Anwen pointed at the starry sky below. “Look, it looks like there are countless stars in the well, but the number is actually finite. There are more stars that lean toward daybreak and less toward Evernight. That was not an issue before, but I just found out that these stars don’t recover. While condensing origin crystals, the humans activated a large number of smaller stars. I thought it was because they weren’t strong enough, but it seems they’re doing it deliberately.”
“You mean they’re trying to sweep through the small ones first, so that the others can sense the higher-ranked stars?”
“Indeed.”
Those descending into the well would have to deal with the constant gravitational power at the bottom of the chasm while trying to sense star power and draw upon them. Even people like Edward and Eden would find it quite taxing. The more smaller stars there were, the greater the interference, and the more difficult it would be to communicate with the larger ones.
Neither Basil nor Edward had cleared away the smaller stars on purpose. Eden also focused on sensing the bigger stars, and only accepted the smaller ones in pa.s.sing. The smaller stars on the empire’s side had grown a fair bit thinner now that several experts had cleared them out.
“What do we do then?”
Anwen replied, “It’s nothing difficult. Anything humans can do, we can do as well. We’ll focus on clearing the smaller stars tomorrow, then you and I will take action. Our progress is but one day slower.”
“Good idea.”
Anwen said, “I’m looking forward to what kind of origin blood the dark star can condense.”
“The dark star, huh? I’ll sate your curiosity.”
Anwen smiled. The Demoness seemed extremely confident when she said those words.
Evernight’s candidate the next morning was rather surprising. It was actually Twilight.
Twilight was a leading character among the younger generation of the vampire race, but she was clearly inferior to Anwen and the others. It wasn’t even sure if she could condense origin blood in the well.
Comparatively, the three vampire marquises might be a better choice. Their talents might be inferior to Twilight, but they had cultivated long enough and possessed greater blood energy capacity.
But since Anwen had decided thus, no one found it appropriate to object. They only watched as Twilight descended into the well.
Twilight rushed out of the well in just half an hour because she could no longer hold out. Naturally, the condensation process was a failure.
Anwen’s expression was neutral. He simply brought the Evernight crowd back to camp without blaming Twilight.
This time, the Empire’s side dispatched Zhao Yuying. As Duke You’s direct descendant, the girl’s talent and cultivation weren’t bad at all. She also possessed ample combat experience and strong willpower. She started wiping out the smaller stars after entering the well, and although not in the hundreds like Li Kuanglan, she managed to take out several dozens and came back with an origin crystal.
Of course, absorbing the smaller stars meant that the crystal’s quality wasn’t too good, and it barely reached the medium-grade. Despite that, Zhao Yuying had accomplished her mission—nearly half of the smaller stars had been cleared away, and the difficulty in sensing the larger stars had decreased noticeably.
Seeing Zhao Yuying’s performance, Anwen contemplated for a moment before sending Basil in again. The arachne had actually gone in three times now. With a naturally voluminous origin power and strong body, he was no doubt the best candidate to sweep away the smaller stars.
Basil didn’t refuse, either. After all, an arachne origin blood would be produced every time he went down, which could only benefit him and his race.
After arriving at the bottom of the well, Basil spat out a large spider web that stuck to every part of the s.p.a.ce therein. These webs acted as nodes and began activating the numerous stars nearby.
Basil quickly swept clean hundreds of smaller stars and at a rate that surprised even Anwen. The latter nodded in satisfaction, deciding that he would descend the well personally tomorrow and try to communicate with the bigger stars. As for the dark star, it wasn’t that he was lacking in ambition, but the timing and method for that was extremely important. He would need the support of meticulous calculation and greater demonic energy capacity.
The day’s compet.i.tion ended there. It seemed like the humans had the advantage on the surface, but the Evernight side wasn’t too far behind because there were fewer stars of the darkness attribute.
Dawn arrived, and Song Zining took to the field from the Empire’s side. He waved his fan gently several times before folding and slapping his palm with it. Then, he leaped into the well.
He was surrounded by dancing leaves and beautiful scenery during his descent—truly elegant, carefree, and romantic.
Anwen watched Song Zining’s ostentatious display with cold eyes and was, for some reason, filled with a sense of uneasiness.
Song Zining soon came to a stop in the well. The increasing cloud of leaves expanded in all directions, almost as though they would cover the entire Constellation Well.
The Evernight experts sneered at the great fanfare. Song Zining had activated more than a hundred small stars in one go, and the number was rising fast. At this rate, it wouldn’t be a problem for him to draw upon three hundred smaller stars. The problem was that he would need one portion of origin power for every star he drew upon. Song Zining wouldn’t have that much origin power even if he were to become a divine champion.
This great momentum would result in a difficult ending that he wouldn’t be able to avoid even if he were to stop now.
