Qianye closed the report and dispatched five thousand newly-trained werewolves to the allied army. Then, he summoned the great shaman and asked, “You say I’m the son of darkness, but why do the werewolves of the storm territory not submit to me? Why is their will to fight so firm?”
The great shaman did not panic. He said with a bow, “Sire, there can be many sons of darkness. In truth, the Storm Duke is the true son of darkness to the werewolves in his territory. The duke himself never commented on this rumor, but he did make the effort to spread this news.
“Does the son of darkness really exist?”
“Of course, you are one.”
Qianye was noncommittal. “You said there can be many sons of darkness.”
The great shaman said, “Legends about the son of darkness have been circulating for hundreds of years, and no one knows when it appeared. The mysterious thing about it is that most werewolves already have memories of it when they awaken to their intelligence. This planted the legend even deeper into our hearts and faith. That was probably why every werewolf duke would secretly or openly claim themselves to be the son of darkness, thus strengthening their rule. They know that was actually not the truth and so do we.”
“Did the Whitebone Duke claim to be the son of darkness?”
“Of course, Sire.”
“Then why do you believe I am the son of darkness?”
“The feeling, trepidation, and terror. You merely need to stand there to make me believe that the darkness origins have appeared before me. That is why the werewolves of the Jade Sea serve you, even though you belong to the vampire bloodline.”
Qianye said after some contemplation, “You can sense the purity of darkness origin power?”
“I myself cannot, but I can if I borrow the eyes of the ancestors.”
A plume of golden-red flames lit up at his fingertips. “How about this?”
The great shaman said, “This power of blood is very pure, but it’s still quite a distance from the darkness origins. This isn’t the original state of your power.”
Qianye was observing the great shaman while he was speaking. The great shaman’s eyes were covered by a layer of green light when he glanced at the flame, almost as though he was using a different pair of eyes. This was probably the ancestral eyes he was talking about.
Regardless, the great shaman’s conclusion was fairly accurate. The blood energy he had just released was an imitation of Nighteye’s original blood energy. It was indeed inferior to his true ancient vampire bloodline, but only true experts could see through this difference. It was simply miraculous that the great shaman could see the difference despite being a virtuous count. It would seem his ancestral eyes were quite useful.
“Then, how do I force the werewolves under the Storm Duke to submit?” Qianye asked.
“It’s both simple and difficult. You just need to kill the Storm Duke and put your true power on display. The great shaman there will submit to you and recognize you as the true son of darkness.”
Qianye gazed deeply into the great shaman’s eyes. “Sounds like all shamans are the same.”
The great shaman’s expression remained calm. “Of course not. Our allegiance is true faith, while theirs will be forced.”
“Why is that?”
“His ancestors are blind.”
Qianye didn’t know what to say to this. He said after some thought, “Is there a way I can force the Storm Duke to yield to me?”
“Can you defeat him?”
“Not yet.”
“When can you beat him then?”
Qianye said after some thought, “At most half a year.”
With Zhang Boqian’s version of the Profound Combatant Formula, Qianye’s cultivation rate had increased by leaps and bounds. After reaching the divine champion realm, his daybreak origin power foundation was enough for his blood energy to reach the duke rank. With both sides in equilibrium, Qianye was eighty percent certain of defeating the Storm Duke.
The great shaman wasn’t too surprised. “Then let’s see after you defeat him.”
Qianye found that to be logical. He could advance to the vice-duke rank anytime and easily defeat the Storm Duke by borrowing the strength of the Martyr’s Palace and Caroline. However, it would be fairly difficult to kill or even capture the werewolf duke, let alone subdue him.
Qianye pushed this matter to the side for now and summoned Xu Jingxuan to inquire about the new world base.
“We’ll need ten more days at least, Sire.”
Progress was slower than expected, but then again, building a large base in such a short time involved vast amounts of manpower and resources. This wouldn’t even be possible without the hundreds of trucks and machinery from the aristocratic families, as well as the hundreds of thousands of strong werewolves.
“Then I’ll give you ten more days.”
Xu Jingxuan accepted the order, then asked cautiously, “Sire, shouldn’t we be building a steady foothold in the new world, why the rush?”
Qianye said with a frown, “I have a feeling that the enemy has made much more progress than we have. We might be kicked out from the new world if we don’t make haste.”
The intuition of a peak expert wasn’t an intangible existence. Xu Jingxuan nodded, saying. “I understand. Sire, there’s something that requires your decision.” He then produced a sheet of paper which he passed to Qianye.
