All the soldiers lifted their origin guns and fired aggressively at Qianye. Meanwhile, numerous hand grenades arced forward in his direction.
The constant rumble drowned out all sound. The halved hive could no longer stand the torture and crumbled into pieces.
“Stop, stay I say!” Claudia’s voice emerged through the gunfire and echoed throughout the cave.
“Stop,” Keimor issued the order after some time. Only on his command did those soldiers stop shooting.
Claudia arrived before Kemor in large strides, roaring, “Why did you open fire without my order? I’ve already convinced him to surrender!”
“He’s just a lowly human and has no worth to speak of.”
Keimor hadn’t even finished speaking when a slap landed on his face. “I’m not in the mood to listen to your racial rhetorics. Don’t forget that I am the commander here. The next time you act on your own, I’ll have my father kill you!”
Keimor rubbed his face, his eyes almost spewing flames. “I am a pureblood vampire! You actually slapped me for a lowly human?”
Claudia replied coldly, “Your bloodline isn’t that noble, either, a far cry from the twelve ancient clans. I slapped you for not listening to my commands and not for him, understand?”
Keimor’s expression became contorted but gradually recovered. He took a step back and said with an exaggerated bow, “Understood, my subordinates and I will obey.”
After standing back up, he turned back and roared, “Trash, what are you standing there for? Sweep the battlefield!”
With a snort, Claudia headed toward the hive on her own. She refused to believe that this level of firepower could do anything to Qianye. On the contrary, it must’ve given him a good opportunity to escape. Hence, she spent no time confirming his fate but instead went to investigate the bug nest.
The hive had already collapsed and the pond at the bottom was filled with wreckage. She crouched down beside the pond and touched the liquid there. With a sizzling sound, a wisp of green smoke rose from her charred fingertips.
Claudia broke into a frown as she tore off the dead skin. Her wounded flesh wriggled about, and soon, new skin had covered the defect. She gazed at the water in the pond with a fluctuating expression.
Keimor arrived beside her. “Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing.” Claudia woke up from her reverie and immediately recalled how Qianye was playfully tossing the Earth Dragon’s blood in his hand.
Used to her indifference, Keimor proceeded to oversee the cleaning up of the battlefield and see if there was anything of worth. It was just that his eyes flickered with coldness whenever the silhouette of Claudia’s back appeared in his eyes.
At this moment, Qianye was traveling swiftly through the tunnels, far away from Claudia and Keimor. The concentrated fire of the Moonlight Demon elites was of high standards. Not only did they fire at Qianye, but also at his surroundings to seal off his escape path. Nonetheless, this level of firepower had no effect against Qianye. He took two origin bullets head-on as he jumped off the high platform and escaped via a tunnel. The fiery waves and smoke from the origin grenades only served to cover his retreat.
Having run a thousand meters in one go, he reckoned the enemy wouldn’t be able to catch him anymore. Only then did he have the time to check the silvery mass in his hand. According to Claudia, this was the Earth Dragon’s blood. If the one in his hand was merely a single drop, how terrifying would the entire dragon be?
This drop of Earth Dragon’s blood, if swallowed by an ordinary beast, would probably tear through its guts and take its life. Even Qianye didn’t dare swallow it whole. His body was indeed strong, but it was mainly the flesh that had been strengthened. His bones weren’t yet entirely upgraded, and his innards were even weaker.
If he couldn’t swallow it, then how was he to “partake” in this blood?
Qianye felt somewhat awkward as he gazed at the shiny Earth Dragon’s blood. Just holding it for a while had filled his palms with stinging pain and numbness. This proved just how corrosive this object was and that he couldn’t keep holding it for very long.
While lost in thought, he suddenly felt the earth and cave walls trembling ever so slightly. There were several sources to this tremor, and they were all approaching him at a rapid pace.
Earth Dragon’s blood!
Qianye immediately understood that the blood might have attracted monsters to his general location. The blood did not leak its aura at all while it was hidden within the bug hive, and Qianye had only sensed it after the Moonlight Demon’s attack produced cracks in the nest. Now that it was entirely out in the open, there was no doubt that the incoming beasts were both powerful and numerous.
For some reason, however, the Earth Dragon’s blood couldn’t be stowed away in Andruil’s space. He didn’t dare swallow it but couldn’t put it away, either—was he supposed to run around carrying this thing? As arrogant as he was, Qianye knew he couldn’t outrun the native beast hordes in the underground world. He would definitely be overrun at some point.