As expected, Song Zining could no longer hold out after half an hour and had to fly out even sooner than Twilight. The condensation process was a failure. However, he had activated close to four hundred stars, leaving the bottom of the well full of flowing star power that had been wasted.
Next up was Anwen’s turn to descend the well. His expression changed completely once he was inside.
The star power Song Zining had left didn’t disappear and was still surging inside the well. The speed of their dissipation was slower than antic.i.p.ated, and it seemed more than just a couple of hours was needed for the well to be clean again. Every stream of star power would produce interference, let alone hundreds of them—it was naturally quite distressing for the demonkin.
Most importantly, this star power wasn’t usable. Anwen couldn’t absorb them even if he could sense them because their energy leaned toward the daybreak side, and it would only bring the dark races harm. All that abundance was just an annoyance for him.
Countless complicated diagrams appeared around Anwen, encasing him entirely. The daybreak energy pa.s.sing through them would gradually lose their power, while the darkness attribute star power remained unaffected.
Anwen sneered. Trying to disrupt him with this cheap trick was a gross underestimation of the demonkin young lord. Anwen wanted Song Zining to know that him giving up the chance to condense an origin crystal did nothing.
After filtering out the daybreak star power, Anwen’s mind became as calm as still water. His perception spread out in all directions in an attempt to communicate with the larger demonkin stars.
Anwen’s target was neither the smaller or medium-sized stars; even the larger ones couldn’t completely fulfill his expectations. However, he took the stable route by focusing on a couple of large stars first, thereby ensuring a reward before he attempted to a.s.sail the dark star. If possible, he also wanted to try sensing the seven most radiant stars in the Constellation Well.
Anwen was quite confident in his abilities. He might not be the most powerful in terms of combat strength, but he was definitely one of the most intelligent. After several days of observation, he had uncovered a small part of the profundities of the well.
A single scan connected him to dozens of medium-sized stars, but that wasn’t his aim. It was merely a stepping stone toward his goal. He began calculating the location and flow of a group of medium-sized stars. A faint smile soon appeared on his face as a wisp of demonic energy stretched toward a large star whose power was beneficial to the demonkin race.
Qianye and Song Zining were standing shoulder to shoulder halfway up the mountain, the former’s eyes flickering with a blue radiance. Anwen’s demonic energy couldn’t escape his True Sight despite the great distance. Qianye’s brows rose as he observed the circuitous route—it would seem he had thought of something but wasn’t too sure.
Song Zining was full of praise. “Outstanding as expected! Look at that demonic energy. He has already accounted for the surrounding star power and gravitational forces.”
Qianye observed carefully. “His demonic energy is clearly intermittent, but it gives off a h.o.m.ogenous feeling as well. Why is that?”
Song Zining replied, “The power of those large stars is so majestic that it warps the nearby s.p.a.ce. We might be able to see them, but we’ll never get to them if we travel in a straight line. The arts from the Li and Ji families use our own origin power as the foundation to draw upon the power of the nearby stars. The problem is that they’re really quite pa.s.sive, absorbing whatever is nearby. Whether or not one can draw upon a large star is really dependent on luck.”
He paused for a moment. “Of course, it’s not entirely just luck. The higher one’s origin power quality is, the greater the attractive force, and the easier it is to activate the larger stars. Anwen’s method, on the other hand, is an attempt to row upstream to the source. He’s actually trying to crack the spatial distortions and directly communicate with the large stars. How ambitious!”
Qianye looked serious as Anwen’s demonic energy approached one of the large stars. “It looks like he’ll succeed.”
Song Zining smiled mysteriously. “That’s not certain! This young master wasn’t idle while staying down in the well.”
Qianye shot him a glance, not knowing what to say. Song Zining was the one who had stayed the shortest inside the well.
Anwen’s demonic energy was gradually thinning out as it approached the star, growing weaker at every turn inside the s.p.a.ce. Lasting up to this point was because of the high quality of his demonic energy, which was fairly close to pure darkness. More importantly, he had made meticulous calculations to minimize the weakening of demonic energy. Without this capability, he would never be able to reach any large star even if he had several times the energy capacity.
The demonic energy moved forward, successfully maneuvering two turns to arrive in front of the large star.
The smile on Anwen’s face became more obvious. Among the large stars beneficial to the demonkin race, this was one of the two easiest ones to communicate with. Success was currently in reach, and he still had demonic energy to spare. He might even be able to attempt a different large star after this. Origin blood condensed from the star power of two large stars would definitely reach the glorious marquis grade, and might contain a fairly good ability as well. This drop of origin blood would add a core fighting power to the demonkin race.
However, just as the demonic energy stretched out from a tricky bend, a ma.s.s of chaotic star power suddenly appeared from afar. It soon turned into a leaf, which flew in to intercept!