[V6C154 – Sorrow of a Silent Parting]
Qianye staggered and spat out a mouthful of blood.
There was golden brilliance burning in it, accompanied by floating crystalline granules and strands of black energy. This wasn’t just auric flame blood—it also contained a fair amount of crystallized daybreak origin power and a mixture of black energy from unknown sources.
But this mouthful of blood ejected the fierce impact in Qianye’s body. He felt much better after the expulsion, and his boiling origin power and blood energy gradually calmed down.
Gazing at the vast, misty forest, Qianye gave up on chasing after Bai Kongzhao.
During this ambush, Qianye had only sensed Bai Kongzhao only when the latter launched her attack. It was evident that this young girl had the ability to conceal her presence in this eerie forest, and it wasn’t inferior to his own. Even her vision was probably comparable to his.
At this moment, Qianye’s body was once again sent into turmoil and another mouthful of blood sprayed out. Even his internal organs were showing some signs of damage.
Qianye was greatly astonished. At first, he thought his excessive cultivation in the recent days had left behind some sequelae, but now, it would seem that there were other reasons. He quickly suppressed the abnormality in his body and left in due haste. Only after reaching a safe place did he dare stop to inspect his condition.
Qianye was astonished after finding out what was wrong. The blood energy and daybreak origin power in his body were rejecting a peculiar wisp of essence blood—Bai Kongzhao’s blood.
Qianye had gotten so used to killing these days that he would habitually draw blood whenever he used his vampiric blade. Hence, a small part of Bai Kongzhao’s essence blood had flowed into his body through the vampiric blade.
The real problem was with this essence blood.
All the essence blood Qianye had absorbed in the past—regardless of race and species—would be crushed by the Song Clan Ancient Scroll. Even if they weren’t completely refined on the spot, there had never been a problem due to the suppression of the dark golden and purple blood energies. Qianye almost couldn’t tell whether the blood was from a human, a dark race member, or a beast.
However, Bai Kongzhao’s essence blood was different. The aura it gave off was like a flaming star—both his daybreak origin power and dark golden energy would erupt upon contact and lose control entirely. It was as though they were going all out in an attempt to destroy the power being emitted from that essence blood.
However, the dark golden blood energy and venus dawn that used to firmly suppress darkness and daybreak origin power respectively could hardly exert their power now. They were never able to destroy the few wisps of weak aura, and on the contrary, their reaction increased in intensity until the blood energy and daybreak origin power started conflicting in Qianye’s body.
The most powerful blood energy was the dark golden one. It was at the same level as his daybreak origin power which appeared in the form of Venus Dawn. The two of them were the top powers of each attribute, so the destruction caused by the clash between them was extremely violent. It inflicted injuries on him almost immediately.
Qianye had never imagined such a scenario. He exerted great effort to lock down a strand of the Bai Kongzhao’s essence blood with his Eye of Truth and scanned it repeatedly. He discovered that the contents were fairly odd—it was like a c.o.c.ktail of many different origin powers with an attribute that fell between daybreak and Evernight.
Moreover, it was the exact opposite of pure and more like a collection of impurities and toxins. Even the impurities the Book of Darkness had spat out when it was first fed with essence blood seemed a bit purer than her origin power. This also meant that Qianye absorbing her essence blood was akin to devouring a strong poison comparable to Black t.i.tanium.
There was naturally a solution once the root of the problem was known. Qianye chose the crudest and simplest method, spitting out yet another mouthful of blood and expelling Bai Kongzhao’s remaining aura along with it. This added more injuries to his wounded body, but this type of simple damage was easier to recover from. He would be fine after half a day.
He couldn’t help but feel a tad curious about how Bai Kongzhao had cultivated such an origin power. Not only did her body not collapse, but she even broke through her bottleneck and stepped into the champion rank.
Qianye continued back to the base after recovery. He believed the girl, with her b.e.s.t.i.a.l instincts, wouldn’t appear before him again. Bai Kongzhao wouldn’t even be able to escape once she had been locked onto by Spatial Flash.
The journey wasn’t too peaceful. Qianye encountered two more battles in less than half a day, but he pa.s.sed quietly by since the empire’s side had the advantage in both of them. Worry surfaced in his heart, however, because the strength and frequency of Evernight attacks were clearly increasing. It would seem that they had made much progress in the void and in open battles, allowing for more forces to enter the Misty Wood.
The environment here wasn’t suited for large battles since a stretched battlefront could be easily whittled down by an expert with superior range. A thousand-man squad was already the limit.
But the area was located around the central caverns, and the neighboring warzones were all strategic points that had to be contested. Presently, the Evernight side was employing a large number of small squads to bleed the empire and finally suppress the Li family.
As expected, Qianye encountered the third battle before half a day had pa.s.sed. This time, the battleground was less than ten kilometers away from the base—it could be said that the enemy was almost at the doorstep.
