[V6C57 – Sorrow of a Silent Parting]
Nighteye slowly opened her eyes and gazed blankly at the cavern roof for a while. But then recalling the matters that had led up to her loss of consciousness, she leapt up in alarm and glanced cautiously at her surroundings.
She immediately found herself halfway in the air, then fell back down, unable to control her body. Nighteye instinctively reached out to support her falling body just as she was about to hit the ground. However, the rock-solid ground seemed to have become incomparably soft. Her hands actually sunk right in and formed two deep holes in the ground.
Startled, Nighteye tried moving each part of her body as she stood up. Only then did she notice that the unbearable tingling everywhere on her body wasn’t the pain from her heavy injuries but the sensation of her bodily tissues regenerating rapidly. Her blood core was beating with great power and without the slightest sign of injury.
Nighteye was startled. Where were her injuries? Where were those injuries that made her so dejected that she wanted to die? She had run away with all her might simply because she didn’t want Edward to get his way so easily. But she knew that she would hardly ever recover.
However, after repeated inspections, she found her body better than ever. Her blood core was even stronger than it was before the injury, and it seemed as if many parts of her body had been remodeled—many of her bodily functions had been upgraded substantially.
This could be considered a miracle. One had to know that Nighteye had already soaked in the Monroe clan’s blood pond after awakening the primogenitor’s bloodline, and her body had long since received a holistic upgrade. She had only obtained the identity of a princess after completely activating her bloodline. How could such a body be upgraded again? Just what had happened while she was unconscious?
Nighteye found, to her astonishment, that a dark golden blood energy had appeared at some point in her pool of golden origin blood. For a moment, this aura—certainly not from the Perth clan—caused her entire body to turn cold. Only a vampire expert above the duke level would be able to invade her primo bloodline. Had a certain clan taken advantage of the chaos?
She glanced around at a loss but found that the surroundings, apart from the occasional drop of water, were completely silent.
Nighteye took a couple of steps toward the broken wall and saw the disorderly cave-hall. Although some of the walls and passages and changed, that giant beast corpse at the center proved that it was still the battlefield where she had fallen unconscious.
Nighteye collected her thoughts and once again observed the abnormality in her blood core. This time, she discovered that the foreign dark golden blood energy was existing harmoniously with her own, showing no signs of one devouring the other—it was as though they were born of the same origin. The golden blood energy would make way as the latter slowly roamed about. It was like a king inspecting his subjects and soldiers.
Nighteye was greatly astonished. The golden blood energy was her primogenitor bloodline, the foundation of her status as a princess. Now, this foreign blood energy was actually forcing it to make way. This meant that the grand origin of this blood energy was even higher than a primo of the Black-Winged Monarch. It wasn’t the Perth clan’s blood energy, either, so where had it come from?
It was as though something major had happened while she was asleep. Nighteye tried hard to recall, but her memories were all blank. After a moment of thought, she concluded that she had entered a brief state of hibernation due to her heavy injuries. Hibernation to heal injuries was the deepest form of sleep for a vampire—they simply couldn’t be roused, nor would they sense the situation of the outside world.
Nighteye walked over to the corpse of the giant beast. The enormous creature was now less than half its size after being drained of all its essence blood. She found the charred wound where an unknown power had dealt it a lethal blow and also where the vampiric blade had absorbed its essence blood.
But the more she saw, the more baffled she became. The vampiric blade was naturally from someone of the same race, yet she couldn’t tell which clan’s secret art had dealt that lethal attack. After scanning it several times over in great curiosity, Nighteye couldn’t even tell which faction the power belonged to.
She stood dazed for a while before the void colossus’ all-encompassing will woke her up. She had little time for hesitations in this strange world fraught with danger.
Nighteye pondered while exercising her arms and legs—she needed to adapt to her new state as quickly as possible. She suddenly paused at one point and looked down at her chest. Most of her buttons had been undone to reveal a patch of snowy white skin. That was precisely where her blood core was.
Her skin was just as white and soft as before, but Nighteye still felt that something wasn’t quite right. She placed her hand on her chest and found her blood core pulsing faster and her heart inexplicably flustered.
It was as though… as though something very important was moving away from her. Her mind went completely blank, overwhelmed by fear and anxiety. But she still couldn’t figure out what it was that she had lost.
Nighteye stood silently for a moment before she finally managed to calm her emotions and tidy up her clothes. She condensed a mirror before her with blood energy and observed herself. Only then did she realize that her face was fairly clean, without the slightest bit of dirt and blood that would usually remain from a fierce battle. It felt as though a warm, gentle hand had wiped off the dust and grime.
She sighed lightly and shattered the sanguineous mirror, along with that beautiful figure within. Then, she chose a random path and started walking toward the depths of the cavern.
Perhaps due to her chaotic emotions, Nighteye only checked the cave-hall and didn’t discover the two corpses lying in the adjacent passage.
At a point several hundred meters away, Qianye was walking through a passage with East Peak in tow. The blade, as heavy as a mountain, carved a deep groove in the ground, and Qianye, who was dragging it along, looked like a snail shouldering that mountain.
