Volume 4 – Perpetual Conflict, Chapter 7: Enticement
The blood knight sobered up from his intoxicated state moments later and resumed his calm demeanor. He began to observe the surroundings, trying to judge the origin of this blood drop before heading toward the dead horned snake in the end.
The pensive blood knight hurriedly walked to the snake carca.s.s, picked it up, and inspected it in detail. As expected, he saw traces of blood on the snake’s horn as well as its bulging abdomen. Apparently, it had eaten not long ago. This finding made the vampire especially delighted.
The blood knight hurriedly drew his dagger and cut open the snake’s abdomen. As expected, it was full of blood! It was fairly fresh and even slightly warm. He immediately poured all the blood into his mouth but wasn"t quite satisfied. In the end, he simply ate the snake whole and spat out its horn.
After enjoying this rare delicacy, a satisfied expression appeared on the blood knight’s cold countenance. He raised his head and gazed toward the direction in which Qianye had left. His eyes had completely changed into a scarlet color, infused with dense blood energy.
This human, as frail as a speck of dust, was someone he had even deemed too troublesome to kill because there was no clean water here to wash his hands afterward. But now, it was different—how far could a prey run after being bitten by a horned snake?
The blood knight put on his hood once again and slowly faded into the mist as he hurriedly chased after Qianye.
He traveled swiftly and covered several kilometers in the blink of an eye. But contrary to his expectations, he hadn’t caught up to the human. The traces left behind by the other party seemed, as before, like a person on the verge of a gradual death after being wounded. He couldn’t even hide his tracks very well.
Doubt flitted across the blood knight’s mind. The horned snake’s venom was highly toxic—even high ranking vampires would need to use fresh blood power to dispel the poison or else they would be in mortal danger. Only powerful demonkin would be able to ignore its venom. But how was a mere human able to hold out for so long? Could it be that he was a true herbalist?
The blood knight suddenly let out a miserable shriek and fell head first into the mars.h.!.+ At this time, he was being tormented by an inexplicable agony from within his abdomen. It felt as if countless bugs were biting at his internal organs! What made him panic was that the blood energy within his body began to boil uncontrollably, locked in an intense battle with a certain blood energy that had suddenly appeared along with the onset of the pain. It seemed the two sides were struggling to take control of his body.
The blood knight grasped at where his heart was and opened his mouth wide, but he didn’t even have the strength to cry out due to the intense pain. The shock in his heart was indescribable—these signs clearly indicated a battle between two bloodlines for control over the body. This would happen only when a vampire was injected with the essence blood of a supreme bloodline.
The blood knight knew that his blood lineage couldn’t be considered glorious, but it was at least a leading middle-grade bloodline. But he was actually being suppressed by an external bloodline without its originator nearby and was even at a disadvantage in this struggle. This meant that the bloodline that had entered his body had to be at least a genuine supreme bloodline!
Such powerful supreme bloodlines could be counted on one’s fingers even among the whole vampire race. The blood knight truly couldn’t recall when he was bitten by a pure-blooded vampire.
Additionally, the d.a.m.ned bloodline conflict had actually flared up at such a time!
It was as if the blood knight’s mind was struck by lightning—he immediately recalled that horned snake and the deliciously fresh blood within. Suddenly, his whole body went ice-cold!
A trap! This was the blood knight’s first thought. However, he immediately rejected the notion himself.
The blood knight absolutely refused to believe the person he had been tailing was of the same race with a powerful bloodline. Oftentimes, the suppression of bloodline superiority was stronger than that of personal ranking among the vampires—if the other party was indeed a descendant of those few clans, he only needed to reveal his ident.i.ty and the blood knight would surely concede provided that they had no prior enmity. He simply couldn’t imagine the reason for laying down such a trap.
The other possibility was that he had encountered a man-made fresh blood “receptacle”! At the thought of this, the blood knight’s greed surfaced once again and let go of the thoughts he just had about fleeing.
Similarly, fresh blood from a vampire of a supreme lineage was extremely precious to humans. With this fresh blood, complemented by certain rituals, they could secretly engineer a new vampire race.
Although the humans and the dark races were irreconcilable on the surface, humans had always yearned for the dark races’ lifespan, especially the vampire race’s. There were bound to be certain major characters who were afraid of death, for fear of losing their power and influence. They would, at the end of their lives, use various unscrupulous methods to continue living, and becoming a vampire was, of course, one of those methods.
It would be an unexpectedly wonderful meal for the blood knight if that young man who had drifted to this abandoned land for unknown reasons was indeed a fresh blood receptacle being raised for such a purpose.
The blood knight’s abdomen was still in agony as if it was being twisted. The entangling external blood energy flowed throughout his body with every pulse of his blood vessel, bringing with it a similar soul-wrenching pain to every part of his body. The extreme pain made him lose his usual calm—he was now alternating between clarity and fuzziness.
It was during his absent-minded state that the blood knight saw a figure appear before him. It was the human he had been tailing.
Qianye stopped several meters away from the blood knight and didn’t approach him. The vampire race’s vitality was exceptionally strong. A counterattack on the verge of death was usually fatal. Even in the elite corps, there was no lack of precedents where people were counterattacked and killed by dying vampires.
