The flames of Venus Dawn ignited the rubble and spread through the entire area.
The demonkin rushing over through the corridor were swept into the blaze; those at the front were either killed or injured. Many of the survivors were also drowned in the intense flames of Venus Dawn. As veterans, the remaining men took immediate action after getting through the first wave. A large wave of demonic energy swept forward in an attempt to control and extinguish the flames.
Brock let out a muffled groan, sending more demonic energy through the chamber and extinguishing the flames like a raging tidal wave.
Qianye glanced at his surroundings contemplatively and at the broken cabin walls above.
“What are you planning again?” the duke asked cautiously.
“I was thinking that Venus Dawn is useful, but its flames are a bit weak. Next time, I should imitate the solar winds when I produce grenades. The effects will probably be better.”
The raging origin flames looked powerful, but burning required time to cause damage. The solar winds also contained fire, but the extreme temperatures and impact caused damage at the same time. It was much more destructive than an explosion followed by slow fire.
Qianye’s plan made sense, but this kind of distraction in battle was almost a form of disdain. A furious Brock slashed at Qianye and the latter simply raised his blade to lock down his attack trajectory.
Brock’s attack froze mid-slash and split off a single sword shadow. The image brushed past East Peak’s interception and slashed Qianye’s body.
This single sword shadow managed to elicit a muffled groan from Qianye as he took a step back from the impact. He looked down to see that the blade had torn through his sanguine armor, but it wasn’t strong enough to shatter it completely.
Brock seemed rather astonished. He said with a cold snort, “So it’s the Dark Gospel’s masterpiece. His escape is truly a humiliation to our demonkin race. But even with his reinforcement, you can forget about leaving this airship alive!”
Grand Duke Brock advanced while swinging his sword, firing two more sword shadows that tore open Qianye’s armor. These sword shadows were extremely fast and powerful. Qianye’s blood energy and Venus Dawn could only weaken it a bit, while East Peak was completely ineffective at deflecting the attack.
Seeing as Brock dared to meet Qianye and the Martyr’s Palace on his own, he naturally had his reasons for being confident.
The grand duke’s aura dropped slightly after firing three sword shadows. This attack could traverse space itself and possessed great power, but the price for launching it wasn’t small.
Of course, the sanguine armor could only take so many of those shadow blades. However, from the looks of it, Brock wouldn’t have much demonic energy left by the time he had broken the armor.
Brock stopped attacking directly after the three strikes. “Looks like you think I can’t deal with you because you have the Dark Gospel’s armor.”
Qianye’s silence was akin to a tacit agreement.
Brock sneered, “You still don’t understand whose home ground you’re in!”
A giant rune appeared behind Brock. A deluge of origin power turned into demonic energy within the rune and poured into his body. The grand duke’s aura rose sharply, returning him to his peak state in the blink of an eye.
With a loud roar, he filled the air with afterimages as he slashed at Qianye like a tempest.
Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! Qianye sustained five hits in succession. The armor could no longer hold out by this point and shattered with a loud explosion.
Fortunately, the Dark Gospel was an experienced crown prince of extraordinary foresight. The blood armor didn’t just shatter in random directions; the pieces shot toward the source of the attack and blocked the last couple of blows. There was no way this damaged armor could take on so many strikes in succession.
Brock stood there proudly with his sword in hand. “As expected of Howard’s famous armor, it blocked eight of my sword shadows. If only he weren’t so badly injured, I would’ve loved to challenge him after I became a prince.”
Qianye said after the man was done, “You launched five more shadow blades, and now my armor is gone. How many more can you launch?”
Brock let out a long laugh as he swung out one more shadow blade. The rune appeared behind him once again to fill him with demonic energy. “You’ve forgotten whose home field this is!”
Qianye’s figure flickered just as the attack was about to land. However, Brock’s shadow blade could actually chase after its target. It teleported whenever Qianye used Spatial Flash and would continue its attack once the target had reappeared.
This speed and power made the attack practically indefensible. It could also traverse space and home in on the target. This grand duke’s attack was truly a divine skill.
After several evasive maneuvers, Qianye stopped with a frown and allowed the shadow blade to strike his arm.
“Pointless strug…” Brock’s smile froze midway.
The shadow blade cut through Qianye’s robe, armor, and shirt, leaving a long cut on his skin.
This was a direct strike. Qianye was of course wearing armor, but Brock knew the power of his shadow blade well enough. He was expecting the blade to cut through and sever Qianye’s arm.
