Volume 4 – Perpetual Conflict, Chapter 46: An Old Tradition
William shook his head and said, “All sacred-blood races must be the same in your eyes. But, in fact, the relations.h.i.+p between the four great races are quite complicated. Take Nana for instance, did you guys think she rarely took part in battles because she was busy cultivating?”
“It is indeed so.” Qianye nodded. His impression naturally came from imperial army doc.u.ments.
William drew a deep breath and said, “The truth is actually different. Cultivation isn’t important to Nana. The only things that can increase her strength are battle and slaughter. She’s been fighting against us for the greater part of the past ten years. It was precisely because of her emergence that our ancient Silverback tribe is on the verge of extinction.”
This was surprising news to Qianye.
The Silverbacks were an old werewolf tribe with over a thousand years of history. They were recently quite low-key and rarely made any appearances—who would’ve thought they were on the brink of extinction in a war against the vampires.
“Won’t the summit of peaks intervene?”
William stretched his legs, switched to a different sitting position, and sighed. “This is a feud between the Silverbacks and the Mammon family. We currently have no right to get involved. Once we interfere, it will give the other vampire clans a reason to join the fight.”
This was the dark race’s old tradition of blood feuds—they not only existed between different races, but also within the same species. It was just that Qianye had only found out that such conflicts were no less bitter than their war with the daybreak faction.
That was also why the werewolves could hardly tolerate the emergence of another Nana even though the chances of producing an ancient bloodline awakener was quite low. There were seven such purple blood crystals. Up to this day, they had already used five of them and failed to produce an awakener with the Mammon bloodline. The one in Zalen’s hand was one of the two crystals that had drifted outside.
Although Zalen himself possessed only mediocre talent and bloodline power, he was a pureblood—both his paternal and maternal lineages were quite strong. Bloodline awakening and strength inheritance couldn’t be determined with conventional reasoning, and as such, the werewolves weren’t willing to take this risk. On the other hand, Zalen had kept the fact that he had obtained this blood crystal a secret from his race, giving the werewolves an opportunity they could exploit.
Qianye continued to gaze at the bonfire in silence.
William felt it was odd and asked, “Why aren’t you talking anymore?”
Qianye replied indifferently, “Since you’ve told me so many secrets, I reckon you’re going to silence me soon, right?”
William raised his brow and began to laugh maliciously, “Yes! Yes, indeed. But, I can give you a chance. You have to work for me! For instance...”
He laughed resplendently and even patted Qianye’s shoulder. The latter didn’t dodge, but his eyes turned extremely cold.
William then continued, “For instance, keep on using the Twin Flowers! Ha, every day the gun stays in your hands, is another day of vexation for that old thing Ross. And whenever I see that old thing unhappy, my mood will become especially good!”
The tense atmosphere, much like a punctured balloon, was thus immediately deflated. Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, Qianye said unceremoniously, “It"s just a grade four origin gun. Soon, I won’t be able to use it anymore.”
William rubbed the short beard on his chin and said, “So, you don’t know how to use it yet!”
Qianye was somewhat startled and naturally quite puzzled. He had never encountered the wear of incompatible origin power while using them, but it seemed there was some other meaning to William’s words.
William pulled out the Twin Flowers from Qianye’s waist and released his powerful suppressive might, accompanied by the illusion of a large golden wolf in the air. He then brought his arms together until the guns were adjacent to each other, whereupon an unusual phenomenon ensued!
The origin arrays on the guns lit up in sequence as the origin power radiance formed the outline of two beautiful and even somewhat bewitching flowers. The flowers, blooming in opposite directions, began rotating in the air until they faced each other. A layer of patterns emerged on each gun at the moment of contact, wherein an undecipherable rune would light up with the fall of each petal.
Before Qianye’s eyes, the Twin Flowers merged into a double-barreled handgun.
Each of the gun’s two barrels shot out an azure origin power bullet just as the last petal from the two illusory flowers fell. The projectiles merged in the air and collided with a giant tree hundreds of meters away.
The giant tree completely vanished amidst an earth-shattering explosion, leaving a deep pit dozens of meters in radius. Everything on the ground was wiped off to reveal a deep brown-colored soil with red rocks mixed in.
The firepower of a grade-six gun! The original appearance of the Twin Flowers was a double-barreled gun?
William’s aura gradually receded. He once again separated the Twin Flowers and turned them back into the two revolvers.
William tossed the Twin Flowers to Qianye and said, “See it? That’s the true Twin Flowers. It’s an antique of the Monroe clan—it’s said to have once belonged to a certain duke and that there were certain secrets hidden within,” at this point, William casually shrugged and said, “but all these named guns claim to have stories and secrets.”
Having said that, and seeing Qianye trying to combine the two guns, William couldn’t help but say with a laugh, “It’s no use. Why else do you think Ross’s descendants didn’t use it? Without the activation of a suitable bloodline, you’ll need to be at champion rank or higher. And not just any ordinary champion; you might be able to do it in a few years.”