Qianye saw that this was a list, categorized according to race and position. The bigger categories were fairly strange, namely Zheng, storm werewolves, tribal werewolves, and Imperial aristocracy.
Without waiting for Qianye to ask, Xu Jingxuan said, “These people have been transmitting information to the outside. I have separated them according to the direction they have been sending information. How do you want to punish them?”
Qianye understood that these were spies. His forces had grown so rapidly that there was never time to screen the men individually. It was only natural that people with different intentions would’ve found their way in. Those on the list were probably just a small portion of those lurking in the shadows.
Qianye picked up a brush and drew a cross under the storm werewolves. “Capture and slaughter all of them. As for these…”
He drew a circle on the tribal werewolves. “Capture them and assign them to forced labor, no need to kill them.”
The tribal werewolves came from the Jade Sea and belonged to those who didn’t submit to Qianye early on. Qianye felt that there was still a chance he could subdue them, so he had no plan to slaughter them randomly.
Qianye drew a cross on Zheng and a tick under the Empire.
Xu Jingxuan understood that he had to kill the spies from Zheng, but he had no idea what the mark under the Empire meant. Qianye said with a smile, “Let those from the Empire do what they want and transmit whatever information they want to. There’s no need to be guarded against them, just let them know whatever they should know.”
Xu Jingxuan was surprised. “Then won’t our real situation in the new world be compromised?”
“I just want to let them know.”
“This…” Xu Jingxuan didn’t quite understand, but he didn’t ask further since Qianye wasn’t willing to explain. He merely affirmed his order and withdrew.
Qianye asked for his equipment and supplies, then once again entered the new world to explore its depths. He wanted to confirm the next direction before the base was completed.
…
Twilight Continent. A large shadow fell over Castle Ducasse as a transport fleet moved in, almost blotting out the skies. The castle had already expanded its airship port several times over yet still couldn’t accommodate such a massive fleet. Hence, they could only choose to unload the goods in batches.
Walking out from the first batch of airships were fully-armed warriors with tactical backpacks. They fell swiftly in line after alighting and were led to their designated camps.
Their so-called camp area was just an empty plot of land, but the well-prepared vampire soldiers brought out various equipment and set up their own tents. They had just finished setting up camp when several cars drove into the area and a viscount came down from the first vehicle.
He confirmed the designation and number of people in this squad with the officer in charge, before waving his hand in command. The people coming down from other cars were all doctors carrying boxes of injection medicines. The new squad fell into line and accepted the injection one by one.
Very soon, hundreds of vampire soldiers had been injected. The viscount said in a satisfied tone, “Observe them carefully, they can enter the new world if nothing abnormal happens by tomorrow night. I’ll be leaving now if there’s nothing else, I need to head to the next camp. I have to cover eleven camps in total today.”
The squad commander asked, “Sire, what’s the condition in the new world?”
“Everything is going well at the moment, but I heard…”
“What did you hear?”
The viscount glanced at the castle and shivered all of a sudden. “Let it be, that’s not something you should know. I’m leaving!”
With that, he left hurriedly with his entourage, leaving the other officer no time to stop him.
Several vampire elders were seated in the conference room of the ancient castle. A marquis with snow-white hair walked into the room and hung a map on the wall. The markings on the map were fairly strange—it wasn’t in the shape of any known continent. The orientation wasn’t vertical but instead an arch.
The marquis glanced at the empty chair at the center. “Is Her Majesty not coming?”
“Just like before, she probably won’t come. Let’s begin.”
The old marquis sighed. “Without her, our progress might lag behind the other races.”
“We have no right to question Her Majesty’s decision. Let’s begin,” a duke spoke.
The old marquis stopped speaking and drew a winding path on the map. “This is our progress in the recent three days.”
“The Lightless Monarch’s progress is passable.”
“The Flaming Crown’s progress is quite good.”
“The Azure King is lagging behind.”
“The slowest is our side.” The room fell into silence.
Moments later, one of the dukes said, “How are the other three races doing?”
The old marquis drew three more paths on the map. These lines represented different expansion points, but it was easy to see that they were all moving toward the center. Different colors represented different races—black for the demonkin, green for the werewolves, and grey for the arachne.
Some of the dukes jumped to their feet upon seeing the three paths. “The demonkin are progressing so fast!”
The old marquis said, “These are the numbers they gave us, who knows if it’s real.”
“There’s no way the numbers exceed their progress. This won’t do, we must discuss this matter with Her Majesty and make haste to catch up. She must join the battle.”
“The problem is, who will talk to Her Majesty?”
