Qianye sat down in Linken’s seat and pulled open the drawers. The upper three were filled with her personal items, which was fairly normal. But when he opened the lower three, a black radiance spread out from within. There was no mistaking it; it was black light and not mist. The entire room was plunged into darkness when the drawers were dragged open. Even people with Nightvision would lose their powers before this strange, light-absorbing demonic energy. In Qianye’s vision, however, every drawer seemed to be filled with a black sun that stung the eyes.
Even someone of his experience couldn’t help but gasp.
The demonkin’s origin power would produce external phenomena at a certain level which, in the eyes of other races, would take the form of a black mist. The stronger the origin power, the thicker the mist. A genius like Eden would be shrouded in mist when he channeled his origin power.
Those at a higher level of cultivation would see their origin power turn into a special form of light. Only demonkin at the duke level would be able to produce such effects. Reportedly, the entire battlefield would turn dark when a major demonkin character took to the battlefield. Legends had it that a black sun emerged when the supreme character atop the sacred mountain took action, darkening the entire world.
Qianye had only read about it in the military documents and never actually seen any traces of them. With his position and strength, he was far from qualified to take part in such battles. Even someone as strong as Linken could only emit a faint black light when she was going all out, a fair distance away from turning the world dark.
The black light spreading out from the drawers, however, was dazzling, to say the least. This clearly wasn’t something a duke could produce and was most likely the work of a prince-level character.
At first, Qianye had wanted to channel his Venus Dawn, but his blood core began pulsing strongly under the stimulation of the dark radiance. Auric flame blood erupted all over his body, shrouding him in a golden blaze that blocked the black radiance outside.
The dark golden blood energy didn’t stop there. It spat out several streams of sanguineous flames that swam toward the source of the demonic light.
Qianye was shocked out of his wits. The item in the drawer was clearly a treasure, so how could he allow it to be destroyed? Quickly withdrawing his blood energy, he gradually began to calm down his pulsing blood core.
The sanguineous flames were finally contained, but the demonic energy was now agitated. It merged into a single entity in the air and transformed into a slowly revolving black sun. It would seem this demonic light was highly spiritual, just like the dark golden blood energy.
Qianye frowned. Just as he was wondering how to handle this matter, the demonic light suddenly trembled and shot a silken wisp of light into the distance. Then, the radiance dispersed and returned to the drawers.
Qianye cursed inwardly. The demonic light from just now was a stream of information. Qianye had no idea what the message contained or who it was meant for, but that wasn’t a big issue. With the Martyr’s Palace in hand, he could return to the North Continent in a flash. That land was special and not even a great dark monarch could easily spy on it. The Pointer Monarch was young back then, but his methods were unique and powerful. Otherwise, the emperor wouldn’t consider him as the greatest threat to the throne.
Qianye naturally wouldn’t remain here for long. He would leave at most half a day later after the goods had been transferred. At that point, where would they seek him out in the vast void? The good thing about the Martyr’s Palace being built from the Earth Dragon’s skeleton was that most surveillance abilities were useless against it. It wouldn’t be that easy to catch Qianye.
At this point, both the blood energy and demonic light had calmed down. Only then did Qianye get the chance to observe the drawer. The three drawers were heavily padded, almost like a solid box with a cavity in the center, each holding a square black crystal. There was a plume of black flame at the center of each crystal, and the demonic radiance was coming from it.
Qianye wanted to reach out and grab it, but he could feel a vague pain from his fingertips. It was likely that he would be scorched if he were to grab it—and that was Qianye. Any ordinary person would’ve been burnt to a crisp. It would seem those three drawers were also quite extraordinary to be able to isolate the demonic light.
Qianye closed the drawers and, after some thought, removed the entire side-cabinet and put it into Andruil’s space.
Qianye felt something different about the three crystals as well. Judging from the reflection of origin power, they actually looked more like metal. It was just that the demonic light was so strong that it transformed the material and turned it into something else. No matter what they were, though, it was certain that they were priceless and it was a mystery how Linken had gotten her hands on them. One could easily imagine how much of a commotion these things would stir up if they were to appear in Evernight.
