Some good news finally arrived after a couple of days. Caroline had already completed her mission on Transcendent and was back on Fort Continent. With her and Storm, Qianye’s forces now contained three duke-rank experts. He decided to assail the second forest immediately.
When Qianye explored the forest, he discovered that the six-armed commander was indeed in an awakened state. He launched a decisive surprise attack when a fleeing opportunity presented itself. He was able to land one Shot of Inception, but the second one was blocked by a dark golden flame that it had spat out!
This was the first time in a long while that a Shot of Inception had not found its target.
He immediately pulled back and went out of the forest, but how could that six-armed general let him go? He chased Qianye all the way out of the forest, leaving the army of beasts far behind.
Once out of the forest, he found that Qianye was waiting for him to arrive. To his left and right were the two duke-rank experts.
A great battle ensued.
No matter how powerful the six-armed giant was, he simply couldn’t stop the combined attacks of three experts. Finally, Qianye found an opening to fire two more Shots of Inception and completely ended its life.
By the time that six-armed general had collapsed, an area hundreds of meters around them was littered with pits of varying sizes. Many of them still contained flames or lightning sparks, signs of the battle just now.
Qianye was merely tired, but Caroline was pale and seemed to have suffered some damage to her vitality. The Storm Duke was the most miserable one among them. Part of his beard had been singed, and the armor on his body was in tatters. There was also a shocking hole on his thigh.
The duke was proficient in speed, but he became the slowest when compared to the other two. Even the six-armed general was faster. Hence, the six-armed general began focusing on Storm after realizing that he couldn’t catch Qianye. If the latter hadn’t stepped in to trade a couple of direct blows with the commander, thereby blocking his lethal attacks, it was unlikely that the Storm Duke would be standing intact.
This was the first time Qianye had fought with a six-armed general in its peak state. Only then did he figure out their true combat strength.
The six-armed general didn’t sport any special powers. He was just fast, fierce, and highly tenacious. These three qualities made for a lethal combination that was stronger than any fancy moves. The battle would’ve been even harder had Qianye not landed a Shot of Inception earlier.
Qianye finally understood why the werewolves had been facing obstacles in the new world. It definitely wasn’t easy to defeat a six-armed giant with dukes alone. Besides, there was no telling how well the races of the Evernight faction were adapting to the laws of the new world. Then again, where were the werewolf great dark monarchs? William didn’t discuss the matter, so Qianye probably wouldn’t have gotten an answer even if he had asked.
Caroline cleaned up the battlefield quickly and tied the six-armed general’s weapons to her back in a bundle. At this point, the Storm Duke began to sway on his feet and his aura fell sharply.
When Qianye glanced over in surprise, he found the duke deathly pale with no color on his lips. “I must leave now! The origin power here… something’s not right!”
In the blink of an eye, the duke collapsed and couldn’t even continue speaking.
Qianye rushed over to support him. At the moment of contact, Qianye could sense that the origin power within the Storm Duke’s body was fairly chaotic and contained quite a lot of origin power from the new world. The odd origin power was like a spark falling into a barrel of oil, igniting the Storm Duke’s own origin power and producing flames in many places.
This was happening inside the body. No matter how strong the duke was, he couldn’t stop the conflagration within. He was trying his utmost to suppress the violent origin power, so much so that he had lost the power to stay in the air. After careful observation, Qianye discovered even more shocking details.
The duke’s injuries were mostly caused by his own origin power. Pure darkness origin power was hardly affected by the strange energy of the new world, but the impurities in the duke’s origin power were immediately ignited like fuel. The origin flames produced from this would then spread to the unaffected darkness origin power. The entire process was like stoking the flames in a furnace—first light up wood shavings and firewood, which would then ignite the black stones.
Continuing this process was actually a good way to purify one’s origin power, but unfortunately, the victim was made of flesh and not steel. Even Qianye wouldn’t be able to stand origin flames burning inside his body. Perhaps he could attempt this when he was a great dark monarch and his organs had all been strengthened.
The Storm Duke was already at his limits. The origin power throughout his body was catching fire here and there. At this rate, there was no way he would be able to hold out long enough to leave the new world.
Qianye made an immediate decision. “Don’t resist, bear with me.”
The pale Storm Duke couldn’t manage a response. Qianye stretched out his finger and tapped the duke’s body in several places. At every point of contact, a sanguine thread would shoot into the werewolf’s body, bringing back with it a spark that would enter Qianye’s body.
These sparks were the embers causing chaos within the Storm Duke’s body. The old man’s face went even paler as these sparks left his body, but his aura stabilized and started to recover. The remaining embers were no longer a threat as the Storm Duke could extinguish them on his own.
Having survived the calamity, the Storm Duke was in a good mood despite his weakness. He said to Qianye, “That was Life Plunder, right? Legend has it that it’s one of the most powerful vampire bloodline powers. Awesome indeed. But from what I heard, Life Plunder will indiscriminately wipe out everything within a certain radius. You, Sire, actually managed to control it with such accuracy, this is unimaginable!”
