[V6C123 – Sorrow of a Silent Parting]
The bang attracted the attention of everyone in the bar. Zhu Huan stood up and shouted, “What are you all looking at? Go back to your own drinks!”
Her shout was exceptionally effective in causing everyone to turn away.
Such a scene caused Qianye to turn slightly serious, and a wisp of curiosity emerged in his limpid, obsidian eyes. “ It looks like they’re afraid of you?”
Zhu Huan replied curtly, “They’ll be afraid of you, too, if you bring back the head of a second-rank viscount. Do you still think I’m not worthy of fighting alongside you?”
Qianye was somewhat surprised. It wasn’t too easy for a rank-twelve human to kill a second-rank viscount in the unfavorable environment of Misty Wood. Zhu Huan was indeed incredible to be able to bring back the head of a second-rank viscount.
But he still shook his head. “I’m used to fighting alone.
Zhu Huan had nothing to say at this point. She only glared at Qianye with eyes full of fury, but quite surprisingly, did not flip out. “Then what are you wasting time here for?”
“Waiting.”
“Waiting for dusk.”
Zhu Huan felt baffled. “What are for?”
“To hunt.”
“Hunting in the dark? You…” Zhu Huan was about to go insane. Most of the dark races possessed night vision and thus held the advantage in night battles. Even an experienced hunter like her wouldn’t choose to fight at night.
Qianye only smiled without replying.
Zhu Huan gave it some thought and said, “Is it to guard against those people?”
Qianye still didn’t reply. It was fine if she chose to explain it that way. He finished his wine in one gulp and said, “It’s dark now. Time for me to leave.”
Zhu Huan gazed at Qianye’s receding figure. She stood up as though she wanted to say something but sat back down in the end.
The sun was located at the very summit of this world, and it wasn’t every day that one could see it on this floating landmass. The rhythm of day and night, though, was no different from other continents.
Atop the base wall, Du Li exhaled deeply and turned back. “Boss, are we going to let him leave just like that?”
Lu Sha stood there like a statue with his arms crossed. Only after a long while did he speak in a deep voice, “This Qianye might contend with us at the top of the leaderboards.”
Du Li was evidently stunned as he blurted out, “Him? That little rank-ten bastard? This is a real war with no level restrictions.”
“This person isn’t easy to deal with, and I heard his relationship with the Zhao clan is quite deep. Do not provoke him casually in the future. Do I make myself clear?” Lu Sha glared at Du Li at this point, causing the latter to shrink back.
Du Li said hesitantly, “The Li family’s reward for the first place is that item. Does the brat really have the ability to fight us for it? Every one of us is three levels higher than him!” He wasn’t quite satisfied after thinking about it. “Why would the Zhao clan’s people come here? Why would the Li family offer him such a high salary?”
Qianye was ranked shockingly high on the Li clan’s recruitment list. His rank-ten level was indeed quite offending to the eyes compared to the bountiful rewards offered to him. Du Li was surely not the only one who was dissatisfied. It was just that those who had survived long enough to enjoy such accomplishments weren’t stupid. None of them was willing to provoke someone with such a complicated background for no reason.
Lu Sha remained silent for a moment. “Nothing is certain in this world, but he won’t live long if he dares fight us for Stillwater Rebirth.”
Qianye was walking through the dark night at a leisurely pace. He had long since noticed several gazes on him when he stepped into the forest.
Qianye wasn’t thinking too much when he chose Misty Wood, but he decided to accept the offer in passing since the Li clan was so keen—he could just wait and see what would unfold later on. Qianye had been worrying about how Song Zining was supposedly disrupted by a divination art and wanted to draw some of the bad currents onto himself if he could.
Now, there really were some fish caught in a direct hook. Compared to the fiery battlefield of the void continent, Du Li, Lu Sha, and Zhu Huan couldn’t even be considered a small wave. Qianye’s eyes were on the starry skies of Evernight. Only those dazzling names from the dark nation could enter his sights.
The Misty Wood seemed perpetually unchanging. Even after an intense battle had leveled a thousand-meter area, the purple substance would soon blanket the land once more. Those destroyed trees would grow back anew in the span of a few days and once again thrive hundreds of meters in the air.
Presently, the shoot of a newborn tree was just rearing its head from the ground substance in front of Qianye. It looked very much like a bamboo shoot.
The ground within a hundred-meter radius was wiggling amidst the sound of flowing water. Qianye knelt down and placed his hand on the substance, constantly releasing his perception. That kind of energy-rich origin distillate was flowing beneath the substance, gushing over from the surrounding trees.
The sprout grew taller and taller at a rate visible to the naked eye, and before long, it was several meters tall. At this rate, a new giant gree would appear before three days had passed. At that time. This entire forest area would return to its usual state, and the traces of battle would vanish entirely.
