The Demoness was antic.i.p.ating a miserable scream and fresh blood, but the person below actually cut down all the demonic blades with a swing of their weapon!

The Demoness was first surprised but then became excited, secretly criticizing Qianye for his craftiness. It would seem he was pretending to be an ordinary expert, but now he had been exposed.

She descended rapidly but was startled upon seeing the other party clearly. It was a young girl in a white dress, definitely not Qianye.

But she was too furious to care whether she was killing the right person. Dozens more formless blades formed with a wave of her hand. Even someone as calm as Bai Kongzhao felt somewhat fl.u.s.tered.

It was at this moment that streaks of demonic energy appeared in the air, forming a complicated polyhedron around Bai Kongzhao. Anwen appeared with a wry smile. “She’s my friend. Please let her go out of consideration for me!”

The Demoness said coldly, “Why must I give you face?”

Her words were so sharp that even the kind Anwen became somewhat angry. Fortunately, no one had caught up to them yet and the only other person was Bai Kongzhao.

Anwen took a deep breath to calm down his flushed face, and said in a cool but forced tone, “Considering our statuses, you will have to give me some face.”

Anwen’s reply was tinged with unprecedented curtness. An icy killing intent emerged through the Demoness’ black mist as she said, “Anwen, do you think you’re important enough to make me do things?”

Anwen replied, “At the very least, you have no right to humiliate me.”

“Who gave you the courage to speak to me like this!?”

“I just don’t want to take your unreasonable pride anymore.”

“You’re courting death, Anwen!”

“You can kill me, but you’ll also lose your path to become a great dark monarch.”

The Demoness’ voice was cold. “Do you seriously think you hold enough weightage in those old fogeys’ eyes? I’ll have to pay an equal price for killing you? Where did you get that confidence? Do you think your talents are at my level?”

Anwen said coldly, “My talents might be inferior, but my intelligence is far beyond yours. It’s not certain who will get further in the future.”

This surprised the Demoness. Her eyes fell upon Bai Kongzhao, saying, “Anwen, this isn’t like the old you. Did you change because of her?”

Anwen also glanced at Bai Kongzhao. “She’s part of the reason but not the entirety.”

“That’s good enough. I’ll kill her and let you see the price of offending me!”

Anwen’s expression changed swiftly. His eyes lit up, and the two-meter sword appeared in his hand as he stepped in front of the young girl.

“Are you looking to fight me?” The Demoness’ voice was frosty. “Anwen, you should know the consequences of angering me. I might’ve wanted to give her a clean death before, but I think I’ll start by chopping off her arms and legs now.”

“You can do what you want after you kill me.” The glint in Anwen’s eyes grew brighter.

The Demoness contemplated for a moment. “Do you think I don’t dare to kill you?”

“No, I’ve always known that you do whatever you want, but today, I will have you understand one thing. Not being able to defeat you doesn’t mean I’ll let you humiliate me!”

Each of Anwen’s words was powerful and resonating. The Demoness’ demonic energy was clearly fluctuating as well.

“Are you so unafraid of death because of her?” The Demoness’ voice became a bit calmer. Anwen was surprised because this was her state of extreme anger.

“It has nothing to do with her.”

The Demoness was skeptical. A demonic thread suddenly appeared around Bai Kongzhao and wrapped around her neck. This thread was so sharp that it could even wound Qianye’s body. Removing the girl’s neck was all too easy.

Anwen clenched his teeth, but instead of rus.h.i.+ng to save Bai Kongzhao, he raised his blade and thrust straight at the Demoness. Several complicated diagrams appeared on the blade’s edge during this process.

The latter smiled coldly—several demonic threads appeared as she swung her hand, quickly forming an intersecting meshwork between her and Anwen. What she didn’t expect was that Anwen would ignore the net and crash straight into it!

Blood and demonic energy flew in all directions as several wounds appeared on Anwen’s body, as well as a three-by-five mesh pattern on his face. His hair also fell into disarray with cut ends drifting off everywhere.

He was charging straight into the attack. The demonkin were never known for their physical tenacity, so he was immediately injured. If it weren’t for Anwen’s extremely high-grade demonic energy, this net would’ve sliced him into hundreds of pieces.

Raging flames erupted in Anwen’s eyes as he thrust his sword into the Demoness’ mist just like before.

A m.u.f.fled groan appeared from the mist as the smoke dispersed, revealing the Demoness’ true appearance. Anwen’s long sword had stabbed through her abdomen and out from her back. The Demoness’ blood formed sparkling pearls which started entangling with the demonic energy on Anwen’s blade.

Being run through by a sword seemed bad, but this was acceptable damage to an expert at their level. How lethal the injury was would depend on the contest between demonic energies.