At this point, there were no more secrets on Linken’s airship. Looking at the long term, the most valuable harvest was the notebook and its contents. The most valuable and easily liquidated things at present were the weapons and equipment in her private armory. There were ten or so sets of armors and dozens of firearms of varying models—all of them could be sold for a good price on the black market. There was no worry of not being able to sell them out. Additionally, her personal collection contained hundreds of items with no lack of premium things among them.
It could be said that at least half of her fortune was in Qianye’s hands. A new duke like her would be fighting most of the time and staying in her airship for the most part. Her home, on the contrary, would be less used. Hence, all of her things were probably on her ship.
Qianye had gained handsomely from this battle. In terms of personal wealth, he was now fairly close to Song Zining and his Ningyuan Heavy Industries. As expected, fighting was the best way to get rich fast.
It was just that, as he explored through the vessel, Qianye realized that Linken’s hatred for him had far surpassed a fight to the death. As for exactly how much, only she would know clearly.
After walking out of the residential quarters, he found Xue Tao standing respectfully at the door.
“You guys can go in now. Search thoroughly, but be careful, there are many things in there that I don’t know the function of.”
“Sire, rest assured. I’ll keep an eye on them personally and record everything. Nothing will be missing,” Xu Tao replied.
Qianye nodded. “Call me if you need me.”
With a wave of Xu Tao’s hand, dozens of men poured into the residential chamber in a single file. These men were mostly technicians—otherwise, they wouldn’t have been dispatched to the Martyr’s Palace. With them around, the exploration process would go much faster.
When Qianye walked out of the shipwreck, a chubby technician walked over and said uneasily, “Sire Qianye, we’ve already investigated the other demonkin shipwrecks. Most of the parts can no longer be reused because of the heavy damage. So far, only a corvette-class main cannon remains usable, but only after some repairs. The harvest is quite good despite all that since we can recycle at least a hundred tons of metal alloy.”
“Can we use the alloy on demonkin warships?”
“We can use a portion of them if we smelt them. Naturally, a good chunk of their value will be lost, but there’s no loss since we can’t use demonic energy anyway.”
Qianye nodded. “Being able to recycle demonic alloy means you’ve reached the military’s standards.”
The technician said proudly, “We’re definitely not bragging, but not many companies in the empire can match Ningyuan Heavy Industries in terms of metal-processing.”
The core force behind Ningyuan Heavy Industries’ advanced smelting technology was probably that alloy formula. Eventually, it would also become the reason propelling Song Zining to the peak of the empire, with the appearance of more and more side-products. Qianye didn’t mention this, but he simply had to wonder what Song Zining did for that major character to be rewarded so.
The technician passed over a list that Qianye duly received and gave a once-over. Time was short, but the list was quite detailed and orderly.
It also came as a pleasant surprise that, although most of the main cannons had been destroyed, the ammunition was intact. The ballistae they were using wasn’t so easy to damage, either. The harvest on main-cannon ballista bolts alone stood at over three hundred, and the other types of ammunition numbered in the thousands. They also managed to gain a batch of demonkin sailor weapons. With how tall the demonkin were, it was difficult for humans to use the equipment, but there would surely be people willing to buy them in the black market.
Seeing that Qianye was quite satisfied, the fat technician said cautiously, “Sire, I have something I’m wondering if I should say.”
Qianye raised his brows. “What? Say it.”
“It’s like this, several friends and I work on the two cargo ships. I’m only in charge of technology and nothing else. The decision to stop the ship was also made by the people above.”
So it was all about that matter. Qianye said with a nod, “I’ll investigate this matter thoroughly. I won’t involve people who aren’t involved. You just do your job well.”
The technician replied thankfully, “I definitely will!”
Qianye returned to the airship and led the Martyr’s Palace gradually away from the area.
At this moment, in the unknown darkness, a massive aura gradually came into existence. A pair of sharp yet deep eyes emerged within a sable torrent, sweeping through the vast darkness of the void.
“Who used my demonic energy? Is it that little fellow? She finally used it? Oh, it’s an ancient vampire. Interesting, it seems she has provoked something serious. Who would’ve thought a new ancient vampire would appear again? How many years has it been? A thousand years? Ten thousand? Damn, I don’t even remember. But perhaps that means I can leave this place pretty soon…”
