[V6C58 – Sorrow of a Silent Parting]
The item Bai Kongzhao had tossed out was a silver can. After it was cut open, a shower of milky-white fluid rushed out amidst a dense surge of daybreak origin power. Upon closer inspection, it was actually liquid mithril, and its concentration wasn’t low at all.
The vampire viscount was fast to react, but he couldn’t open his eyes at the moment. He was drenched from head to toe, and his body immediately burst into flames, his flesh corroded in large patches. This time, he was truly crying out in misery.
After being pushed away, Eden had been sitting with his back against the stone wall and watching with folded arms. At this moment, he opened his mouth and blew out a wisp of black energy. The viscount was still rolling about on the ground, but the black energy shot straight into where his blood core was. It immediately burnt a large hole amidst sizzling sounds and penetrated all the way to his back—the blood core was naturally decimated in the process. That was a trump card Eden had kept until the very end.
Eden’s aura withered a fair bit after shooting out the black energy. He glanced at Bai Kongzhao and said with a wry laugh, “You’re Bai Kongzhao, I assume. Curse it, I never expected to meet you in the end. If you’re going to kill me, then make it fast because you won’t be getting any information out of yours truly. If you torture me, then I’ll simply end my own life.”
Bai Kongzhao didn’t move at all after throwing that silver can. She gazed blankly at the viscount with those ethereal eyes until Eden spoke to her. Only then did she ask incredulously, “Am I that terrifying?”
“What do you think?” Eden replied.
Bai Kongzhao pondered for a moment, then nodded. “Makes sense I guess, everyone around me seems to be apprehensive. Why didn’t you use that last attack on me? Do you really hate him more than you hate me?”
Eden broke into a laugh. “Sometimes, racial enmity leaves a deeper impression than factional differences.”
Bai Kongzhao nodded seriously as though she had understood. “But why do I get the feeling that you used it on him because you thought it wouldn’t work on me?”
“I knew I can’t hide it.” A flash of astonishment emerged in Eden’s eyes as he admitted with a laugh.
Bai Kongzhao thought about it for a while. She then walked over to rummage through the viscount’s badly damaged body and found a drop of origin blood. Afterward, she dragged her shockingly large backpack over, fished out a couple of decorated bronze boxes, and tossed everything to Eden.
Eden’s expression froze. He was no stranger to the patterns on the boxes because all of them belonged to the major demonkin clans and families. Naturally, they contained the best of demonkin medicines within them. This time, even the well-composed Eden revealed an astonished expression, but he only pondered for a while before swallowing the origin blood and medicines.
The demonkin medicines were indeed extremely effective. Moments later, Eden’s complexion regained some of its color, and the charred crust on his right hand crumbled after a few movements. He glanced over at Bai Kongzhao and asked, “What do you want?”
“I want the ancient essence fragment. You’ll help me.”
Eden said after some thought, “I can only say I’ll try my best.”
“Fair enough.”
Eden was somewhat puzzled after seeing Bai Kongzhao’s clear-cut actions. “Aren’t you afraid that I’ll turn hostile after I recover and kill you immediately? With these medicines and some time, I’ll quickly recover most of my strength.”
Bai Kongzhao wore an innocent expression, but her reply made Eden feel an uncontrollable chill. “You can do that, but you won’t be able to kill me. And as long as I survive, I’ll haunt you forever,” she paused for a moment, then said with a naive tone of voice, “and you’re not that dumb.”
Eden laughed. “It is indeed so. Very well, I agree to help you. There’s no need to swear an oath to my totem.”
Bai Kongzhao pointed to the large back full of weapons behind her and said, “Take your pick and help me carry it later on.”
Eden opened the bag and found a large variety of weapons within—his eyelids twitched briefly at the sheer numbers. Just how many people had died in the hands of this innocent-looking little demon? He broke into a frown after noticing that most of them were characteristic demonkin weapons and couldn’t help but glance up at Bai Kongzhao. The latter looked back at him with her head tilted, her eyes just as dreamy and ethereal.
The two silently gazed at each other for a good while before Eden lowered his head to continue his inspection. Moments later, he had a double-barreled handgun in his grasp as he hoisted the bag and walked over toward a certain tunnel. Bai Kongzhao followed from behind. Her frail, specter-like figure gave one the feeling that she had been miserable and lonely since birth.
It was the last leg of the journey.
Experts from all sides were already close to the deepest parts of the underground world, and danger levels were at their peak. The last part of this journey was apparently going to be dark and long.
Qianye stood up slowly beside an arachne corpse. This spider was huge and one could tell at a glance that he was fairly powerful, but he had died in Qianye’s hands nonetheless. In this underground cavern, the arachne’s massive build that was made to raise their fighting power became a hindrance instead.
All of its essence blood had become Qianye’s, but the process of conversion had become quite slow. After losing two consecutive drops of origin blood, the purple blood energy became completely dormant within its ability rune, and the dark golden blood energy was moving at a much slower pace. The unsightly wound on his blood core was still there, and, without the nourishment of the auric flame blood, Qianye had to spend lengthy periods to escape his exhaustion and weariness.