William hadn’t even finished speaking when a layer of scarlet mist appeared around Qianye’s body with specks of golden light hovering within. These motes of light suddenly burst into flames! Within the searing light, a pair of radiant wings began to unfurl and soon reached its peak.
The two illusory flowers condensed upon the guns didn’t fall this time. The petals began to burn as the guns merged together and then shot out two blood-colored origin bullets. The projectiles similarly merged as one and struck a nearby patch of shrubbery.
A deep pit appeared on the ground after the explosion subsided. It was even somewhat deeper and larger than the one William had produced with his shot.
“This, this isn’t normal,” a stunned William mumbled while scratching his head subconsciously. He then began to size up Qianye, “Your bloodline…”
Qianye himself was absolutely shocked. He had originally wanted to give it a try and didn’t even hold too much hope of success. He knew it was probably due to an incompatible bloodline that the descendants of the Monroe family weren’t able to use this gun. In order to use origin power to forcefully activate this gun, he would likely have to be at William’s level to obtain decent selectivity and cost to performance ratio.
The initial feeling he got was indeed so. He sensed that a terrifying amount of origin power was needed to merge the two guns, and that the requirements had far exceeded his current ability. But just as he was about to give up, the pair of little wings on the dark golden blood energy suddenly expanded and unfurled, whereupon the obstructive force in the Twin Flowers vanished, allowing him to fire a shot that could easily wound a champion.
However, the great firepower came at a steep price. This single shot had drained the greater half of his origin power, and his blood power was drained significantly by the dark golden blood energy as it spread its wings. And this was under a condition where his origin power intensity and purity were far superior to those at the same rank. Any other person under the champion rank might not be able to succeed even after being sucked dry of all origin power. Even so, the might of this single shot came as a delightful surprise to Qianye.
After Qianye came to, he saw William sizing him up thoughtfully and couldn’t help but feel alarmed.
William shook his head and said, “I remember when I first saw you, I thought you were a newborn from a certain vampire clan. It seems human bloodlines are even more complicated than the ancient sacred-blood clans. How odd!”
His last words were referring to a common consensus that was reached since the War of Daybreak. The reason the dark races kept on kidnapping, buying, and breeding human bloodline seedlings was partly because they wanted to study this strange phenomenon.
“Did you spare me back then because you thought I was a vampire?” asked Qianye.
“Oh, no, it’s because you were so weak that even slapping you to death was too much trouble,” William replied honestly.
Qianye frowned. “You’re truly frank.”
William’s gaze once again turned to the meat roasting on the bonfire. The ribs and legs had turned a golden yellow and seemed nearly done. He inhaled deeply and said delightfully, “Of course, the delicious food was also an important factor.”
Qianye went silent for a moment and said, “It’s quite strange for a werewolf to like cooked food.”
The smile on William’s face froze momentarily.
The two spent the night there. The next morning, Qianye was quite surprised after waking up because he hadn’t expected himself to actually fall asleep. But with William around, the vicious beasts of the wilderness dared not approach. The night was especially peaceful.
He opened his eyes to see that the female werewolf, Aya, had already returned and was currently speaking to William.
William came over after they finished their discussion and said, “I’m headed toward the Tulip Bazaar. We best go together if we’re headed in the same direction.”
This so-called Tulip Bazaar was, in fact, a grey city between Zhao clan and dark race territories. Such cities were also scattered across the borders on several other continents, and the only difference was their scale and the content of their trade. They would trade in anything they could get their hands on in the area, completely ungoverned by law and order.
Qianye asked, “What happened?”
There were many problems on Zalen’s corpse. The most evident was the way he had died, and how his essence blood was drained by a blood absorption weapon. William didn’t seem to suspect Qianye even after listening to the female werewolf’s report, but there seemed to be some other unexpected discoveries.
William thought about it for a while and said, “Agents from the Evernight Council were already there when Aya arrived at the scene.”
Qianye nodded and then frowned. It was naturally good news that William hadn’t found out his secret, but he wasn’t quite certain if his methods in erasing traces would work against agents of the Evernight Council. Regardless of the little girl’s actual ident.i.ty, Qianye didn’t wish to bring her extra trouble.
“I recall seeing a red crystal pendant yesterday among Zalen’s possessions.”
Qianye brought the item out. After examining it for some time, William found an unremarkable symbol at its base. “So it’s the work of Master Weber! Qianye, give this to me, and I’ll give you this in exchange.”
William brought out a deep blue velvet pouch and tossed it toward Qianye. After opening it, Qianye found that it was filled with blood crystals, a couple dozen of them. A werewolf was actually in possession of so many blood crystals—it seemed William’s target in coming to this mountainous area wasn’t just Zalen.
“Who’s master Weber?” Qianye was curious.
“A prophet from the Evernight Council,” William laughed, “this should be a map. I can’t open this thing, but if I can find someone who can, I’ll know just what they’re up to in this area. However, this is an internal affair of the Evernight n.o.bility. You’d best pretend you never obtained such a thing.”