Volume 2 – Bloom of the Other Sh.o.r.e Flower, Chapter 49: Small Victory
The clash between Qianye and the vampire warrior was extremely fierce. It was as if the two of them had been glued together!
Qianye’s left bracer had clamped down onto the vampire warrior’s longsword, already dented and deformed by the impact. The edge of the sword had instead cut into the vampire. Qianye roared again, using his whole body to shove that vampire warrior, sending him staggering backward!
This severely shocked all of the vampire warriors, and their combined-a.s.sault strategy, which had originally been tightly-knit, collapsed.
They found it utterly inconceivable for a vampire to take on a human of the same rank in a straightforward clash and lose!
Qianye had been waiting for the exact moment their formation fell apart like it did just now. He immediately struck the vampire warrior in front of him, sending him flying for several dozen paces. At the same time, his hand-axe struck out like lightning. Failing to defend himself with his sword in time, the vampire warrior was cleaved through with a single stroke from his shoulder through his chest.
Without pausing, Qianye stretched out his left foot in another direction and whirled about, throwing the vampire warrior that had been charging at him from behind into the air. That vampire smashed directly into another vampire that had been rus.h.i.+ng at Qianye from the side, and the dull thud of flesh striking flesh resounding through the air.
By the time the two of them separated from each other, Qianye jumped into the air, firmly landing while the vampire warriors all collapsed where they stood, one after another.
The vampire elder’s eyebrows furrowed tighter and tighter as he watched Qianye. This human was thin, but the tremendous power that he exerted far exceeded even elite vampire warriors! Additionally, he was incredibly vicious and merciless to enemies, often reaping a life with a single stroke.
The vampire elder didn’t want to lose any more of his subordinates. He pulled out his own sword and activated his blood energy. The blade of his sword slowly became translucent and began releasing a roiling red glow as it began to quietly shriek.
He gestured for his subordinates to s.h.i.+ft into a defensive formation and then began to walk toward Qianye. However, the moment he took a step, he suddenly felt waves of weakness wash over him. As if his body had suddenly been pierced full of holes, his pulsating blood energy instantly drained away. His hands became weak to the point that he couldn’t even wield his sword, and it fell to the ground with a bang!
The vampire elder was in for a huge surprise. When he looked down, his face went extremely pale in silent shock!
With the strong const.i.tution of a vampire, the wound on his arm should have clotted long ago. Not only had it not yet clotted, it was bleeding even more profusely than before. The wound throbbed, constantly leaking b.l.o.o.d.y dark purple pus. The muscles surrounding it were visibly rotting and falling away!
A vampire’s blood was normally bright red and filled with an potent life force, but the b.l.o.o.d.y dark purple liquid that flowed from the wound was filled with the stench of death and decay.
As soon as he smelled it, the elder fell into a daze. He instantly understood what was going on and weakly cried, “Poison! Deadly poison!”
The vampire elder shook uncontrollably and then fell over head-first, unable to stand any longer.
Disbelief filled the vampire warriors encircling Qianye. Some of them wanted to leave the formation to go over check on the elder, while the rest of them s.h.i.+fted into defensive positions, panicking over whether or not they should attack him.
In the middle of their confusion, Qianye pushed forward and seized every opening, exploding with all his strength and killing two in a flash.
The battle was over in the blink of an eye. Qianye had completely butchered through the entire team of vampire warriors. Since they were putting their lives on the line, these vampire warriors were also quite difficult to deal with.
Wounds covered Qianye’s body, constantly seeping with blood and steam. The flesh and blood around them were charred black.
The longswords of this group of vampires were engraved with origin power arrays. Darkness origin power could be channeled into their blades and used to harm their enemies. Qianye’s injuries were a direct result of this Darkness origin power. Qianye knew from experience that these injuries were the most troublesome kind. If he didn’t clear himself of Darkness origin power, then the wounds would never heal. Furthermore, the longer that Darkness origin power remained in his body, the worse his injuries would get.
The wounds hurt like mad, but this kind of pain stimulated Qianye’s nerves instead, making him more and more excited. Qianye just felt like all of the blood in his body was about to boil over. Excitement and an intense thirst blended together, giving him a feeling of insanity.
The corpses of the vampire warriors were strewn across the ground, blood still flowing from them. Thick blood energy rose into the air, shrouding Qianye’s nose. Qianye subconsciously took a deep breath of it and instantly knew that things had gone wrong!
The smell of the fresh blood agitated his consciousness, and all of the blood energy in his body began to boil!
The intense thirst instantly overwhelmed all of Qianye’s senses, and when he could no longer hold his breath, he took in another breath of the blood-tinged air. It was as if he were a man dying of thirst that had just drunk a mouthful of sweet, sweet water or a man who had never touched a woman and was now embracing the love of his life. That instant of satisfaction and euphoria made Qianye release a soft moan.
Qianye pounced onto the corpse of a vampire warrior and opened his mouth wide, prepared to bite down on its neck!
All of a sudden, deep within Qianye’s consciousness, a voice began to continuously cry out in an attempt to stop him. This voice was very weak, but abnormally stubborn, and neither the hunger nor the euphoria were able to completely drown it out.
