[V6C9 – Sorrow of a Silent Parting]
The vampire elder who had worn a calm expression this entire time became fairly serious—it was as though a great enemy was upon them. He replied, “They’re done for.”
“What?! Impossible, we have so many people outside!” the vampire youth cried loudly. His fingers were almost twitching as his hand pressed on the gorgeous scabbard and vampiric blade at his waist.
Qianye noticed the vampire youth only after he withdrew his gaze from the old count. His eyes paused slightly on the Monroe clan insignia. “Are you the leader here?”
The vampire youth raised his head and said, “Correct! I’m from the ancient Monroe…”
His words hadn’t even ended when Qianye cut him short. “It’s enough for me to know that you’re the leader. Your name means nothing.”
With that, Qianye grasped East Peak by the handle and drew it slowly. This weapon—made by Old Lu and tempered by the greatest technology from the Song and Zhao clans—finally revealed its splendor once again.
The dark race experts in the entire hall were greatly astonished and vigilant. They felt pressure as grave as the mountains and as vast as the seas emerge from this human before them. No one dared obstruct him carelessly because it would surely be earth-shattering no matter where he attacked.
But Qianye remained still without any movement, and only his body leaned forward ever so slightly as he threw a horizontal slash at the vampire youth on the throne.
The old vampire’s eyes erupted with a spiritual gleam. “Young Master, be careful!” He rushed toward the vampire youth and thrust a fine rapier into the air in front of him.
There was nothing at first in the rapier’s direction, but a barely visible ripple suddenly appeared and headed straight for the throne with unreduced momentum. The old man’s attack struck the ripples at the very last moment. An intense bloody light erupted all of a sudden and dyed the hall scarlet!
During this short moment, all the dark race experts in the hall felt their spirits trembling as though they had fallen into a sea of blood.
By the time the sanguineous radiance had receded from everyone’s eyes, they saw the old Monroe count flying back to the vampire youth’s side. But even then, he was unable to stand firm and had to take continuous steps backward. The old man’s thin hands trembled continuously as the rapier in his hand crumbled piece by piece like a pile of scrap metal.
The vampire youth stood before the throne while staring blankly at Qianye, his hand stretched forward as though he wanted to catch something. His eyes were somewhat in a daze as he muttered, “You can’t kill me. My youngest sister is the princess…”
His body staggered at this moment and split into two halves—his lower body was still standing in place as the upper half slid onto the floor. The throne made of metal alloy emitted a snapping sound as a cut surface appeared on the tall backrest. Then, it gradually slid to the side and crashed onto the floor with a boom.
Qianye shook his hand lightly. East Peak’s blade tip trembled with a resonant hum as it was lowered toward the floor.
Nirvanic Rend!
This Nirvanic Rend from East Peak was backed by the power of a half-crystallized champion. Although it didn’t produce any shocking phenomena to draw upon the heaven and earth, it was matchless, concise, and indefensibly sharp.
No one beneath the Iron Curtain could block this sword strike.
There were over ten titled dark race experts in the castle hall. Among them were numerous viscounts, even two first-rank viscounts—one werewolf and one vampire. But Qianye ignored all of them and walked on toward the throne.
The Monroe elder pointed a finger at Qianye and shouted sternly, “The Young Master is dead! No one will live if we can’t kill this person! He can’t unleash that attack repeatedly. Charge together! Kill him!”
The dark race experts in the hall were jolted awake and started to charge over in succession. All kinds of abilities blasted at Qianye in the form of origin beams.
Qianye had reached the middle of the hall at this point. A scarlet origin power radiance appeared around him as he held East Peak in both hands and, going down on one knee, thrust it deep into the ground.
The scarlet brilliance grew ever more vigorous with specks of golden starlight floating within. They rotated continuously around Qianye and started to expand outward at a rapid pace. It soon filled the greater half of the hall as though a small asteroid belt was descending upon Evernight from the top of the world.
Every single attack landing on these golden specks was continuously dispersed. Many stars vanished in this manner, but an even greater amount of them would emerge afterward.
“Venus Dawn!” The Monroe count’s expression changed immediately as he saw through the origins of the golden starlight.
He raised his trembling hands with great difficulty, drew the dead youth’s sword, and slashed thrice at Qianye through the air. At the same time, he shouted loudly, “Kill him! Anyone who kills him will earn great contributions. Council-grade contributions!”
A council-grade contribution meant that the Evernight Council would appear to reward this person for his contributions. Hence, the eyes of everyone in the hall became bloodshot after hearing these words. They did their utmost to break through the starry light and Qianye.
But they didn't notice that a blue light had emerged in the depths of Qianye’s eyes. He was cold, merciless, and showed not the slightest trace of emotional fluctuation.
Countless bloody threads emerged quietly from Qianye’s body and filled the entire hall in the blink of an eye. The dark race warriors surrounding him were completely penetrated.
Life Plunder!
This terrifying ability had appeared once again, but the current sanguineous threads were greatly superior both in terms of number and penetrance. Almost no one in the hall had the ability to resist. Only the first-rank werewolf viscount, with his outstanding strength, managed to cut down the greater half of the threads shooting at him. However, he was still pierced through by several bloody lines and one had even gone through his abdomen.
The Monroe count beside the collapsed throne managed to block almost all of the bloody threads except the one piercing through his left arm. The old count let out a loud cry when Qianye retracted the sanguineous threads. His face went deathly pale as his aura immediately deteriorated. He made a prompt decision at that time and escaped by crashing through the wall behind him, running through all the walls and rooms in his wake. He didn’t even dare glance back.