When Qianye arrived, the empire was being beaten back and the situation was dire. The human combat squad had only a couple dozen men left and were barely holding out under the cover of the giant trees. Meanwhile, there were hundreds of dark race soldiers forming a loose encirclement around them. The formation was fairly neat, and the soldiers were attacking one wave after the other.
The encirclement existed only on three sides and the fourth was almost empty, yet the beleaguered soldiers seemed to have no intention of breaking through from that point. Clearly, there was a great danger in that direction.
His guess was soon proven as a series of brief gunshots arrived from that direction. A human soldier was sent flying and his body was torn apart in the air.
Qianye was shaken. It was actually a rare origin machine gun! Few people were willing to use origin machine guns because the consumption rate was outrageous. But one had to admit that the burst of destructive power from an origin machine gun was indeed overwhelming—even handheld cannons were somewhat inferior.
That fellow using the origin machine gun was quite brutal, throwing his enemies into the air with a whip of fire and las.h.i.+ng them into pieces. His origin power seemed bottomless. He had already torn three soldiers apart, yet he seemed to have no intention of stopping.
The survivors weren’t weak at all but simply had no chance in the face of such an opponent. The only difference was how long they could struggle against him.
Qianye knew he had to do something about this. He thus circled around the battlefield and sneaked toward the gunman. Very soon, the target came into view—a tall and st.u.r.dy-looking werewolf with a terrifying machine gun as big as a small tree-trunk. He was firing on his feet, spitting out streams of flames from the gun muzzle.
From the firing distance, one could see that this fellow’s visual range was over four hundred meters, only slightly inferior to Eden. An expert like this was undoubtedly terrifying in the Misty Wood.
Qianye produced Thunderbolt and, without the slightest hesitation, pressed a Refined Silver Bullet of Extreme Yang into it. A gunshot rang out like rolling thunder and echoed through the thick mist. However, the timbre faded extremely fast and could hardly be discerned after several hundred meters.
The refined silver bullet tore through the air and blasted the target’s body apart. Not to mention a werewolf count, even an arachne count wouldn’t be able to take a refined silver bullet loaded with auxiliary abilities. If this shot could hit a vital area, there was no doubt that the werewolf would be gravely injured. And there was virtually no difference between injured and dead when fighting against Qianye in the Misty Wood,
However, the werewolf’s brown hairs all stood on end when the bullet was several dozens meters from him. His eyes immediately turned bloodshot as he turned toward the incoming projectile.
Tens of meters would take no more than a brief moment for a powerful sniper round. The werewolf count let out a loud roar as black-green origin flames leapt up around his body and actually pushed the mist apart. Then, he threw a fist straight at the incoming bullet!
It was as though a small, golden sun had risen in the Misty Wood. The fierce daybreak origin power was akin to rolling waves of fire which washed over the werewolf’s body. The strong, near-liquefied origin power produced green fumes upon contact and even burst into flames. The werewolf’s bare body was quickly charred black and large patches of his origin power were also extinguished.
The werewolf was in so much pain that he let out an earth-shattering roar. Qianye could hear him clearly despite being five hundred meters away.
Qianye’s expression was cold. He loaded a second Refined Silver Bullet of Extreme Yang and fired right from the hip. He knew that the first round had failed to injure that count and that the wound to his arm was merely surface damage.
The second shot was fired so quickly that the werewolf had no time to evade—neither was he expecting it. He threw the origin machine gun away and crossed his arms in front of his chest in a bid to resist the incoming attack.
Yet another golden sun erupted. This time, the intense flames of daybreak origin power were more focused and even nearing white-point as they spilled over the count’s body.
The werewolf’s armguards shattered, and his entire body was pushed back several meters by the blast. His legs dug two deep trenches in the purple substance, revealing the deep brown soil underneath.
The werewolf count was in full combat stance. There were golden flames of daybreak origin power flickering upon his brown fur, yet he didn’t make a single sound—only the fangs extending out of his mouth made known the fury in his heart.
Qianye was somewhat surprised. This was the first time he had seen someone shatter a refined silver bullet with his fist and block a shot with his body.
In terms of const.i.tution alone, this werewolf was simply too strong, far stronger than any dark race count Qianye had seen before. Not to mention demonkin and vampires, even arachne counts like Stuka who possessed an innate advantage in terms of physique were grossly inferior. Perhaps only William of the Summit of Peaks would be comparable.
However, Qianye noticed that the enemy’s left arm had been twisted into an unnatural angle. Clearly, the bones there had shattered.
Without the slightest hesitation, Qianye fished out yet another Refined Bullet of Extreme Yang and loaded it into Thunderbolt. If the enemy wouldn’t go down in two shots, then he could just fire three or four times until the enemy’s defenses had been broken.
The werewolf stared intently in Qianye’s direction before howling at the sky. With a single movement of his hand, the origin machine gun that had fallen to the ground returned to his grasp. Afterward, he simply turned away and disappeared quickly into the mist. Following his howl, the attacking dark race soldiers also receded like the tides.