At this precise moment, the scent of corrosion wafted into Qianye’s nose, immediately ruining his appet.i.te. Qianye raised his head to see that the vampire elder had stood up at some point. He brandished his sword in both hands, about to chop downward at Qianye!
Qianye sprang up without a word and slammed directly into the vampire elder, grabbing him by the neck and lifting him high into the air!
Blood energy, both purple and gold, boiled up inside of Qianye. Like a fish leaping out of water, blood rushed to his head, increasing his physical strength by yet another level.
In the world where only one thin layer of Daybreak origin power was left untouched, the silhouette of a black sun faintly appeared from the void. It looked like it would break through the screen of Daybreak at any moment. Yet the two origin powers continued to resonate, engulfing every corner with b.l.o.o.d.y chill and tyranny.
He exerted his left hand without hesitation, crus.h.i.+ng the spine of the vampire elder to pieces! He slowly released his grip and watched the vampire elder’s corpse fall to the ground The feelings that had been roiling inside of him were finally released, and he gradually calmed down.
This vampire’s body gave off an increasingly rotten smell. Qianye knelt to the ground and flipped the body over, examining the injuries on the arm. At this point the wound had already decayed thoroughly, revealing the white bone underneath it. The elder’s skin had taken on an abnormal purple-green pallor, and black blood constantly leaked from his mouth.
The vampire elder had been too careless in relying on his body’s own resilience to endure against Qianye’s origin bullets. However, there was a thread of blood energy, each one of the origin bullets that Qianye manufactured, which was highly effective against dark races. This was especially the case for vampires since they had turned their blood into a form of cultivation. The effects were even more p.r.o.nounced.
Qianye suppressed his thirst for blood and began to inspect the battlefield. The thick blood energy still gave off an intense aroma, and for Qianye, it was just like being in front of a feast but being unable to eat. After that werewolf totem mission, Qianye had already realized that his own vampire nature allowed him to suck blood to recover. In spite of this, he still refrained from sucking blood regardless of its source.
All of the longswords that the vampire warriors had used were high quality products. The blades had been carved with origin power arrays that were specifically designed for the use of Darkness origin power. If Daybreak origin power were channeled into one of the swords, it would experience a loss in power, but if put up for sale on the black market, it would still sell for a lot more than a normal weapon.
These longswords would at least fetch ten gold pieces each, but in the heat of battle, more than half of them had been damaged by the tremendous force of each clash. Only two remained intact.
As for the longsword that the elder used, it was ornate and even more finely-crafted than the others, the absolute best of the best. Qianye tested the sword, and when he channeled origin power mixed with blood energy into it, the blade’s edge flashed with a thick b.l.o.o.d.y aura! This sword was surprisingly even stronger in his hands than the elder’s.
Yet when Qianye weighed the blade in his hand, he felt that the sword was simply too light and immediately disliked it. He returned it to its sheath, and continued to search the elder’s body, finding a grade two origin power handgun and a fine leather pouch containing several crystal coins. The elder’s body even had a leather breastplate, another masterwork with an origin power array carved into it.
Qianye naturally wasn’t above taking these sorts of spoils, and he rapidly stripped them from the elder. As for the vampire warriors whose armor didn’t have origin power arrays, Qianye wasn’t as keen.
Overall, Qianye ended up plundering six origin guns. The elder’s was grade two and the rest were grade one. Aside from that, he also got around fifty crystal coins, the elder’s set of armor, and three origin power longsword. Upon stripping the vampires of their fangs, he finished cleaning out the battlefield.
Qianye looked at his backpack, which was fit to burst. This was his first time experiencing the pleasures of just how much loot that killing others and taking their property yielded. When he was still with the Red Scorpions, spoils of war would be processed by headquarters, and soldiers would be given points according to how well they did in battle. Back then, various types of training and cultivation materials require vast amounts of points, so Qianye was almost always poor. Most of the points he earned went to the improvement of his strength.
Now Qianye could exchange all of this loot for resources, specifically precious medicines that could increase the speed of his origin power cultivation. Although his cultivation of the Combatant Formula was already rather fast and had reached the Fighter King rank, he also needed to cultivate origin power for more than just one reason. He cultivated to gather Daybreak origin power, but he also cultivated origin power to serve as food for his blood energy.
Blood energy had caused earth-shattering changes within Qianye. A vampire’s night vision and physique all extremely useful, and a stronger body also helped Qianye cultivate the Combatant Formula even faster.
Since blood energy had already become a part of his body, Qianye could only acknowledge it.
After quickly cleaning up the battlefield, Qianye looked at the crash site of the Red Scorpion airs.h.i.+p, suppressing his surging feelings. The little rookie was the sole survivor, lucky to escape from the squad that the vampire elder had brought along. There were definitely more powerful members of the dark races active nearby.
Qianye originally wanted to take revenge against this small vampire squad on behalf of the Red Scorpion soldier, and with a little luck, he had managed to eliminate all of his enemies in spite of the serious injuries he sustained. This allowed him to cool his head a little. After all, missions the Red Scorpions undertook never had easy opponents, and this was all he could do with his current strength.
Qianye scanned the battlefield one last time. Then he turned to leave, running into the wasteland.
Not long after he left, around ten vampire warriors began appearing atop the cliff.