basil were moved by the suggestion. There was really no s.p.a.ce for the others to interfere in the Demoness’ battle against Qianye. It just so happened that the two had reached a dangerous stalemate, so they didn’t need to worry about Qianye’s interference.

Anwen wasn’t entirely selfless with this suggestion, either. He wanted to see how Edward and Basil would transform star power and condense origin blood. Edward and Basil didn’t really mind that. The two races had been studying the process secretly for years, and only perfected the transformation process after finding a suitable catalyst. It would be too outrageous if Anwen could just master everything with a single glance.

Basil said, “Okay, I’ll go first then.”

He produced a white spider egg and tossed it into the Constellation Well. He then jumped down into the well after it.

The spider egg fell rapidly, but a web shot down from above and fixed the egg mid-air. Basil’s giant body descended slowly from atop the illusory spider webs.

He sensed the star power constantly, controlling the descent of his body and egg accordingly along the way. Basil looked fairly strained after reaching a certain area and had no choice but to float back up a bit before stabilizing himself.

He spat out clouds of white mist from his mouth, which were duly absorbed by the egg. Several stars began lighting up as the egg absorbed more mist, with specks of starlight drifting toward the egg to be a.s.similated at the same time.

Edward heaved a sigh of relief when he saw that the secret art was effective. Because the source of this art was human in origin, the vampires and arachne methods were both based on the same principle. The arachne’s success meant that the vampires wouldn’t have any problems, either.

Anwen observed carefully from the side. Demonic energy emerged around him, projecting a stream of countless symbols and formulas that made Eden feel dizzy. The latter had no choice but to admit that Anwen was unimaginably talented in this regard.

Anwen’s mood at this point, however, wasn’t as relaxed as it seemed. He had never imagined that the Demoness would actually come to the Great Maelstrom. After driving Qianye away and finding some time, there was no doubt that she would mock him ruthlessly about his weaknesses.

It just so happened that Anwen had shown weakness as of late. An all-out attack, bolstered by his special ability, was only able to ensure a hit on Qianye but not enough to injure him. In the end, the demonkin fell into a disadvantage and was driven away from the Constellation Well. The Demoness would find out about this sooner or later, and it would become proof that he hadn’t been focusing on important matters.

But how many people could be certain of heavily injuring Qianye in one blow?

Anwen let out a long sigh because it wasn’t important how few such people were. It was enough that the Demoness could do it.

He calmed himself and continued observing the developments, computing and cracking the arachne race’s star power absorption process.

Basil wasn’t having an easy time at the bottom of the well. The web under his feet was trembling slightly, a sign that he was fairly strained. His true strength was far superior, but he couldn’t quite focus at this moment.

Only after entering could one understand the dangers of the Constellation Well. Basil tried shooting a web toward the entrance, hoping to leave it as a backup, but the web was quickly disintegrated by the star power a couple dozen meters away. He wanted to attach the web to the cliff-sides, but the moment he did so, the amount of star power absorbed decreased, and the gravitational power from the depths of the well increased accordingly.

This meant that he would need a much longer time to form the origin blood. He wouldn’t be able to hold out that long even with the help of his spider webs.

After several attempts, Basil had no choice but to accept the truth that there were no shortcuts to this. He simply couldn’t figure out why this well was so strange. It was almost sentient and capable of seeing through all of his tricks.

Additionally, Basil became more and more restless as time went by. It could be said that he was in a defenseless state inside the well. He had dared to enter the well before because he was confident in the Demoness. Logically speaking, Qianye wasn’t the Demoness’ match at all, but for some reason, the latter still couldn’t capture him even after a good while. With the fight going on outside the well, Basil had no choice but to pay attention to it, and this distraction greatly slowed down his refinement process.

The Demoness and Qianye were still flickering about in a game of cat and mouse. Despite her hidden countenance, one could feel a cold killing intent from her. Apparently, she was so angry that she had decided to stop hiding her emotions. Several hundred demonic blades emerged with a wave of her hands, spreading out to seal off the area. Being unable to capture Qianye was a big humiliation for her. That was why she was going all out with no concern for her demonic energy. She wanted to take down Qianye within the shortest amount of time, or at least drive him away.

The Demoness’ combat techniques were laser-focused because she had concluded that Qianye couldn’t keep up Spatial Flash for too long. If only he were to react a bit slower, it would be near impossible for him to escape her clutches. The most intelligent option was to escape quickly while he had enough strength left to use it.

The Demoness was waiting for this moment because she had already set up a trap.