Qianye retracted his aura and stopped breathing entirely, maintaining a state of perfect stealth. Only in this state would the Misty Wood ignore him, and only then would he be able to see the growth of this tree.
After watching for a moment, Qianye released some of his aura and allowed the forest to sense his presence.
An odd scene appeared at this point. That madly climbing tree stopped its growth, but the origin distillate under the purple substance was still gushing over. This caused the basal substance to bulge high up like a huge balloon and bury the new shoot.
Such a change came as a surprise to Qianye. At first, he had thought he knew everything there was to know about the Misty Wood—he would have never expected to encounter such a scene. It would seem that this floating continent was still hiding a lot of secrets despite the absence of the void colossus’ will.
Qianye’s surprise hadn’t even ended when he sensed something wrong behind him. He thus made a sideways dive and flashed ten meters away.
Several spears whistled over and nailed themselves where Qianye was just now. Dozens of little midgets were charging over amidst loud cries and began hurling spears at Qianye when they arrived within a hundred meters.
Qianye didn’t care about a handful of midgets. The key was how they had appeared without any prior warning. Sensing something, Qianye looked up at a couple of trees in the distance—they were rustling constantly as one midget after the other climbed out to charge at him.
Qianye made an immediate decision to flee, activating Bloodline Concealment at the same time. He would soon be surrounded by hundreds of these little creatures if he hadn’t run away. At that point, he would be in a precarious situation no matter how skilled he was in combat.
Qianye threw his pursuers off entirely after running a dozen or so kilometers. The midgets and beasts circled around the area several times before finally giving up.
Qianye felt relieved after confirming the safety of his surroundings. He checked a giant tree and made sure that there was no abnormal activity before climbing onto the lowest branch. He had run at high-speed while maintaining Bloodline Concealment and full awareness of his surroundings. The consumption involved in this short ten-kilometer journey was almost equal to a battle.
Qianye produced a stimulant and stabbed it into his arm. In a land where enemies were lurking in every corner, he needed to be at peak combat strength at all times.
However, Qianye couldn’t help but frown after the stimulants entered his body. The one he had used was a standard military-use stimulant which could recover about ten percent of an ordinary champion’s origin power. Qianye’s, on the other hand, was already so dense that it was starting to crystallize. In terms of quantity, he was four or five times superior to his peers. A single dose would only restore two to three percent, but that was still better than nothing.
He still had stimulants exchanged from the Li family in Andruil’s Mysterious Realm—they could restore twice the amount at twice the rate. However, the four times efficiency came with a price tag that was sixteen times more expensive. Moreover, they were frequently out of stock.
Ordinary stimulants were already useless to Qianye, and even the high-efficacy ones had limited effect on him. They only provided a slightly better effect than him circulating his Profound Combatant Formula. But Misty Wood was filled with dangers and certainly not a good place for cultivation.
The only choice left for him was to absorb blood energy. Although Qianye hadn’t absorbed blood energy intentionally during the major battle at the Bai clan, he still had imbibed a large amount amidst the mountain of corpses and sea of blood. One could see from this how killing and devouring was the fastest route for the dark races to raise their power.
If he could refine the essence blood, his auric flame blood would spread throughout his entire body and allow him to become a first-rank viscount. And this was a first-rank viscount by ancient standards.
But Qianye did not dare because the Song Clan Ancient Scroll emphasized the balance between yin and yang, between movement and stillness. The true meaning was that one would need to maintain the balance between daybreak and evernight. Otherwise, the outcome would be unimaginable if an imbalance were to occur.
Currently, Qianye was only one step away from becoming a first-rank viscount, but his daybreak power remained at rank-ten. The difference between the two was well over a level, and the effects of this discrepancy were also becoming evident.
Recently, it seemed as though he had returned to the time when he was just infected by black blood. He would feel inexplicably fidgety at times—it was as though a fierce beast was raging in his chest, and the only way to calm it down was to kill. Massacre even brought about a faint sense of euphoria. And this… wasn’t a good sign.
His advancement rate actually made sense because his origin power capacity after each level was much greater than that of ordinary people. His origin vortex had even crystallized after becoming a champion, adding much to his consumption.
He had been fighting one major battle after the next since the beginning of the bloody battle. Even though he had obtained the Profound Combatant Formula, Qianye never had the time to sit down and cultivate it. All of this had led to his current situation.
However, what worried Qianye the most wasn’t the loss of balance or the resultant destruction of his body. Qianye was able to pry into some of the vampire race’s bloodline secrets after obtaining the knowledge fragments from the River of Blood. Only then did he discover that Andruil’s words might be coming true.
Regardless of where his dark golden energy had come from, it was gradually stepping along the path Andruil had laid out.
The dark golden blood energy’s power and purity were even superior to a primo like Nighteye. He might actually awaken a primogenitor bloodline if it were to develop to the end. At that point, his human bloodline would be overwhelmed, and he would finally turn into a pure-blooded vampire.