There was only one person standing after the countless bloody threads returned to Qianye’s body. It was the first-rank viscount werewolf. He had already transformed into werewolf combat form, so his face wasn’t discernible—only his large mouth opened and closed a couple of times. It was as though he wanted to say something, but his voice just wouldn’t come out.
The werewolf began staggering step by step toward the main doors. It looked like he was planning to run away, but his speed was even slower than an ordinary old man.
Qianye was still in his kneeling position with the sword in the ground. He remained still and completely ignored the werewolf struggling toward the door.
At this moment, the essence blood in his body had reached an unprecedented degree of fullness; it felt as though another drop would cause his body to explode. The blood core was pulsing rapidly, barely able to accommodate the massive amount of essence blood brought in by Life Plunder. At the same time, the Song Clan Ancient Scroll was circulating rapidly. The deep dark vortex had already expanded to its limit as it drew in and crushed the incoming essence blood to turn them into drops of darkness origin power.
Although Qianye’s circulation of two chapters had increased several times after his ascension, devouring massive amounts of essence blood from several viscounts left him with a feeling of indigestion. But he could refine the greater half of it after some rest.
With Qianye remaining still at the center of the main hall and the castle doors within arm’s reach, the werewolf almost seemed to have found a ray of hope. Flames lit up in his eyes and even his steps grew somewhat faster. However, he could no longer hold on just as he was about to force himself over the threshold. He fell head first to the floor and could no longer get up again.
Qianye was still motionless. He activated the Mystery Chapter with all his might in order to digest the essence blood continuously. Conquering this castle meant that he had basically penetrated the entire zone a3 and very few dark race warriors would remain in this war zone. Although he still hadn’t found Bai Kongzhao’s whereabouts, it could be considered an accomplished objective for Qianye.
Qianye’s body finally moved just as the castle bells tolled nine times. It was already deep into the night when he slowly opened his eyes. A tiny pair of golden wings flickered briefly in the depths of his eyes.
A feather had once again condensed upon the Wings of Inception. This also meant that he could now fire yet another Shot of Inception. With it, Qianye no longer needed to fear anyone under the Iron Curtain.
His eyes were as deep and blue as the ocean on the eve of a storm. Its luster retracted gradually as he stood up and waved East Peak outward, aiming the blade’s point diagonally toward the ground in a guarding stance. He then spoke calmly, “Show yourself since you’ve already come.”
A sigh emerged from outside the castle’s main doors. It passed through the courtyard and the hall to seemingly ring beside one’s ears.
The day and night were only different shades of grey under the Iron Curtain, but there was moonlight pouring down onto the courtyard at this moment. It was like a mass of hazy silver light comparable to flowing water. It also resembled a bewildering mist creeping over the tall wall, the broken gate, the blood-stained earth, and the pile of corpses.
A tall, heroic-looking blonde youth walked out from the mist and headed straight for the castle hall. The silvery mist resembling moonlight retracted with him as the center and eventually vanished.
William passed through the dark race warrior corpses. He would occasionally stop to flip over a number of werewolf corpses and check on them before continuing forward.
At the doors to the main hall, William lifted up that werewolf viscount and stared on vacantly. He sighed moments later and said, “Viscount Olaf, I remember him as a truly valiant warrior. I never expected to see him here—and in such a manner.”
Qianye glanced at William. “I promised to take care of the werewolves when possible, but I never promised to not retaliate when they’re throwing themselves at me.”
William looked up with a hint of dejection in his eyes. “I know, I only felt that he shouldn’t have appeared here. Just a few years ago, Olaf was stubborn to the point of stupidity, but at the very least, he still followed the ancient traditions of the werewolves. That is not to compromise in the face of a generational vendetta.”
William’s words vaguely revealed some of the dark race’s secrets. Qianye understood him without the need to explain.
The enmity between the werewolves and vampires was no less than their animosity with the humans. Olaf appearing in the Monroe castle to work for the enemy served as indirect proof that the situation around many werewolf tribes wasn’t looking very optimistic. Moreover, these werewolves weren’t natives of the chaotic Evernight Continent but dark race nobles from the upper continents.
William stood up after reaching out to close Olaf’s still-open eyes. He then glanced toward the main hall and said in a meaningful tone, “I had originally thought that I might be too late to retrieve your corpse, or perhaps more optimistically, catch you running away with heavy injuries. I would have never imagined the outcome would be like this. Did you finish off all these people?”
Qianye said calmly, “There seems to be no one else here.”
William’s eyes scanned the great hall and fell upon the collapsed throne on the platform. His brows rose as he pointed at the vampire youth’s corpse and said, “There should at least be a guardian around that notoriously arrogant trash, right?”
“Yes, there was a third-rank count, but he escaped.”
William’s eyes were no longer as unfathomable as before. His blue-grey eyes almost seemed to be flowing with light as he sized Qianye up from head to toe. “You can already defeat a third-rank count? That’s a genuine Monroe count we’re talking about.”
Qianye didn’t reply and only gazed intently at William.
Under his Eye of Truth, William’s origin power tendency was like a mass of burning darkness. Qianye was somewhat shaken because this signified that William was at least three ranks higher than him.
But the origin power outside of his body was visible. Qianye noticed that William’s origin power was seeping out of his body, expanding and contracting rhythmically around him. This was a combat-ready state in which he could launch an attack at a moment’s notice.