Unknowingly, the Storm Duke was using a respectful address when talking to Qianye.
“There’s no technique that can’t be controlled. There must be people in the twelve major clans who can control Life Plunder, right?” Qianye said.
“You might be right. I’ve been on Fort Continent for far too long, I know very little, please forgive me,” Storm said self-deprecatingly.
In truth, he had no idea that Qianye’s control over Life Plunder was an inheritance from the River of Blood. The knowledge belonged to the ancient vampire system and required the corresponding physique to operate. Perhaps some of those old monsters sleeping in blood ponds could control Life Plunder, but it was definitely not as ordinary as Qianye had made it out to be. Their level of control would surely be inferior to the river’s inheritance.
There was little need to explain this fact—very few among the younger generations had been able to obtain such inheritances, so much so that such divine abilities had turned into legends.
Moreover, Qianye had a feeling that there were numerous gazes scanning the area when the River of Blood had appeared. They seemed to be searching for his existence, but the river had lowered his aura and protected him from being detected by those mysterious entities. Combined with the theory that the River of Blood had disappeared, Qianye could almost smell a conspiracy going on. There was no way he would tell a werewolf duke about the vampire race’s secret arts.
The Storm Duke couldn’t help but feel surprised when he saw that Qianye was completely fine after absorbing the embers.
These embers made up the bulk of the flames that had been wreaking havoc in his body, nearly killing him in the process. Yet, they were completely silent after entering Qianye’s body. It didn’t even seem like he needed to channel his origin power to eliminate them. Just from this, the duke could tell that he knew very little about Qianye’s true strength.
The Storm Duke was as white as a sheet, but Qianye’s face was flushed red. It looked like he was about to enter a state of blood boil.
It was inevitable that Life Plunder would bring some of the Storm Duke’s essence blood out. This amount wouldn’t hurt the duke’s foundations as he could replenish the loss in just half a year. To Qianye, however, every drop of a duke’s essence blood was an irreplaceable supplement containing vast amounts of origin power. The few drops of essence blood would replace half a month’s worth of cultivation for him.
As a werewolf who understood vampire abilities, the Storm Duke had already sensed this. Yet, he didn’t expose or discuss the fact; salvation came with its prices. Now that the danger had passed and he had recovered a fair amount of fighting power, the duke worked with the other two to move the six-armed general’s body back to the base, then to Fort Continent.
Once back in Fort Continent, the Storm Duke immediately returned to his territory. He had to confront the Flame Duke, lest the latter discovers his prolonged absence. The old fox kept his injuries well-hidden, not letting anyone else figure out the truth.
Qianye had to focus on expanding in the new world, so he had no time to deal with the Flame Duke.
Only after this battle did Qianye discover how terrifying the new world was. Here, even a duke-rank expert had to be careful about sustaining injuries. Otherwise, things would turn disastrous once the strange origin power invaded the body.
The Storm Duke had been living in Fort Continent for a prolonged length of time, so the purity of his origin power was quite bad. That, however, was just relative to the dukes of the upper continent. His darkness origin power was naturally at a certain standard for him to have reached the duke-rank. That being said, the duke had suffered quite a bit of torment in the new world and nearly died.
Caroline’s actual talents were much higher than the Storm Duke’s. It was just that she had chosen to merge with lightning power, which put a halt to her future progress. However, there was still hope of her reaching a superior duke rank. She was proficient in roaming battles, retreating and advancing like lightning. Her lightning was so tyrannical that even the six-armed generals were wary, and that was also why she wasn’t quite injured.
Qianye was a different case altogether. Both his blood energy and daybreak origin power were close to the origins. The odd origin power from the new world could find nothing to ignite after entering his body. Qianye didn’t even need to heed the sparks produced from them as the flowing auric flame blood would extinguish them in passing. In terms of strength, the flames of the strange origin power were inferior to the auric flame blood in Qianye’s circulation.
Through this battle, Qianye discovered that he alone was the backbone of these pioneering efforts. The others, even Caroline, had to be protected carefully.
At this point, Qianye felt lucky that he had taken the risk to eliminate that six-armed general from the forest with four holy trees. If that monster had woken up entirely, even the three of them would hardly be able to defeat it. That forest would become an insurmountable obstacle in their path. Who knew how many sacrifices would be required to overcome it?
Perhaps only a prince-rank expert could come and go at will in this new world, but even they couldn’t afford to be too arrogant.
This was a world where the true contest was in innate talents.
After taking down the forest with three holy trees, Qianye had no choice but to slow down his expansion.
He had stretched his forces too far, with the last base being one thousand five hundred kilometers away from the door. On the other hand, he would need to build a large central base around the forest with four holy trees. The other two three-tree forests also required outposts. He needed five hundred thousand soldiers just for the garrison and for defending against beast attacks. The werewolves needed more time to train, so they could no longer keep up with this speed.
Noticing Qianye’s distress, Caroline said, “Airships can’t enter the new world, but what about the Martyr’s Palace?”