However, Qianye was no longer depressed at this moment. On the contrary, he was more resolute than ever. He produced a dose of stimulant and, without bothering to drip it into a cigarette, injected all of it directly into his vein. The overdose of stimulants felt as though every corner of his being was bathed in flames. Origin power gushed out continuously from his energy vortex along with a sense of high pleasure. This moment afforded Qianye an illusion of omnipotence.
But Qianye’s obsidian eyes maintained a state of constant clarity even while his body was immersed in the pleasure brought about by the drug, staring fixedly at the other end of the tunnel. Judging from experience, the pitch darkness ahead led to the end of a passage, and there should be no forks in the road ahead. In Qianye’s eyes, however, the rolling darkness almost seemed to be alive.
Qianye thrust East Peak into the ground and drew his Twin Flowers. Then, he loaded an extreme yang bullet before taking aim at the darkness.
A muffled laugh rang out as a black mist broke away from the darkness and flowed over toward him. Its shape was changing constantly—sometimes a human, and sometimes a beast—but that peerless, tyrannical aura remained constant no matter how it transformed. A terrifying suppressive might enveloped Qianye from a fair distance.
Qianye’s knee joints emitted a crisp sound as his legs gave way. He almost fell to his knees, but he gritted his teeth and, little by little, stood up against the pressure.
Merely from this terrifying pressure and familiar aura, Qianye knew that the wiggling darkness in front of him was Sky Demon’s avatar.
Meeting an avatar under such circumstances could be considered horrible luck. In fact, with the exception of a handful of experts from each side, everyone else could only blame their bad luck for running into Sky Demon’s avatar.
After standing straight, Qianye was thinking about fighting it out with the avatar when an unfamiliar voice rang out inside his consciousness. “Submit to me, be my slave, and I shall grant you power… and eternal life!”
Was this Sky Demon’s voice? Qianye was startled. This was his first time coming into contact with Sky Demon’s sentient will. Even under such perilous circumstances, Qianye still managed to recall how that traitorous will had enticed him back when he was exploring Andruil’s hidden depository. Did they think power and eternal life were at the pinnacle of one’s pursuits?
“This…” Qianye seemed hesitant.
Sky Demon’s avatar seemed somewhat impatient. It strengthened its suppressive might and roared, “Kneel, or die!”
Qianye suddenly drew his gun at lightning speed. A pair of wings unfurled behind his back and filled the passage with a golden brilliance!
Sensing extreme danger, Sky Demon’s avatar released a shrill cry and dark mist bellowed around him, poised to devour space itself. But the golden feather shot into the darkness with a trail of beautiful flames. It then turned into countless specks of golden light and merged into the black mist that was Sky Demon’s avatar.
At almost the same time, Sky Demon’s avatar burst into flames from the inside out and transformed into an incomparably scorching ball of flames.
Qianye thrust East Peak into the ground in front of him and hid behind it. Then, gripping it tightly, he sent whatever remained of his daybreak origin power into the blade.
East Peak droned and trembled as it emitted a faint glow which shielded Qianye just before the rolling deluge of flames washed over him.
The stream of flames sunk ever so slightly under the suppression of the oceanic power, however, the domain he had gone all-out to release was quickly destroyed in the flames, and the glow on East Peak lasted but a short second before shattering. All he could do was rely on the broad blade to provide what little protection it could afford.
As if it had sensed the incoming danger, the Book of Darkness silently activated and formed a flickering barrier of light around Qianye. His silhouette grew warped, blurry, and it was almost as though he didn’t exist on this plane.
The torrent of flames produced from the combustion of Sky Demon’s avatar split itself into two and converged again behind the barrier of light without the slightest pause. One would be inclined to believe that the flames were completely unaffected had he not seen it with his own eyes.
The combustion of Sky Demon’s avatar was naturally fierce, but it ended just as quickly—the entire process lasted mere moments. Qianye looked up slowly after the last wisp of flame had died out.
The complex tunnels around him had completely disappeared, replaced by a large hall hundreds of meters wide. Qianye was standing at the center of this hall, and just in front of him was where Sky Demon’s avatar had combusted. The entire hall—be it the floor, walls, or ceiling—had been transformed into a sheet of crystal.
The flames born of Sky Demon’s avatar actually burned a large space in the void colossus’ skeleton. One had to know that these caverns and stalactites had never been completely destroyed despite the battles between all these experts. From this, it was obvious just how terrifying Sky Demon’s avatar was before its death.
Qianye felt secretly relieved at how lucky he was. Had he not made the prompt decision to use up that last Shot of Inception, he probably wouldn’t have lasted a single move against the avatar. Moreover, due to his silent blood core, his darkness origin power was one level lower than his daybreak energy. The Shot of Inception had actually left him that portion of daybreak origin power during its charge, otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to unleash his domain, either.
Qianye wiped the cold sweat off his brows. He still couldn’t grasp the principles of the Shot of Inception very clearly, and only felt that his luck was pretty good. Judging from the scene in front of him, it would seem that the Shot of Inception was particularly damaging to Sky Demon’s avatar—after all, it had even managed to ignite the latter from the inside out. Now, this was an interesting discovery. Who knew if Andruil had designed the Wings of Inception specifically to deal with the void colossi?
Qianye was propped up on East Peak, gasping for breath, when he suddenly discovered something shining where Sky Demon had died. He dragged himself over and picked up an irregularly shaped black crystal.
