As Qianye arrived at the edge of the Constellation Well, everyone from the Evernight side stood quietly watching him. Although the Demoness was nowhere to be found, the stronger experts could still sense a vague fluctuation in the air. The Demoness also stopped hiding herself and allowed everyone to know that she was observing Qianye.
Everyone wanted to know what Qianye would do after plundering the large vampire stars.
There were a fair number of daybreak stars left, and the luminous star was also untouched. Compared to the Evernight stars that had to be divided among the major races, the daybreak ones were greater in number, and there was only one type. Although the differences were small, the dark races felt varying degrees of dislike for everything that contained even a little bit of daybreak attribute.
What remained of the daybreak stars was enough to condense two more origin crystals, so everyone thought Qianye had his work cut out for him. However, that fellow actually ignored the daybreak stars and actually cleared away the star power meant for the vampires, even taking a good chunk of the dark star in the process. This made everyone gnash their teeth in indignation.
Qianye was a vampire, after all, so sweeping through the vampire stars wasn’t entirely unreasonable. Were these Evernight experts supposed to clean up the daybreak stars in retaliation? Even if they did, what were they going to do with it?
This helplessness was what made the situation so loathsome.
Qianye gradually entered the Constellation Well and stopped where he did last time. He produced the Storm Pearl but began to contemplate instead of taking immediate action.
The Evernight people glanced at one another. Every second inside the Constellation Well would drain origin power, so time was of the greatest essence. Why would he think inside the well instead of outside? Everyone smelled a scheme brewing as they observed Qianye’s every move with gloomy expressions.
After a moment of contemplation, Qianye’s aura suddenly showed some change. Everyone saw his aura fluctuating—it was sometimes vast and majestic, sometimes cryptic and mysterious. The attribute of his aura switched constantly between daybreak and Evernight, but it mostly remained in the dark range.
Basil became nervous. “Don’t tell me this fellow is aiming for our race’s stars?”
Everyone’s expressions became complicated, with Twilight looking somewhat delighted at the misfortune. Qianye’s attack last time had harmed the vampires the most, followed by the demonkin—only the arachne were unaffected. Hence, everyone was happy to see Qianye clearing away the arachne large stars.
There was actually no point in the Evernight people remaining there. The dark star had very little energy left, and even if the Demoness were to take action, she would only be able to condense duke-grade origin blood. Considering her character, she would, at most, descend one more time.
The vampire stars had been swept clean, so Edward had no more reason to stay. An ordinary drop of origin blood that might or might not reach the count-grade wasn’t essential for him. As a vampire Holy Son, he could utilize much more resources than this.
The only one who had something left to gain was Basil.
Qianye’s aura remained in a rolling boil inside the well—he still hadn’t made his move. The spectators were perturbed. They had a feeling that Qianye was harboring sinister intentions about the stars on their side.
Qianye was actually in a predicament right now. He was able to sense the vampire stars with incomparable clarity after activating the Wings of Inception, but they simply wouldn’t absorb such a level of star power. This level of energy was apparently too low in quality for the wings, so Qianye decided to give up after several attempts.
He then tried several other secret arts in vain, even Excavator, which wasn’t quite an art. Apparently, extracting star power wasn’t as easy as he had thought.
A good amount of time had passed after several fruitless attempts. Qianye knew he couldn’t drag this on because every minute in the well was a drain on his origin power. After some thought, he once again channeled Venus Dawn and began condensing an origin crystal. He already had a top-grade product, but there was no such thing as too many of them.
It was at this moment that Qianye remembered he had one thing left to try. The Book of Darkness appeared in response to his thought.
The book immediately opened up on its own and dragged the pearl over.
The book was shapeless and formless, so Qianye ended up opening his mouth to swallow the incoming Storm Pearl.
In the blink of an eye, his perception stretched outward more than ten times. He could almost sense the entire starry sky and every star twinkling within it. Some of them contained energy as majestic as the seas, far exceeding the large stars. These were the seven polar stars Li Kuanglan had spoken of. After counting them, Qianye found that there were nine such celestial bodies, two of them so powerful that the space around them was warped badly. This served to hide them from normal perception.
An outrageous thought appeared in Qianye’s mind. “Was the Book of Darkness going to sweep everything clean in one go?”
The thought had just appeared when the pages began to flip open one by one. The pages moved extremely fast, yet the last leaf was nowhere in sight.
An invisible ripple spread out through the well, and all the stars in the well lit up at the same time! All star power was aboil!
From the small, medium stars to the large ones, and even the dark and luminous stars—every one of them had lit up.
Soon, a massive primal star began spitting out radiant light. The distorted space around it was leveled as energy gushed out like a waterfall and entered the Book of Darkness.
Following the first star was the second, the third… all the way up to the ninth.
Those above the well, be it people from Evernight or the Empire, were dumbfounded. Qianye himself didn’t know what was happening, and had no idea whether this rolling torrent of star power was a good thing or not.
