Back when Qianye arrived at the source of the river the first time, he had seen the twelve seals lined up in a circle, as well as the shadowy creature roaming around them. Qianye was almost injured by it.
But now, the Morway clan’s seal had left the source of the river and was moving farther away. What did this signify?
Could it be as the Demon King had said? Had these vampires been tainted by daybreak origin power? But the Azure King was a veteran great dark monarch, someone who had been asleep for most of the recent millennium. How could he have been tainted?
Qianye came to no conclusion, so he simply kept going.
The river narrowed even more noticeably as the source came into view.
A stream of water was pouring down from the void into a pond, and the contents of this pond was gushing outward to form the River of Blood.
Qianye suddenly felt a sharp pain as he approached the source of the river. A moving shadow appeared through the void and transformed into a creature whose shape was difficult to describe. It charged at Qianye immediately!
Even with his current strength, Qianye was badly shaken. He drew the Red Spider Lily and waited solemnly for the enemy to come within range—this Grand Magnum was the most suitable weapon against this shadowy creature.
The giant shadow would be comparable to a void colossus if it were to appear in the Evernight World or the inner world. It was likely on par with the Sky Demon that had appeared back then.
Qianye edged back slowly when the giant beast appeared, putting some distance in-between. The creature didn’t move further, almost as though there was an invisible barrier restricting it.
It would seem that this creature was the guardian of the river source, one that would attack as soon as people approached. It would return to whence it came when the intruder was gone.
Now things were getting difficult for Qianye.
He wanted to investigate the source of the river, but he probably couldn’t go around this creature. Killing it might be even more difficult than killing a supreme.
The shadow creature might have some special weakness in the special environment of the river, but Qianye was also affected. He had grown too big here, which served to amplify his weak points and produce new ones. He might be stronger in combat if he could return to his normal size.
Qianye frowned. He wanted to try probing the enemy, but he didn’t dare act recklessly. In his current state, his attack power hadn’t changed, but his body had grown weaker. If the creature was in the same state, this battle between two glass cannons would immediately reach a conclusion.
Qianye had just become a great dark monarch. With Nighteye’s fate hanging on a thread, he simply didn’t dare take such a risk. The outcome would be disastrous if he were to fall here.
Just like that, man and beast stood facing each other at the source of the river.
During this stalemate, a lot of questions popped into Qianye’s mind. Why was he in the River of Blood? Why was he traveling upstream to the source? Everything seemed natural, but was it truly so?
What was calling out to him at the source of the river? Was this something fortuitous, or was this a trap?
Qianye had never wondered about all these things before. Perhaps one could say that he had never considered them as problems. He was, after all, a vampire, and vampires drew their power from the source of the river. Tens of thousands of years had proven this fact.
The river had existed for an unknown span of years. At the very least, its powers could radiate even to the inner world and touch the Attawa there. Just how long had the vampires been around?
The race had always relied upon the River of Blood, but this river may or may not have a direct relationship to them.
Besides, Qianye was only a half-vampire, to begin with. Now that he had cultivated the chaos origin power, he had transcended the current level of life just like Andruil. No matter how one looked at the situation, his vampire aspect wasn’t strong enough to decide his attributes.
So why was there such a connection between him and the River of Blood?
Was this a true connection, or was it a skewed illusion?
Thinking in this direction cast a hazy shroud on the things he had always considered facts. He frowned slightly as he tried to find a new train of thought.
It was at this moment that the sky was split open. A beam of fiery sword energy snaked through time and space to strike at the giant shadowy creature.
This slash set the massive shadowy creature on fire, almost like a spark that had fallen into a tank of fuel. The raging flames surged into the sky, reaching almost ten thousand meters high.
A soaring serpent merged from amidst the blaze, emitting an earth-shattering cry as it coiled around the giant beast.
Compared to this soaring serpent, the shadowy creature was much smaller. It couldn’t do much but scream in pain under the constriction and searing heat.
Everything happened so quickly that Qianye was left stunned. His eyes landed on the soaring serpent’s back, where there were two mounds of moving flesh. Judging from the way it was flapping, that was likely where its wings used to be. No one knew where it had gone, but the mirror-smooth cut surface indicated that it had been cut off with a sharp weapon.
