All of a sudden, Qianye’s aura rose sharply and almost reached its peak in the span of a few breaths! The intense blood energy even seeped out of his body and formed a faint armor of blood around him. Qianye had finally activated the Book of Darkness at the critical juncture! The blood energy stored within the book gushed out and brought Qianye’s physical condition to its peak.

Following a deep grunt from Qianye, the Oceanic Vortex burst forth once more and suppressed Elder Wei’s domain in one fell swoop. Qianye’s arms waved about like lightning during this short gap. A cl.u.s.ter of origin grenades soon appeared in Elder Wei’s vision, a vast number of them in fact!

Hundreds of origin grenades danced about in the air, covering the entire battlefield. Elder Wei glanced about to find the entire area filled with origin grenades, including the area around Qianye! This cut short Elder Wei’s notion of charging toward Qianye in search of a safe area. On the verge of life and death, he actually couldn’t find a safe place!

“Is he looking to die together!?” Elder Wei thought in shock.

Unfortunately, he had no more time to think. The sound of explosions reverberated throughout the mountaintop. Countless streams of fire converged into a giant ball of flames which rose hundreds of meters into the air before turning into billowing black smoke!

Elder Wei realized something the moment those fierce flames arrived, “That brat’s body is so strong. He’ll survive this, but I won"t!”

Elder Wei made to launch a fierce attack at Qianye, but his spirit was badly shaken at this moment. As it turned out, his domain had been blasted apart by the explosion, and the attempted operation only inflicted heavy injuries on himself.

Finally, the flames died out, and a large but shallow pit appeared on the mountaintop. It was a hundred meters in diameter and over a meter in depth, with little crystalline granules glittering within. These crystals were condensed under the high temperature of the origin flames.

Qianye was half-kneeling at the center of the pit, all curled up and covering his head. The combat robes on his body had been reduced to ashes and his skin, burnt black, almost like a charred corpse.

Qianye moved slightly as a gust of cold wind blew past. He attempted to stand up, but this little movement caused his skin to split apart, revealing the new, pink flesh beneath. An expression of pain emerged on Qianye’s face, but he clenched his teeth and stood up. By the time he was standing straight, there were dozens of lacerations on his body. It was a shocking sight to behold.

If Qianye hadn’t recovered to his peak state, he might not have survived that round of explosives. His current injuries were only surface wounds—most of them would contract after exuding a few drops of blood. Apparently, he wouldn’t even need one full day to recover. There was some blood energy remaining in the Book of Darkness, all of which he absorbed to accelerate his recovery.

Then, Qianye turned toward Caroline.

The divine champion bit her lips, her heart full of hesitation. She was very clear that the current moment was her best chance if she wanted to kill Qianye. Otherwise, even if Qianye wasn’t her opponent, she had no way to stop him, either, if he were to escape with Spatial Flash.

If she couldn’t kill Qianye right away, the one on the run would be her if one day he became a divine champion.

But there was something inexplicable stopping her from killing Qianye.

Many emotions flashed through Caroline’s heart. She gripped her whip tightly, and then loosened her hand once more.

Qianye was the first to speak, “Aren’t you going to attack?”

“If I make my move, you’ll be dead.”

Qianye laughed out loud, but the movement tugged at his wounds and forced him into a grimace. An origin grenade suddenly appeared in his hand. “That’s not a certainty. Why not guess how many hand grenades I have in my hand?”

An idea popped up in Caroline’s mind, but she stretched out a single finger, saying, “One”

Somewhat dazed, Qianye shook his head with a wry smile. “Fine, let’s just say I have only one. Why not try me and see?”

Both this single grenade and the hundreds from before had appeared out of nowhere. Caroline never saw where they had come from. Apparently, Qianye had some kind of spatial equipment on him—yet another heavenly-monarch-level item. It was shocking how this little Qianye actually possessed so many heavenly monarch powers on him.

Caroline’s emotions were complicated. She took a step forward and locked onto Qianye with a wisp of killing intent. As the two killing intents faced off against one another, Caroline felt as though her heart was p.r.i.c.ked with a needle. This was her intuition toward mortal peril, her true innate talent. Throughout the years, she had relied on this power to crawl out of many dangerous situations and finally became a divine champion.

Caroline was astonished. She hadn’t imagined that Qianye would have more tricks up his sleeve capable of threatening her.

Qianye stood quietly, secretly feeling quite helpless. It was impossible to deal with Caroline at the moment, but he did have a single Shot of Inception that he could use if she were to attack. At that time, he could empower his rifle with the Wings of Inception and Lethal Strike, and then fire the Shot of Inception. This attack would gravely injure Caroline if it hit, but using so much energy would also exhaust Qianye and kill him on the spot. Hence, this method of mutual destruction was his last move.