Qianye’s condition was neither good nor bad. “Stillwater Rebirth” had healed the greater half of the injuries he had accumulated in the recent days, but this was only at a physical level.
The Profound Combatant Formula couldn’t absorb void origin power within this special world, but with the formula and his Venus Dawn, he needn’t worry about the lack of daybreak origin power. But after losing two drops of origin blood, his blood core had almost stopped beating, and the blood energies had returned to their runes to hibernate. No one knew when they would recover.
Meanwhile, the colossus’ pressure meant that his combat strength would fall drastically.
Qianye walked forward steadily. He would be greatly disadvantaged if he were to head to the core region of the colossal skeleton in his current state, but he had no intention to back out at this stage.
There was really no telling if the way back was safer than forward. Up until now, Qianye had seen countless experts both from Evernight and the empire, but he hadn’t received news of Zhao Jundu at all.
Another thing that worried him was the news he had received from Li Kuanglan. Presently, Qianye had understood what Song Zining meant by saying “you have your fortunes to seek” and “I have my battles to fight.” Now that Song Zining was fighting on the surface, how could he give up on his battlefield so easily?
In a cave a thousand meters away, Eden was sitting with his back against the stone wall. Half of his body was so badly charred that the sight was almost unbearable. But his aura was rather calm, and, at least, he was in no immediate danger. He had only lost the ability to fight.
A second-ranked viscount from the Perth clan was sitting across from him. He was glaring at Eden with a stern expression, clearly unhappy about the present situation.
This viscount was summoned back by Edward to protect and keep an eye on Eden. This was quite a troublesome chore. Moreover, Eden’s attack just now had killed several of their clansmen. Yet, not only was he unable to kill this demonkin, but he also had to prevent the passing beasts from eating him up. How could the viscount be in a good mood?
Eden, who had been resting with his eyes closed, opened his eyes and looked around momentarily. He then cast his gaze upon the viscount and laughed. “Do you think Edward has already found the ancient essence fragment by now?”
The vampire’s expression sank. “Shut up!”
Eden spoke on his own, “You vampires think you’re so noble when, in truth, you can’t be farther from the council’s core. Judging from your reaction, it would seem even Edward hasn’t told you about the true uses of the ancient essence.”
The vampire was furious at first, but these words alarmed him. “Does that mean you know?”
Eden replied, “I hail from the Dark Abyss and I also hold office in the council. How can I not know? But I don’t need to hide it from you, either, because it won’t be a secret much longer. The ancient essence can help us dark scions jump to the duke rank, the main reason being the void colossus’ remnant soul fragment. It allows us to comprehend the profundities of the void energy and take a critical step forward.”
“That I know.”
Eden smiled mysteriously. “But what you don’t know is that simply watching the essence from the side would also grant great benefits.”
“What?!” The viscount shot out of his seat.
Eden mocked. “There’s more. Apart from the ancient essence fragments, don’t forget that Sky Demon is also a void colossus. Killing his avatars would bring about great benefits. Otherwise, why would the marquises from both factions come to this place and even shoulder the burden of killing Sky Demon’s avatars? Doesn’t it feel like the avatars are even more important than the ancient essence fragment? That’s because taking part in such battles would afford the same chances of upgrading one’s comprehension.”
The viscount’s expression was twisted and green veins were pulsing all over his neck, apparently at his limits. He seemed to have understood that Edward leaving him here to watch Eden meant that he wasn’t thought of very highly—he would have no share at all in the truly good stuff.
The vampire viscount picked Eden up by the collar and shouted, “You’re lying!”
Eden looked disdainfully at him and said, “Do I need to?”
The viscount was petrified, and his silent face was flushed red. There was really no meaning in using such easily verifiable information to sow dissension. Moreover, Eden and Edward were pretty close before this fall-out, both of them being characters of equal status. Under normal circumstances, this viscount wouldn’t even have the chance to curry favor with Eden.
However, Eden’s expression changed all of a sudden. He seemed extremely astonished and stared fixedly behind the viscount as though he had seen a ghost.
That vampire viscount wasn’t young, and he was a veteran with ample combat experience, either. He thought at first that it was Eden tricking him into turning around, but after some thought, he realized that Eden couldn’t even stand up on his own. How could he attack?
Soon, the viscount heard a tapping sound in his ears. He quickly pushed Eden to the side and quickly assumed a combat stance. He turned back just in time to see a fist-sized silver grenade flying toward him.
“Daybreak flashbang!” Such a thought flitted through his mind as a ball of white light erupted in front of him. The viscount was immediately blinded, and it felt like countless burning needles were piercing into his eyes. He broke out in a miserable scream as he rolled about with his eyes covered.
Bai Konghzao appeared like a specter, but she didn’t approach the viscount. Instead, she fished out a certain object and tossed it over. The screaming viscount suddenly leapt up and, with a flash of his vampiric blade, cut the incoming object into two.