Sensing that the Earth Dragon’s blood was constantly corroding his flesh, Qianye made a prompt decision to activate Life Plunder. As expected, this powerful, blood-energy skill immediately locked onto the Earth Dragon’s blood. Countless strands of blood shot out and pierced into the blood, instantly turning it into countless silvery granules to be absorbed by the body.
For a split second, Qianye felt that he was absorbing wisps of fire instead of blood! Upon entering the body, the Earth Dragon’s blood immediately suppressed the surrounding flesh and sank downward. Even the flesh refined by auric flame blood couldn’t block its corrosion.
Fortunately, the dark golden blood energy acted ferociously. Likewise, it split into countless particles that pounced at the Earth Dragon’s blood. The two bloodlines broke out in a battle within Qianye’s body, each striving to kill the other in a destructive frenzy.
Qianye hadn’t expected such an outcome. He resisted the excruciating pain and left the place swiftly.
The underground tunnels connected in every direction like a giant maze. Qianye had no idea how far he had run before finally shaking off the beast horde’s pursuit. Then, he found himself a quiet cave to catch his breath.
At this point, the battle in his body had come to a momentary pause. The invasive blood particles had been dragged toward his blood core and become a silvery glob of blood. Meanwhile, the dark golden blood energy had completely surrounded the intruder and was slowly working to assimilate it. It was just that the Earth Dragon’s blood was extremely strong and the process of assimilation was negligibly slow. One wisp of Earth’s Dragon blood would be stripped off after a long while and absorbed by the dark golden blood energy.
After resting for an hour, most of the internal wounds in Qianye’s body had healed and he had recovered some of his combat strength. At this point, he had come to a general understanding of why the Spider Emperor, Moonlight Demons, and Wolf King would work together to start a war with Su Dingqian and occupy Port City.
The Earth Dragon’s bloodline power was exceptionally strong. The dark races generally revered bloodline powers and their advancement often relied on upgrading them. If they could obtain the Earth Dragon’s blood and make its power their own, they would enjoy a sharp increase to their innate talents and aptitude while removing all obstacles on their path to dukedom.
Naturally, this was just in theory. Qianye had personally experienced just how terrifying this dragon’s blood was. Even a bloodline at the level of the dark golden blood energy could only whittle away at it. Those so-called geniuses would probably end up killing themselves instead of leveling-up.
If each hive had one drop of blood in it, there should be quite a lot of Earth Dragon’s blood lying around. It was just that the bug nests weren’t that easy to conquer and that silver insect king was extremely difficult to deal with, not to mention it could call for reinforcements.
The insects’ most frightening aspect was their numbers. Even divine champions would be pushed back if thousands of them were to arrive at the same time. But to Qianye—who had bought out all the grenades in Southern Blue—large numbers of weak enemies was the least of his fears.
He stood up and continued his investigation toward the depths of the cavern. The Earth Dragon’s blood was a peerless treasure—he had no intention of letting it fall into enemy hands even if he had no more use for it.
The underground world was deep, dark, and boundlessly vast. Qianye had already lost his sense of direction and could only go deeper in. But as he went on, the elevation began to fluctuate erratically, making it difficult for him to even grasp where the deeper parts were.
As he passed through a certain tunnel, Qianye suddenly noticed a flickering light and voices. The sound was extremely faint and almost indiscernible without sharp perception abilities. His first reaction upon hearing voices was to look around to see if there were any tripwires.
As expected, he did find several of them after some observation. Carefully avoiding the traps, Qianye advanced in stealth—any living being in the underground world could be an enemy.
There was a temporary camp set up in the middle of a small cave, replete with a tall bonfire that filled the chamber with warmth. However, the light coming off of it was fairly dim, almost like a candle flame.
Surprised, Qianye frowned upon seeing this bonfire.
There were dozens of people in the camp, guarding the parameter in parties of three. Most of them were high-ranking warriors of the Moonlight Demons, but there were a number of special characters among them. They were covered in long battle-cloaks with tall collars that connected to their helmets, shrouding their entire face in darkness.
The military insignia on their cloaks had been removed, but how could Qianye not recognize the outfit of the central commands special ops unit? He had taken down numerous opponents wearing such equipment during his raid on the military stronghold.
With Nighteye’s departure—the empire, military, and the Zhao clan—these names had almost vanished into the wind, growing further and further away from Qianye. But now, he had actually run into people from the imperial military in the neutral lands and secret operatives no less.
Qianye retracted his aura and hid himself near the camp borders. He intended to observe why people from the empire were here and what exactly they were doing.
At this moment, an old man walked out of the tent. The creases on his face were as deep as ravines, and his frail body looked like it would fall in the wind. He walked over to the bonfire to warm his hands and seemed like he was deep in thought.