But the shallow cut showed no signs of change.
Grand Duke Brock stared fixedly at the cut. The target’s movements proved that his arm was intact. At the very least, the wound should’ve expanded until the bones were exposed—or even cut through.
Qianye’s overall fighting power was shocking! His skeleton shouldn’t have been refined to such a level at his rank. Not to mention Qianye, even the Dark Gospel Howard would be injured if he were to take a strike directly.
Qianye glanced at the cut on his arm and even tried opening it up with his fingers to see how deep it went.
Brock was in no mood to wonder why Qianye didn’t look like he was in a life and death battle. Instead, he seemed like he was studying the wound out of curiosity. Seeing this, Brock’s eyes were wide in shock.
Spreading the wound revealed the flesh inside. A trickle of pale golden blood seeped out and soon burst into dark golden flames.
That was all.
Grand Duke Brock did not see Qianye’s bone or even his deeper muscles. All he saw was a cut no deeper than two fingers’ breadth.
For a moment, Duke Brock thought Qianye was wearing flesh-colored armor but the auric flame blood reminded him that it was indeed just his arm.
The shadow blade caused even less damage to Qianye than it had caused the sanguine armor. Didn’t this mean that Qianye’s body was stronger than Howard’s sanguine armor?
Qianye tossed the grenade into the hole in the floor, sending it into the cabin below.
The fierce explosion tore apart the internal structure of the airship, with Brock and Qianye located right at the center. Having experienced it firsthand, the grand duke could tell that this grenade possessed the power of an all-out attack from a divine champion.
Even as a grand duke, Brock saw stars from the impact and had to take two steps back. The kinetic chamber was right behind him, so he had no choice but to spread out his demonic energy and block out the brunt of the explosion. This left him with many extra wounds.
He rejoiced secretly that Qianye only had that one grenade left.
However, the duke saw a bright sphere of Venus Dawn origin power in Qianye’s hand as he looked up. This was soon followed by the appearance of dark golden blood energy which encased the former. Following the activation of the blood energy, the composite grew smaller and smaller until it was the size of a grenade.
With a flip of Qianye’s hand, the composite material fell to the floor and rolled over toward the grand duke.
“Ah, no!” Brock’s hair flew up as he let out a loud cry.
The duke could already sense extreme danger when the dark golden blood energy appeared. Yet, Qianye’s external projection of origin power was too fast—the time he took to condense this composite mass wasn’t enough for the duke to retract his demonic energy and launch another shadow blade.
An explosion no weaker than a divine champion’s attack erupted in the chamber. Fierce impact and raging flames swept through everything, including Qianye and Grand Duke Brock.
Qianye’s figure appeared as the flames dispersed. His robes were torn, and his armor had been charred in many places. The wound on his arm had opened up again, and his aura was just a bit unsteady. He could hardly come out unscathed from the explosion of a divine-champion level grenade, even though he was the one who caused it.
Brock was much more miserable. His face was covered in dark patches, and half of his flowing long hair had been singed. To a demonkin who cared about his looks more than his life, this only proved that the injury he had suffered was so serious that he couldn’t care about his appearance any longer.
The beautiful armor on his body was now warped and twisted. Some parts had been torn open altogether with demonic energy gushing out. Blood flowed liberally from his sword-hand, dripping off from the cross-guard.
Brock lowered the arms he had raised to protect his head and face. His eyes were almost spewing fire as he roared, “How did you do it?!”
It was no secret that Qianye possessed both daybreak origin power and blood energy. Even so, Brock found it difficult to believe after witnessing it in action.
The fact he didn’t want to accept was that Qianye had displayed a near-perfect level of control over the origin power and blood energy. This level was far beyond that of an ordinary grand duke. Even Brock himself hadn’t reached that level of mastery over demonic energy.
The next truth he didn’t want to face was that Qianye no longer needed to use origin grenades.
The collision of daybreak and evernight was no doubt violent. Moreover, Qianye was using Venus Dawn and his dark golden blood energy. Once they were free from the balancing powers of the Song Clan Ancient Scroll, any contact between the two would result in an earth-shattering explosion. This blast was not inferior to the origin grenades Qianye had carefully prepared.
It could be said that this was the most basic of origin grenade prototypes.
Brock shot up and pounced toward Qianye, shooting several sword shadows along the way. This time, the duke was no longer as calm. F.o.r.c.i.b.l.y raising his speed would end up injuring him, but this wasn’t the time to care about that.
