[V6C127 – Sorrow of a Silent Parting]

Qianye had already discovered during the last war that this world, especially this forest, was hostile to all outside life-forms. Back then, it was expressed more evidently in the form of the void colossus’ suppression.

The suppression had vanished at the moment, but ordinary creatures still couldn’t survive in this forest. For instance, an ordinary beast would collapse from exhaustion after a while and become nutrition for the forest.

However, the servspiders raised by the arachne appeared to be unaffected, and that was peculiar. Qianye hadn’t seen these palm-sized scouting servspiders before during the last war. Now that a large number of such low-level spiders had appeared, it was clear that the dark races had already figured out some of the secrets of Misty Wood and managed to dissolve a part of the forest’s hostility. If this guess were true, it would mean that Misty Wood was no longer a fair battlefield—it was leaning toward the dark races. In other words, the dark races had obtained the initiative in adapting to the forest. From the point of practical combat, being able to use servspiders meant that the dark races would have an edge in terms of preparedness.

Qianye sighed to himself; this wasn’t good news at all. Qianye’s superior vision was his greatest advantage in Misty Wood. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have chosen this hostile landscape as his battlefield. If he were to lose this advantage, the only thing left for him would be an arduous battle.

The servspiders would expand the dark race’s perception range, but at least for now, it would seem the warriors themselves hadn’t received any buffs.

Qianye waited in silence for a while. Only after the squad had vanished entirely did he calculate the distance and circle around to its front. There, he found a good sniping position to wait in ambush. He brought out Thunderbolt and proceeded to push a mithril bullet into the chamber.

As expected, the squad soon appeared through the distant mist. Qianye waited patiently. At less than five hundred meters, he didn’t even need to aim and merely relied on True Sight to lock onto a vampire at the center of the squad.

Judging from the intensity of his blood energy, he was likely a third-rank viscount. Although he wasn’t the leader of this squad, he was at least the commander of the vampire soldiers.

Qianye held his breath and activated Heavy Caliber and Accurate Shooting. Only when the bullet was enshrouded in a layer of origin power did he pull the trigger.

The thunderous timber of the sniper rifle broke the pervasive silence of the Misty Wood and spread to half the squad. The vampire had just activated his blood energy and was trying to figure out where the danger was coming from when a large hole appeared on his head—almost half his brain had been blasted away.

Qianye cursed inwardly. Although the shot had struck directly, the vampire viscount’s instinctive evasion had caused his vampiric fang to be blasted to pieces. Viscount-grade fangs didn’t just serve as proof of contribution but were also of great value in and of themselves.

Despite all of that, his movements didn’t slow down in the slightest. He loaded a new bullet and took aim at the arachne at the back who was evidently taller than his peers.

Another gunshot rang out. The arachne baron could hardly believe what had happened as it glanced down at the gaping hole in its chest and gradually collapsed. The arachne’s heavy armor had been pierced through by a single mithril bullet.

Qianye pushed in yet another round and moved the muzzle slightly before flames spat out from the muzzle yet again. This time, an arachne that was attempting to a.s.semble the troops fell down in response.

Thunderbolt rang out time and again. Qianye had fired ten rounds in the blink of an eye, felling a high-ranking warrior with every shot.

Only at this point did the dark races manage to confirm Qianye’s position. It wasn’t because they were slow to react, but because the servspiders remained unresponsive to Qianye. The warriors" senses were in chaos within the Misty Wood as most of them could only sense within a hundred meters—the gunshots sounded to them like they were coming from every direction.

But this squad was indeed well-trained. They began retaliating immediately after figuring out the trajectory of the incoming bullets. Countless origin bullets whistled through the air, forming streams of fiery light which badly damaged the treetop Qianye was hiding in. Many of the chambers were destroyed with dark yellow fluids flowing out from within.

But the dark races’ attacks didn’t trigger any response from the giant trees. There weren’t any beasts or midgets in the broken chambers, either.

While cursing at the forest’s preferential treatment, Qianye fired two more rounds and killed the two werewolf knights charging at the front. Only after that did he descend calmly and run into the depths of the forest.

Just a single a.s.sault had dealt ma.s.sive damage to the dark race. Qianye’s initial targets were all top-ranked warriors, including a third-rank viscount and a knight at the lowest. Although the ordinary warriors were unharmed for the moment, the death of most of their middle-ranking officers would inevitably lower their overall fighting power.

Qianye ran at a steady pace, allowing the pursuers to gradually catch up to him. At the foremost were dozens of werewolves, followed closely by vampires.

Qianye looked back with a cold smile. It wasn’t surprising that the werewolves made up the bulk of his pursuers since the bewildering forest affected vision and hearing more than it did the sense of smell. The only problem was that the forest would devour everything, so the smell would only linger for a while.