The Book of Darkness was like a bottomless abyss, devouring the incoming star power regardless of the amount. Additionally, it was also a picky eater. It would only draw upon the nine primal stars, and wouldn’t even glance at the others, including the dark and luminous stars.
Qianye could only play it by ear now. The Book of Darkness was extremely mysterious, and even Andruil couldn’t give him any details. Qianye had to explore the tome’s powers bit by bit after obtaining it.
The Book of Darkness flipped faster and faster as it drew upon the nine primal stars.
Anwen’s expression was unsightly, and no one knew what he was thinking. The Demoness’ voice echoed beside his ears. “What’s he doing?”
“… I don’t know.”
Anwen not knowing something was a rare case. The Demoness said after a period of silence, “I’m guessing these are the primal stars you speak of, turns out there are nine in total.”
“Indeed, it’s almost impossible to discover the other two. I have no idea how he found them.”
“It looks like he’s using his own body as a catalyst material to absorb star power.” The Demoness’ voice was odd. “The star power from the primal stars burn fiercely. The body simply can’t withstand a direct intake like that, even I don’t dare do that. Is he courting death?”
A pensive Anwen laughed wryly. “This fellow looks dumb, but he’s actually quite smart. His only weakness is being too sentimental. Unless you take his friends and family hostage, chances of him committing suicide are quite low. Perhaps he can utilize the star power?”
“Impossible! Unless his body is even stronger than Basil’s. How can a mere vampire do that?”
Anwen said, “Don’t forget that there are ancient vampires as well.”
“Even an ancient vampire can’t be stronger than Basil, he’s a pure-blooded arachne royalty who, according to your classification, can be considered an ancient arachne as well. Even if we take a step back and say that they are stronger, there’s no way they can withstand star power from a primal star.”
Nodding, Anwen glanced toward Qianye and remained silent with a frown on his face.
At this moment, the nine primal stars had been exhausted. The Book of Darkness closed only after the last star had turned dim and faded into the depths of the starry sky.
This entire process was completed in the time it took to brew a cup of tea. Everything happened so fast that many of the Evernight experts had no time to react before the nine primal stars had been plundered clean.
A crystalline gem appeared on the cover of the Book of Darkness. It was the size of an egg with countless edges covering its surface and starlight glistening within.
Qianye’s heart was beating like a drum at this point, which was a sign that he had already spent too much origin power. Knowing that he couldn’t stay any longer inside the well, he flew straight for the entrance. There was no time to check the changes in the book.
The situation around the entrance was fairly delicate. Intentionally or otherwise, the Evernight experts approached the entrance of the well.
Basil was at the front but came to a screeching halt when a red spider lily popped open in his path, his expression sour.
He looked back, and then into the air, before ultimately stopping.
At this point, Qianye had flown out of the well and arrived at the Empire’s side. It was too late to attack now.
Only then did the netherworld flower fade away.
By the time the Imperial group had returned to camp, Basil Shouted, “Now it’s our turn, isn’t it?”
Zhao Ruoxi’s voice echoed in the air, “Go wild.”
“Go wild?” Basil was stunned, puzzled as to what those words meant.
“You may use the well to your heart’s content.”
“Don’t tell me…”
“We’re leaving.”
Basil was startled. The large daybreak stars still had star power left. Why would they leave just like that? Could it be that they had used up the Storm Pearls in their possession?
At this point, several figures could be seen rushing away into the mountains. Qianye’s group had really left.
Basil broke into a laugh. “Haha, then we won’t hold back!”
He walked forward in large strides but was dumbfounded as he looked down the well.
The star power inside the well was rolling about chaotically like a tempest. The space below the Constellation Well was an enclosed environment. The storm of star power had no place to drain, and thus, the reverberations never stopped. The danger level under such circumstances would increase several times—even Basil felt somewhat apprehensive.
“Those human bastards!” Basil couldn’t help but curse. Apparently, the mess inside the well was because of Qianye. No wonder the humans left so generously.
Basil looked back. “Anwen, what now?”
Anwen looked down into the well. “Looks like it’ll take half a month to calm down.”
Basil was stunned. “Then what do we do? Wait?”
Anwen shook his head. “We’re not going to wait, see you.”
With that, Anwen and Eden left the scene.
Basil glanced at the vampire race, but Edward shook his head. “I don’t have anything to do here, either. Let’s just leave.”
The vampire stars had been cleared out by Qianye, so Edward had no reason to remain here. It was just that Basil had a fair number of white spider eggs left, so he was reluctant. “I’ll wait alone then!”
Edward walked a good distance before looking back. “This is human territory. Be wary if you’re staying here alone, they might just come back.”
Basil gazed blankly in front of him for a good while, but ultimately decided to follow Edward. He turned back reluctantly several times as he walked away.
After everyone was gone and the world was calm, a giant, golden-maned wolf appeared near the well. Seeing that there was no one around, he dove straight into the well.