The soaring serpent didn’t hold back. It bit fiercely into the shadowy creature’s body and spat out daybreak flames to burn the creature.
After the flesh it had bitten off had been incinerated, the serpent bit off yet another ruthless mouthful of flesh.
The shadow screamed and struggled, but it could do little against the serpent.
Qianye suddenly recalled the soaring serpent of the imperial clan. When did they manage to refine their totem to the point where it could manifest physically? Moreover, it seemed entirely sentient and intelligent. Even the werewolves who had worshipped their ancestors for tens of thousands of years never managed such a feat.
With this soaring serpent around, the Empire would’ve gained yet another heavenly monarch on par with the supremes.
Qianye was familiar with the sword radiance from just now. Although the might of that strike was far stronger than the heavenly monarch level, Qianye had no doubt that it was the Pointer Monarch.
No great dark monarch could’ve escaped from this strike!
Qianye remembered how the Profundity Monarch had sacrificed his origin crystal to injure Sousa, restrain the Wolf Ancestor, and scare off Progia. This would explain how this powerful sword strike came to be.
At this point, the soaring serpent had bitten off three chunks from the shadowy creature and obliterated the flesh. It seemed to be at an advantage for the moment, but Qianye had already noticed the changes.
The soaring serpent was born from the ignition of the sword energy. Although it could suppress the giant creature, the radiance was burning out rapidly and seemed like it would be snuffed out very soon. The shadowy creature was on its home turf, with wisps of shadow drifting in to heal its damage. At this rate, the soaring serpent would vanish before the shadow creature was gone.
The serpent glanced at Qianye and cried out several times, seemingly anxious and in a rush.
Qianye finally saw the serpent’s eyes.
“The soaring serpent roams the mist, footless but a master of flight.”
This was one of the rare records regarding the soaring serpent. Its actual appearance was fairly abstract and blurry. It was a totemic symbol more than anything.
It was only then that Qianye saw it clearly. Its head was similar to the Earth Dragon but with the beak of a hawk. Its two long whiskers danced about amidst the mist and fire. There were also dozens of eyes growing from various parts of its head.
And in these eyes, Qianye could see himself at various points in time.
One of them showed Qianye as a swaddled baby in the arms of a mysterious person, with blood seeping out of his chest. Others showed him flying through the sky or collapsing on the ground. There was also one where he was gazing at a girl who was about to smash him with a rock. There were reflections of him fighting bloody battles, those of him facing the Demoness’s ultimate blow. There were also images of him planting a flag and facing the entire Evernight army.
The scenery changed all of a sudden.
Different characters appeared in the soaring serpent’s eyes—Lin Xitang, Song Zining, Zhao Jundu, Zhao Ruoxi, Ji Tianqing, Li Kuanglan, Zhao Weihuang, and even Princess Gaoyi. Strangely enough, he also saw two unfamiliar babies whom he felt quite concerned about.
Numerous people from his memories appeared one after another, people he wanted to protect.
There were even people from Lighthouse Town.
All of a sudden, Qianye found it difficult to breathe from all the sentiments.
Where was Nighteye?
Qianye suddenly realized that Nighteye was not in any of these memories. There wasn’t Andruil, either, nor any character from Evernight.
This thought brought Qianye back to reality.
He discovered that he was holding the Red Spider Lily, and had just fired! The shadow creature shattered into countless pieces, which were duly captured into the conjured mirrors. The shadow’s true appearance was finally revealed in these reflections—its head had been split into several dozen pieces, only its ten eyes remained gazing at Qianye in agony and despair.
Qianye sensed something was off, but the soaring serpent lashed out with its tail and shattered all the mirrors.
The shadowy colossus vanished, and so did the soaring serpent. The source of the river was now unobstructed.
Qianye shot one last glance at the battlefield. If he hadn’t experienced this himself, he would hardly have imagined the giant shadow creature and the Empire’s soaring serpent would engage in such a violent battle.
Now, only the River of Blood remained flowing quietly in the void.
