Volume 4 – Perpetual Conflict, Chapter 45: Purpose
William’s body was completely knocked over with a loud boom, and he was even seeing stars as he flew through the air. It was as if an ancient giant beast had slammed into him.
After stabilizing himself mid-air, he saw that Qianye had borrowed the momentum of this clash to fly backwards. The latter leapt away right after landing and was already dozens of meters away.
“Am I that scary? Why are you running away as soon as you see me!?”
Qianye’s steps faltered and he almost tripped. He only felt a cold intent brush past his back. This kind of aggrieved tone was similar to the more mischievous children from his mercenary corps who refused to be content without secretly drinking some alcohol. He must’ve been hearing things!
Following which, Qianye felt a fierce wind kick up from behind him as a ten-thousand-kilogram force pummeled through the air. [1] He rapidly calculated the speed and strength—he knew full well that it was absolutely impossible to escape from a dark race warrior at William’s level from within 100 meters.
Qianye drew a deep breath and came to an urgent halt. Only when he sensed the vague pain from the incoming fist winds did he make a sharp turn and swing out his elbow. He suddenly entered a wondrous state of awareness. It seemed as if he was carrying a stone thousands of kilometers in weight on his arm. He had to utilize his full strength while swinging, but became completely different after gaining momentum.
With William’s eyesight, he had long since noticed that Qianye’s movements were, at times, uncoordinated. It was just that the latter’s almost clumsy strike gave him an inexplicable feeling, and it was actually a feeling of… danger?
William would rarely get such a feeling even if his opponent was a champion of the same rank. Curiosity welled up in his heart as he s.h.i.+fted his fist stance and threw a similar elbow toward his opponent. This time, he had sufficient time to react and thus added some more power into his strike.
The two elbows collided!
Bangs echoed through the air as their arms clashed countless times with each other within an instant. Within that split second, all the origin nodes within Qianye’s body began to vibrate as an origin power tide extended to form an indomitable wall that crashed toward William.
This time, William felt a bizarre oscillation from the exchange of elbow blows which forcibly dispersed some of the energy he had condensed therein. He was once again knocked flying after an exchange of blows.
He was still grabbing onto his pants and was unwilling to let go even as he was flung away with his upper body leaning backwards.
Meanwhile, Qianye only took half a step back before he lunged forward, grabbed William’s ankles, and instinctively shook his hands. Qianye’s origin nodes all lit up and vibrated at the same time as the numb sensation brought about by the weird oscillation spread throughout William’s body.
The latter screamed as his whole body fell from the air and smashed heavily onto the ground. Qianye frowned and stomped down on his opponent. His leg-raising movement wasn’t fast at all, but the air suddenly began to vibrate and let out buzzing sounds as if a giant hammer was coming down.
Originally, William was lying nonchalantly on the ground. But now, he was completely shocked and no longer dared to hold back. A leg whipped out like lightning, accompanied by a stream of blue origin power.
Qianye let out a m.u.f.fled groan as his defenses were penetrated by a burning darkness origin power and his whole body was flung away.
Spirals of smoke could be seen rising on the endless gra.s.sy plains. Qianye and William were sitting beside the bonfire as two boar legs and two large racks of boar ribs sizzled away on the flames, their golden yellow fat dripping onto the flames and permeating the whole place with fragrance.
A furious William was scolding Qianye, “I finished off several Lone Ghost a.s.sa.s.sins for you out of kindness and you repay me this way? Someone as kind as I…”
Qianye was attentively rotating the skewer in his hand. His ears moved a little after hearing the words, and he felt the flames in front of him grow a bit hotter, almost causing sweat to drip down his forehead.
“In any case, I’m someone who’s helped you before! We can ignore the fact that you didn’t even greet me after our meeting, but look at how you treat me! Do you not feel guilty about that last stomp?! You!” William was drenched in cold sweat after recalling Qianye’s underhanded final move.
The force behind that attack had already reached the champion level despite Qianye being a rank seven fighter. No matter how strong William’s body was, some places were still quite fragile and definitely couldn’t take a champion-level blow.
Qianye moved his hand and tossed a large rack of boar ribs toward William.
William’s eyes immediately lit up. He caught the incoming food and wolfed it down without any fear of burning his mouth. He wasn’t quite content even after that and had his eyes on the almost-done boar leg, his greyish blue eyes actually glowing with a green l.u.s.ter.
The sweat on Qianye’s forehead finally seeped out. He helplessly shook his head as he applied a final layer of seasonings and roasted it a while longer before tossing all the remaining legs and ribs toward William.
William laughed heartily and was somewhat embarra.s.sed, but his mouth didn’t slow down in the least. Nearly 50 kilograms of meat was swept away like scattered clouds in the wind.
Qianye shrugged, feeling quite speechless at the fact that this dark race count who had once intimidated a whole squad of high-ranking vampires was such a glutton. He began working on the remaining slab of ribs and the boar’s hind legs. One could easily tell, after seeing William’s gigantic wolf form, that a single boar wasn’t quite enough.
Only after devouring the greater half of the roast meat did William free his mouth to chat with Qianye.
