This group’s movement was fairly odd. The battlefield had been swept clean, and there was nothing of value left on the bodies. Yet, they were still moving these bodies away. Judging from the direction they were headed in, they seemed to be retreating. Could they have come all the way here just for some corpses?
Qianye thought about tailing them, but Nighteye and Zhuji were still in the city. Although they were fairly capable of protecting themselves, Qianye wasn’t willing to go very far, lest what had happened in the empire repeat itself.
The neutral lands was quite a peculiar place. Many unique resources back in the empire came from this place. This was a land filled with unknown dangers where just about anything could happen. The situation on the battlefield was gradually turning serious—in addition to the increasing number of experts, there were numerous peculiar abilities he had never seen before.
Qianye decided not to take the risk, at least not for this battle. Hence, he gave up on following them and, instead, went to find a good place to set up an ambush. Perhaps an unsuspecting prey would walk right in.
Qianye picked a lofty rock and camouflaged himself in a shallow pit nearby. This rock was rather eye-catching—everyone’s reaction upon seeing it would be to give it a quick scan before observing the surroundings. First glances were, naturally, never too detailed, and Qianye intended to make use of this psychological oversight. Very few people under the divine champion level could sense him in his fully concealed state after all.
Qianye didn’t have to wait very long before a fully cloaked figure appeared over the horizon. This person moved rhythmically and with extreme speed, displaying ample elegance despite his cautious movements. This was a classic vampire characteristic, but to Qianye who had gotten used to the grace of a true superior vampire like Nighteye, this person’s movements seemed somewhat forced.
Dealing with vampires was Qianye’s specialty. The target walked past, completely unaware of Qianye’s existence. The latter pushed a blood-energy-laced origin bullet into the Twin Flowers and fired at the vampire’s leg.
The two were less than a hundred meters away, but due to its low weapon-grade, the origin power fluctuations from the Twin Flowers was quite small. This caught the vampire entirely off guard.
To a first-rank viscount, this was nothing but a tiny flesh wound, but the sneak attack filled him with shock and fury. He quickly drew his weapon and glared fixedly at Qianye. The odd giant sword with its serrated edge looked fairly odd on him, a stark contrast to the elegance he had been trying so hard to maintain. There was a large barrel on the spine of the sword and its hilt served both as a handle and a trigger—it was actually a combination of a gun and a sword.
Disdain filled the vampire’s eyes as he stared at Qianye and his Twin Flowers. He said in a weird, aria-like voice, “You dare to ambush the brave and intelligent First Rank Viscount Robert. I must say I admire your courage, stupidity, and luck. I’m quite surprised that a continent-made gun of that quality actually injured me.”
The Twin Flowers was clearly a continent-made product. The gun’s craftsmanship was exquisite and simple. Moreover, its firepower didn’t diminish in the neutral lands due to Andruil’s modification. Qianye fired this shot from the Bloody Datura because he knew it was enough to injure the target.
This Robert seemed quite talkative and especially liked to announce his victory in front of weak enemies. He wasn’t in a rush to deal with Qianye and instead spoke in a slow, arrogant voice, “I shall consider giving you a quick death if you prostrate before me in praise and pleading. You have one chance. If you can compose an eloquent poem to eulogize me, I might just let you live.”
Halfway through his speech, the man’s expression shifted drastically. He clutched his chest violently and fell kneeling onto the ground.
“I… what’s wrong with me?” Robert was both alarmed and furious.
“You only noticed it just now?” Qianye’s voice contained a hint of mockery.
“You poisoned the origin bullet? But what kind of poison can torment a noble like me?”
Vampires possessed an inherent resistance to poison that was only second to the arachne. But to them, Qianye’s blood energy was a powerful toxin.
Robert finally noticed that he could no longer suppress the burning blood energy inside his body. Terrified, he crawled over to Qianye, crying, “S-Spare me! I’ll tell you a secret that can make you the king of the neutral lands!”
Qianye broke into a laugh. “If you know such a secret, why haven’t you become a king yet?”
“I don’t have the talent!”
Qianye crouched down in front of Robert. “Speak your identity, your objective here, and everything else that might interest me. You know what the outcome will be if I find you lying.”
“I’ll speak, I’ll tell you everything! Just spare me. I-I’m from the Moonlight Demons, under the thirteenth assassination unit. Right, you can have this, you must let me go!”