Swinging his sword with one hand, Qianye blocked all of Brock’s physical attacks and took the shadow blades with his arms and back. Having bought some time, Qianye decisively hurled the origin bomb between him and Brock.
The grand duke staggered back amidst the explosion. He supported himself against the kinetic chamber wall for a moment, then pounced at Qianye again. The power of the origin bomb was too great, so much so that Brock couldn’t bet on the opponent running out of energy first. He had to restrain Qianye or this airship would be completely destroyed.
Qianye was cautious but fearless against the new round of attacks. When Brock’s attacks finally slowed down, he hurled yet another origin bomb.
Explosions erupted constantly. The battleground was in utter ruins, and even the ground was sinking. There were four other dukes on the airship, but three of them were exhausted from controlling the airship. The only remaining duke arrived in the vicinity but left quietly after seeing the constant explosions.
Qianye’s method was a double-edged sword since the explosions affected him equally. The narrow interior of the warship only served to amplify the damage and made it impossible to dodge.
Qianye possessed an ancient vampire constitution and his dark golden origin power was fairly close to the darkness origins. He was even somewhat stronger than an arachne of the same rank. He could withstand the explosions and sword shadows, but the same couldn’t be said for Brock.
The demonkin possessed the weakest constitution among the four major races. Duke Brock was known for his attack and speed, as well as his divine sword skills. He never found a need to improve his constitution. Considering the race’s innate talents, it wouldn’t make much of a difference even if he did—that was unless he possessed some special inheritances or experiences.
After several rounds of explosions, Brock was badly injured and on the brink of collapse. How would any other demonkin interfere with the way Qianye was fighting? None of the dukes on the airship specialized in physical strength, and the narrow space made it difficult to evade. They would surely collapse after taking a couple of blasts.
Brock was deathly pale and didn’t even have the energy left to feel anger. What pained him most was the airship—all equipment in this one-third of the airship had been completely destroyed. The kinetic chamber remained, but everything else had been destroyed so he could no longer condense runes.
Qianye wasn’t in the best shape, either, but he could still fight. To deal with an abnormally powerful bastard like him, they would need to surround and bombard him from a distance, using numbers to whittle away at his energy. Yet this strategy was impossible in the narrow corridors of this airship. Even all the experts aboard combined weren’t enough.
At this rate, they would lose the airship, and Brock himself might fall if he was a bit careless.
The grand duke glared fixedly at Qianye and roared, “I didn’t want to use it! You should be proud to die to His Majesty’s attack!”
A gem of bottomless darkness appeared in Brock’s hands, in which a speck of radiance began to light up. Upon careful glance, it was actually an extremely small sun!
Qianye sensed extreme danger the moment this gem appeared. His hair stood on end all of a sudden.
This was an instinctive fear of death. The energy contained within that gem was enough to destroy him entirely!
Qianye was no longer a young genius like back in the year. He was easily capable of facing an ordinary grand duke, or even a member of the old vampire clans. He could even escape from weaker great dark monarchs like Sousa. In the face of his gem, however, Qianye felt a fear that came from deep within. This was a force capable of annihilating him.
There was no need to ask where such power came from.
However, Qianye didn’t try to flee immediately. He could sense some subtle changes in the environment as the gem appeared. Something told him that he shouldn’t use Spatial Flash at this point. Qianye couldn’t tell where that sense of foreboding came from, but he decided to follow it.
Qianye observed that gem despite the scalp-numbing feeling. “It’s a crystallization of the Demon King’s demonic energy. You truly have the favor of the supreme.”
“His Majesty granted me this to help with my next rank advancement. Who would’ve thought I’d be using it on you? It’s your honor to die from His Majesty’s attack.”
Duke Brock activated the demonic energy within the crystal. The small sun expanded all of a sudden, and the gem rose into the air. It was actually a black sun!
The black sun enlarged rapidly in the air and shot toward Qianye.
Its movement produced a terrifying gravitational force. Qianye suddenly understood why he had that sense of foreboding. It turned out that the energy within the gem had already warped the surrounding space, rendering Spatial Flash useless. If he were to use it f.o.r.c.i.b.l.y, he would’ve ended up crashing into that black sun. Then again, things weren’t any better now. He felt as though his entire body was encased in mud; he could hardly move his arms.
The black sun would soon swallow him up!