During a pursuit, however, the undispersed scent would become a guiding lamp, and this was the werewolves’ specialty. Comparatively, the vampires were a bit slower and thus gradually fell behind.

Qianye stopped all of a sudden and faced the incoming werewolves with the Twin Flowers in hand.

The dozens of werewolves were in their combat forms. Their eyes turned red, and their howls pierced through the mist as they suddenly discovered Qianye right in front of them! They didn’t have the time for careful thought and merely pounced at Qianye out of instinct.

A continuous stream of gunshots rang out through the Misty Wood. The different timbers of Mystic Spider Lily and b.l.o.o.d.y Datura weaved together to form a beautiful melody of death.

Using these two grade-five handguns wasn’t much of a burden for the current Qianye. He moved as quick as lightning. Lock, load, and fire—everything happened in one smooth flow. One could hardly see the movement of his hands through the hail of bullets. The charging werewolf elites fell in droves, all of them struck in the vitals, and were either dead or gravely injured.

Even the fierce and bloodthirsty werewolves couldn’t help but fall into chaos at this point, and their charge was disrupted momentarily.

Qianye quickly put away his guns, tossed out several vampire grenades, and left. The continuous explosions obstructed the pursuers behind him. By the time the smoke had dispersed, Qianye was already nowhere to be found.

Collapsed werewolves lay strewn across the ground. Most of the dead had fallen to gunshots, while the remainder were mostly injured by shockwaves from the grenades. A vampire baron walked over at this point. His expression was one of blatant disgust as he flipped the injured werewolves over with his sword to check their wounds.

Moments later, the inspection was completed. The vampire baron removed his blood-stained gloves in silence and tossed them onto the face of the dark brown werewolf at his feet. “Leave them all here.”

The injured werewolves snarled furiously. The surviving werewolves weren’t satisfied, either, and began encircling him.

The baron wasn’t lenient at all. His sword flew up all of a sudden and stabbed at the hearts of the two closest werewolves, grinding them to pieces with a twist of his hand. He then scanned the surviving werewolves with cold eyes and said, “Who else wants to die?”

The survivors were already few in number, and their leader had also been killed by Qianye. At this moment, all they could do was edge away from these vampires and howl in discontent.

The gravely injured were abandoned and would soon become nutrients for the forest. With their injuries, they could hardly control the leakage of origin power, and they would soon be drained by the forest. This wasn’t a problem one could solve with bandages. If they weren’t left behind, a portion of their group would need to split off and escort them out of the forest. Otherwise, death was the only outcome for them.

“Clean up the battlefield and set out immediately. You all should know the outcome if we don’t arrive at the destination by noon!” the vampire baron shouted thus and turned back toward the main squad with his subordinates.

Qianye hadn’t gone very far and soon arrived near this squad once more. He was going to chew this hard bone bite by bite. Compared to the forest, such an elite squad would be able to display several times more fighting power if allowed onto the battlefield.

Qianye didn’t climb onto a tree this time and merely hid behind the giant trunk. This deprived him of visual advantage but would allow him to leave the battlefield much faster. Their high-ranking officers were dead anyway, so the only thing left to do was whittle away at their strength.

Qianye’s movements were slow, gentle, and contained an odd cadence within. Even though he was gradually activating Thunderbolt’s origin array, the origin power aura only lingered around him and didn’t seep outward. This trick also stemmed from his Bloodline Concealment, allowing his weapon to also remain obscure.

The mithril bullet gradually heated up as origin power surged within the array. Very soon, the acc.u.mulated power had reached a critical point.

A thunderous rumble echoed once more through the woods as the mithril bullet left the chamber. This time, the vampire baron at the center of the squad hadn’t even heard the sound when his head burst into a b.l.o.o.d.y mist.

Qianye felt a similar pain at the loss of two more vampiric fangs.

He pressed another bullet into the chamber and got ready to strike another target. This time, it was an arachne knight, but there wasn’t much aiming to do against such a huge target. Thunderbolt swayed ever so slightly as the crosshairs locked firmly onto the arachne’s nucleus.

Arachne below the viscount level didn’t possess fully developed nuclei. Accordingly, their defenses were also far weaker than one with a mature nucleus. Qianye’s shot would badly injure the arachne as long as it could pierce through the heavy armor. And being injured in Misty Wood meant death.

A sense of extreme danger welled up in Qianye’s heart as the mithril bullet left the muzzle. He immediately leapt sideways without pondering deeper. However, his body had just started to move when a force akin a sledgehammer-blow struck his back. His entire body was flung out, and he couldn’t help but spray out a mouthful of blood in the air.

This blood was bright red and actually contained golden specks of light within it. The dense vitality immediately caused the surrounding purple substance to grow restless.

Qianye’s heart sank because he had actually spat out auric flame blood! It would seem his injury was grave.