Robert fished out an envelope and passed it to Qianye. There was a neatly folded paper inside of it, an exquisite hand-drawn map with two eye-catching markings on it.
“What’s this? A treasure map?” Qianye sneered.
Things like treasure maps could only fool naive kids. Not to mention whether there really were treasures here, even if there were, what was the use of merely knowing the place? Andruil’s secret treasury contained a wisp of his remnant will which had sent him thousands of kilometers away to prevent people from hunting him down. If someone else had made his way into the treasury, what awaited him might not be Spatial Flash but, instead, a Shot of Inception.
Additionally, Qianye didn’t feel like this distasteful Robert would be able to find a proper treasure.
Robert trembled. “The markings on this map show the two secret warehouses belonging to the Moonlight Demons, both of them are first-class stashes. This is a piece of intelligence I obtained while chasing down a deserter, but I don’t have the ability to take them. If you give this map to the Spider Emperor, the Wolf King, or even Su Dingqian, you’ll definitely gain a handsome reward.”
“Now that’s more reasonable.” Qianye nodded in secret. It was just that robbing the Moonlight Demon’s secret warehouse occurred only as a passing thought. Once compromised, he would become the target of an endless hunt.
“What are you here for?”
Robert answered at lightning speed. His mission here was to gather intelligence and hunt the experts of Port City in passing. As a core power of the Moonlight Demons, Robert’s strength was fairly impressive. With his first-rank viscount power, he had killed many experts of the same level and had even assassinated a count once.
Being a vampire count himself, Qianye knew the intrinsic difference between a viscount and a count. It was no simple matter to kill an enemy above one’s level.
Robert was even confident about escaping from the vice-commander of the city guard. He felt that he was safe as long as he didn’t run into the commander and Su Dingqian. He had never imagined that he would encounter someone like Qianye who could disable all his abilities with a single wisp of blood energy.
Qianye interrogated him thoroughly until there was nothing left to learn. Someone of Robert’s position didn’t know that much, either.
Afterward, Qianye searched him from head to toe and found that his total fortune was quite impressive. The man was much wealthier than a vampire viscount from the Evernight side. It would seem assassination was a lucrative business here.
An exquisite little lacquerware box caught Qianye’s attention. There was an ancient scent coming from it that Qianye found rather familiar.
His expression turned frosty the moment he unlocked the box and opened it.
Within the lacquerware box was the foot of a human girl. Its outlines were fairly slim and elegant, likely belonging to a beautiful owner. Yet, it had become part of a collection in this box, and Qianye could even see the tooth marks on her ankle.
“This is from a blood feast?”
Robert was shocked. “You know about blood feasts? The feast was of fairly high standards and the main dish was unprecedented in her beauty. I had to leave for this mission, so I packed a snack with me. She was so beautiful that I couldn’t bear to enjoy her yet. Sire, might you be interested in it?”
As Robert saw it, Qianye was also a vampire and one of a powerful bloodline. Few vampires in the neutral lands were interested in blood feasts but it wasn’t too rare, either. If Qianye was interested, his chances of survival would increase greatly.
“I’m interested in you,” Qianye said coldly. At the same time, his vampiric blade plunged into Robert’s blood core.
“Sire, you…” Robert wasn’t expecting this outcome. His voice became empty as his entire body slumped down. After having his blood essence sucked away by the vampiric blade, he could no longer suppress Qianye’s blood energy, and his body soon broke down into a rotten puddle.
Qianye tossed the “snack” to one side with a snort, and then went through Robert’s things once more. In addition to the belongings worth tens of thousands of gold coins, the most valuable item he had on him was that gunblade.
Afterward, Qianye left the place in due haste and went toward a different battlefield.
Along the way, Qianye found the situation to be somewhat odd. Be it the Crystal Spider’s scouting unit, the Wolf King’s hunting party, or Robert, all of them had different objectives. It didn’t look like they were here solely for war. Moreover, the treatment he was receiving from Su Dingqian was almost as good as when he was back in the empire.
At this moment, Port City’s doors were still open to all people moving in and out. The city walls made no difference whether they were there or not. It couldn’t serve as part of the city defense—only a symbol of law and order.
The roar of engines echoed across the wilderness as a motorcade drove in from the distance, kicking up clouds of sand dozens of meters tall. The guards at the city gates became delighted upon seeing the insignia on the distant vehicles. “Second Young Master has returned! Inform the captain!”