The Demoness grabbed Anwen’s neck and said word by word, “I can destroy you completely if I want to!”

Anwen was fearless. “And I can deal you a final blow before my death. You’re right. I may not be your match, but you can also forget about becoming a great dark monarch after killing me.”

The Demoness looked at Anwen carefully, almost as though she didn’t recognize him. “You really are fearless of death. Why, is it because of her?”

“You’ve asked me this too many times,” Anwen replied with a wooden expression.

“That’s because you’ve never answered me.” The Demoness wouldn’t let go.

Anwen merely snorted, not willing to say anything more. This made it clear that he wasn’t going to give her a straight answer. The Demoness also stopped talking and just stared frostily at him. The duo thus fell into a deadlock therein.

Bai Kongzhao was gazing at them from below, and no one knew what she was thinking.

Eden rushed over at this point and was stunned.

“You two… T-This…” Eden was at a loss for words. These two were, after all, supreme existences for all the demonkin.

“Exchanging pointers.” Anwen was expressionless.

The Demoness also nodded.

“I’ve lost.” Anwen retracted his demonic energy and long sword.

The Demoness didn’t make a further move. She relaxed her grip and allowed Anwen to walk free. The moment that long sword left her body, her figure once again became shrouded by demonic mist, and no one could see her wounds.

Anwen produced a dose of demonic medicine and inhaled it.

There was also a cloud of demonic energy swirling around his body, but unlike the Demoness, it couldn’t hide him entirely. There was no need, either, because Eden had already seen everything clearly when he arrived.

The intersecting b.l.o.o.d.y lines on Anwen’s body were quite appalling. They were as thin as a thread, but each of them was extremely deep. One dose of demonic medicine wasn’t enough to treat this kind of injury.

Eden produced two more medicines and pa.s.sed it over quietly. Anwen inhaled them one after the other. These medicines were top-grade materials they had gotten from the Eternal Flame before entering the Great Maelstrom.

Anwen’s countenance looked much better after inhaling three medicines, and the terrifying b.l.o.o.d.y lines began to fill up. The Demoness, on the other hand, remained hidden inside her mist. She couldn’t leave, but she also refused to make an appearance.

Eden coughed awkwardly, “Erm… since you guys have finished sparring, we should get to business. Should we continue staying around the Constellation Well if we can’t catch Qianye? Should we just let the vampires and arachne stay behind? They can do whatever they’re willing to.”

Eden had already discovered that the one entering the well would be extremely vulnerable and had no way to retaliate against attacking enemies. That was why he felt that there would be no great benefit in staying behind. On the contrary, their risk would increase with each pa.s.sing hour since this was an imperial resource and other human experts could appear.

Besides, the vampires and arachne had been studying this secret for some time and possessed tools suitable for their race. The demonkin only learned about this matter very recently. Even if they could produce origin blood, the results would be fairly mediocre. There was really no need to stay behind and help the other two races.

Anwen shook his head. “I’ve largely understood the principle behind refining origin blood. The material involved isn’t important. What’s truly critical is the star power condensed during the process. Yes, let’s just call it star power for now, but what we see down there aren’t real stars. At the very least, they’re not what we think they are. As for why they appear so, why they would adopt the form of stars, that’s a fairly meaningful question. I have a feeling that our understanding of the universe will increase by leaps and bounds if we study this phenomenon.”

The Demoness cut Anwen short. “I have no interest in your theories, get to the point.”

Eden also looked unenthusiastic. To him, practical combat strength was the basis of every action. After all, he didn’t have peerless talent like Anwen and the Demoness.

The young lord shook his head with a sigh. “The point is that these stars each represent power of different attributes. Perhaps the smaller, ordinary ones might be difficult to tell apart, but the special ones—the biggest, brightest ones for instance—definitely carry extraordinary power. This meant that one could condense different origin blood depending on the targeted star. Even if the blood rod and spider egg aren’t quite suitable for us, we can still refine origin blood that would be of great help to our race. All we need to do is target the right stars.”

Eden inquired, “Will that help us?”

Anwen nodded. “Origin blood can upgrade a bloodline from two aspects. One is by strengthening its advantages, and the other is to supplement its shortcomings. For instance, it can help us by strengthening our physiques.”

The Demoness was somewhat moved.

Demonkin secret arts weren’t strict on physical requirements, but it was clear that those with stronger const.i.tutions would have the advantage in battle. Qianye, for instance, was able to charge past the Demoness’ interception by relying on his st.u.r.dy physique. That was also the deciding factor when he had dueled Anwen.

Even the Demoness couldn’t refuse a stronger body.

Eden frowned. “How do we find this star, and how do we absorb its power after finding it?”