Qianye drew his military knife and tossed it with force. The blood knight whose nerves had been paralyzed by the intense pain let out a low growl. He forcefully s.h.i.+fted himself but was barely able to move his vitals out of danger as the military knife pierced into his thigh with a pfft.
The blood knight was furious. He struggled to pull out the dagger and forced himself to produce a strand of blood energy before throwing it back at Qianye. However, his hand twitched at the last moment and hence lost his aim—the projectile only brushed past Qianye’s side.
Qianye laughed coldly as he approached the blood knight. However, a cold gleam suddenly flashed across the blood knight’s eyes. An exquisite pistol appeared in his hand as he abruptly sat up and aimed the weapon at Qianye!
The blood knight was injured with such a clumsy weapon by an insignificant human whom he didn’t even place in his eyes. This made him so angry that he was momentarily extricated from the intense pain and actually became sober in an instant. His gun hand was extremely stable—he laughed coldly and was just about to say something when he suddenly saw Qianye take a sidestep, moving several meters away and escaping the pistol’s aim!
This the motion and speed had far surpa.s.sed the blood knight’s expectations. At this moment, a sense of extreme danger gripped his nerves. He produced an origin power grenade, but he couldn’t toss it immediately because they were already too close and the blast would likely injure himself. He only wanted to intimidate this human of odd origins and grasp the opportunity to counterattack during the latter’s retreat.
However, the blood knight saw a dagger appear in Qianye’s hands. Its appearance was extremely refined and elegant, a cla.s.sical vampire style weapon. Its decorative patterns began to light up like a living being under the activation of origin power.
The blood knight had already been surprised more times during this short period than several past years combined. That dagger looked like the legendary Radiant Edge, the favorite weapon of a certain marquis that had reportedly fallen into human hands.
Afterwards, the blood knight saw the human slash out from where he stood. The distance between them was at least a couple of meters. He wanted to laugh—was this human scared silly? The Radiant Edge was indeed a champion level weapon, however, a human certainly wouldn’t be able to exert its full power, not to mention a mere rank six p.a.w.n.
The blood knight stopped thinking too much. He pulled the finger he had on the trigger with the weapon aimed at Qianye’s thighs. There were simply too many secrets on this human—just his fresh blood containing the aura of a supreme bloodline was enough reason for the blood knight to take a small risk and attempt to capture the former alive.
However, the blood knight’s finger wasn’t able to pull the trigger to its firing position in the end. In his enlarging pupils, he saw the Radiant Edge’s patterns all lighting up as a dazzling light suddenly erupted from the dark red blood energy—a scarlet blade radiance was shot toward him!
Impossible! How could a rank six human produce blade radiance!?
As Qianye’s blade slashed out, a blade radiance emerged and rapidly grew to over a meter before sweeping past the blood knight’s throat. Following which, a silver-haired head flew into the air!
Apparently, the blood knight’s fresh blood power was in chaos. The blood s.h.i.+eld he had congealed gave way upon contact and was easily cut through by the Radiant Edge. Even the inherently st.u.r.dy vampire body was easily cut apart like paper.
Qianye swiftly rushed out and kicked the blood knight’s hand holding the grenade. He then flicked it with the tip of his toes and sent the grenade flying far into the distance.
A ma.s.s of surging flames appeared accompanied by a loud rumble. The raging flames rose up tens of meters into the air and were extinguished only a while later. Even though he was dozens of meters away, the violent shockwaves still sent Qianye flying. He only regained his footing after being flung over ten meters away.
Qianye crawled up from the mud and only dared to approach the center of the explosion after the energy fluctuations in the area died down. There was now a huge pit over a dozen meters in diameter where the origin grenade exploded, and some crystalline granules had even appeared at its base.
Qianye was shocked—this grenade appeared ordinary, but its power had far surpa.s.sed his imagination. Were he at the center of this explosion, he would be blown to smithereens even if he had a more powerful vampire const.i.tution. No wonder the blood knight held it in his hands without throwing it. It was fortunate that Qianye noticed this small detail and didn’t try to take the grenade out of greed after killing the blood knight.
Judging from its might, this was actually a champion level grenade! Even ordinary vampire grenades were extremely precious.Champion level ones were even rarer, so such an extent that this was the first time Qianye had personally witnessed its might.
Qianye gazed toward the headless corpse of the blood knight that had been flung to another side by the shockwaves from the explosion and couldn’t help but feel some curiosity toward his true ident.i.ty.
Someone who could carry a champion level origin grenade definitely wasn’t of simple origins. And the reason for such a character appearing in the marshland was even more thought-provoking.
Qianye arrived beside the blood knight’s corpse and noticed that the blood flowing out from his wounds had already turned dark and putrid, accompanied by a somewhat scorched odor. Conceivably, the blood, flesh, and internal organs of this blood knight had been corroded and burnt to a certain degree.
Witnessing this scene, Qianye understood that him being able to kill such a vampire expert was apparently because the trap he had laid down previously had taken effect. However, this blood knight actually didn’t show any external abnormalities while he was alive. The corrosion only appeared when his fresh blood power was no longer able to suppress the toxin after his death. This indicated just how strong he was, but unfortunately, he didn’t get the chance to exert even one-tenth of that power.
Qianye began to search the blood knight’s body, and moments later, even he was shocked at the bountiful harvest.