However, Caroline didn’t come closer. “You killed my brother. Don’t you think you should pay a price if you want me to back off?”

Caroline’s att.i.tude wasn’t what Qianye had expected. It was naturally the best outcome if a fight could be avoided. Qianye made a prompt decision and said, “What kind of price?”

Caroline sighed lightly. “There are many things bad about Hu An, but he had a dream—that was to obtain a piece of land on the central continent that he could pa.s.s on to future generations. Now he’s dead, but I want to help him fulfill his wish. My price is a piece of land on the central continent, preferably in the empire.”

Qianye frowned. This request wasn’t easy to complete. Caroline herself was a divine champion, so the land going to her had to be fitting of her status. He couldn’t pick a small territory from a random baron or marquis to fool her.

It had to be a county’s worth of land at least on the main continent or Western Continent, enough to support an aristocratic family. If the land was on a border region, it might have to be two counties in size.

Qianye gave it some thought and said, “I can promise you, but you must also take action at the critical moment.”

“That’s a given.” Caroline nodded.

In the end, they came to an unexpected ceasefire in such a manner. Qianye naturally wouldn’t let go of this opportunity. Whether or not this Caroline’s words were sincere, he had to make good use of this time to recover.

“I need to rest and recover.” With that, Qianye left for a secluded place, activated his blood core, and began healing his injuries.

Caroline walked around the summit on her own, the stone hall being the focus of her exploration. She also saw the words left behind by the Pointer Monarch, but just like the stone tablet from before, she couldn’t feel or comprehend anything special.

After a while, Qianye walked into the stone hall as most of his injuries had healed. Caroline was observing the four braziers at the corners of the stone hall in great detail. She looked back and saw that Qianye’s charred skin was gone, replaced by the unnatural pink of newly grown tissue.

“You recover quite fast.”

Qianye smiled. “I’d be dead otherwise.”

Caroline pointed toward the door of the stone hall. “That’s something the old man brought along and paid great attention to along the way. It might have something to do with the thing left behind by the Pointer Monarch, do you want to take a look?”

Qianye followed the direction of her finger and found a heavy crate at the corner. There was a complicated and intricate array on the chest that could operate normally even in the neutral lands. Apparently, the material used in building this container was fairly high-grade. The crate itself was of outstanding value, to speak nothing of its contents.

Qianye was in no rush to open the box. “Why not keep it for yourself?”

Caroline said indifferently, “Firstly, what the old man thinks highly of might not be useful for me. Secondly, this thing is probably related to the Pointer Monarch, so I don’t quite dare to take it. Of course, if there’s anything useful to me inside the box, I want a share of it, too.”

Now that was more reasonable. Qianye gave the divine champion a nod, and after confirming that there were no traps on the crate, he pressed on the lock mechanism and slowly opened the lid.

Caroline observed from the side. She was at least a bit curious about Elder Wei’s treasure.

The lid moved smoothly and finally opened up in its entirety. There was an extremely intricate-looking machine inside shrouded in an eerie blue light. Through its semi-translucent casing, Qianye could see that the smallest components were the size of a hair. If it wasn’t for his superb eyesight, there was no way he could even see its construction clearly. The machine was carefully clamped in place by a dozen firm grippers. There was also an entire row of sealed boxes embedded into one of its side-walls.

Qianye and Caroline glanced at one another, not knowing what this machine was used for. Their knowledge of origin machinery was only limited to weapons, but this one didn’t look like an origin gun component, either.

After a moment of contemplation, Qianye picked up one of the sealed boxes. The container was extremely heavy, causing Qianye’s hand to dip slightly upon picking it up. The box contained a silver spherical body—Earth Dragon’s blood. He inspected the other sealed boxes and found the same blood in all of them, eight drops in total.

Caroline wasn’t quite interested in the unidentified machine, but her eyes lit up when she saw the Earth Dragon’s blood. “This is very important to me, I want at least three drops.”

Qianye pa.s.sed her three drops of Earth Dragon’s blood without the slightest hesitation. There was a fragile alliance of sorts between them at the moment. To be honest, Qianye still didn’t know why Caroline would let go of her enmity. Her demand was indeed quite high, but it wasn’t too hard for the two of them to seize a piece of land if they worked together. Naturally, an opportunity to close the gap couldn’t be missed.

Afterward, Qianye found a thick booklet inside the box, with instructions about how to install the machine. Caroline moved closer to study the material together with him. They exchanged glances after reading for a while. It turned out that the machine inside was a half-completed engine!