“Lone Ghost’s target should be you. I’ve killed two, including the one just now and I also found a Lone Ghost corpse in the mountains.” William opened a bag which the female werewolf just delivered and poured out a pile of small items. “These things were collected from their bodies. Take a look yourself.”
Qianye nodded and, after placing the seasoned meat onto the flames, began to rummage through the items. In addition to some portable and suppressed weapons, there were all kinds of equipment for traveling in the wilderness. There were also Lone Ghost a.s.sa.s.sin ident.i.ty tokens, but there was nothing special about them.
William then opened a map of the Blue Dream Mountain Belt and pointed to the approximate places where the a.s.sa.s.sins were encountered.
Qianye’s heart shook after observing in detail—Lone Ghost really was targeting him. These places seemed unrelated at a glance but, barring the official highways, all of them were points he had to cross if he wanted to head toward Zhao clan territory. As for the reason why they were waiting for him on the Western Continent, it was likely related to the item Song Zining had entrusted him to deliver!
Qianye raised his eyes and saw William’s head buried in the food. “Why have you arrived here?”
William revealed a greatly satisfied smile after swallowing the last piece of meat and said, “Originally, I was just pa.s.sing by when I saw some people chasing you and thought I’d say h.e.l.lo,” his eyes s.h.i.+fted to Qianye’s waist, “but after seeing this gun, I think my objective might have something to do with you.”
Qianye looked down and found that William was referring to the grade six origin gun he had acquired from the vampire viscount.
“This gun is called the Thorned Lariat,” William said meaningfully, “and it belongs to one of the 13 ancient clans, the Byrnes clan. Currently, it’s serving as Viscount Zalen’s weapon.”
Qianye nodded and replied calmly, “He’s already dead.”
William squinted his eye and suddenly extended his hand toward Qianye. “Give it to me!”
“What?”
“Since you’ve obtained the Thorned Lariat, his other belongings should also be in your possession, right?” William said with a chuckle, “Don’t worry, I don’t care how he died. I originally rushed over to the Forgotten Mountain Range because I received news that Zalen had come here and wanted to get rid of him in secret.”
Qianye believed the greater part of this reason because there was enmity between certain werewolf and vampire tribes that could be traced back tens of thousands of years. That was an era far in the past that written records were spa.r.s.e and only legends remained.
“All the items Zalen has on him along with the items from the Lone Ghost a.s.sa.s.sins will go to you. I only want a certain blood crystal,” William drew out the approximate size with gestures and added, “it’s not a pure-colored blood crystal. There should be some strands of purple mixed in.”
Qianye immediately understood that William was referring to the crystal he had already absorbed. It had a number of live purple blood energy within.
He replied without any change in expression, “I did obtain some items but there isn’t anything among them that fits your description.”
Qianye grabbed his backpack over and took out the Scarlet Edge, the pouch of crystal currency, the red crystal pendant, and the black t.i.tanium bullet of annihilation. “Just these.”
William picked up the items one by one, examined them, and put them back down. He frowned as he said, “Tell me where you found Zalen. I’ll have Aya go and take a look.”
Qianye recalled the map of the Blue Dream Mountain Belt and, after some thought, pointed to the deep ravine where he had thrown Zalen’s corpse into. It was completely meaningless to give William fake news because, as kings of the mountains, it was only a matter of time before the werewolves would find traces of the vampire viscount.
Aya was the female werewolf who was following William. Qianye had no idea how the signal was sent—Aya appeared very soon and left again in a hurry after memorizing the map.
Qianye thought for a while and began to probe. “If it’s a blood crystal, perhaps Zalen has already absorbed it.”
William let out a wry laugh and said, “Impossible. Zalen would never dare to absorb that thing without an elder nearby. It isn’t just any blood energy inside that crystal. It contains a powerful bloodline from a direct descendant of the Mammon family. Not to mention an ordinary viscount, even a count might not dare to attempt an absorption so rashly.
William paused momentarily and then said solemnly, “This piece of blood crystal, if used on a suitable candidate, might produce another Nana.”
“Nana?” Qianye was astonished.
The empire had records of all the powerful dark race characters, and Marquis Nana was also included in this list. Hailing from the Mammon clan, Nana rose to become a mighty marquis before the age of 100. She was considered a genius as 100 was still considered underage for the long-living vampires race.
Nana had entered this list not simply because of her rank as Marquis, but, most importantly, due to her combat prowess. During several great battles in the past, Nana had eliminated half of the enemy forces on her own and thus established her b.l.o.o.d.y fame.
To many of the empire’s experts, they would rather face a vampire duke than fight against Nana.
If the vampire race was able to produce another Nana, this wouldn’t be good news at all for the empire. She was a terrifying combat genius who might ascend to the rank of prince within the next 100 years. If such a person were to mature, it would signify a disaster for the experts of the human race. Fortunately, Nana didn’t take part in battles that often, otherwise, the casualty list on the human side would be even longer.
However, Qianye couldn’t help but ask after seeing William’s serious expression, “Isn’t it a good thing for your race if the vampires gain another Nana?”
[1] Precise calculation: 1 jun = 30 catty = 18000 kilograms.