[V6C17 – Sorrow of a Silent Parting]**
Qianye didn’t spend any more time on this. He plunged the vampiric blade into his blood core, withdrew it after a while, and moved onto the next one.
That vampire suddenly leapt up from the ground and charged straight toward Qianye. The two vampiric fangs in his mouth looked exceptionally sinister. He made no attempt at defense, opting instead to erupt with full force and bite Qianye even if he had to die.
In truth, humans past the champion level couldn’t be easily infected or become blood thralls. This vampire’s final struggle was because he knew he wasn’t Qianye’s match at all and simply wanted to cause him some trouble with the toxin.
Qianye sneered as he threw his fist into the vampire’s mouth, causing several of the viscount’s teeth to fly off with a loud snap. Surprisingly, the two vampiric fangs couldn’t pierce Qianye’s skin at all and were snapped instead.
Having their fangs broken was one of the most painful ordeals a vampire could go through. The vampire screamed at the top of his lungs as he rolled around in agony. Qianye stepped onto him and pushed the vampiric blade gently into his body and blood core.
Only a single vampire remained.
This one was fairly timid. He didn’t even wait for Qianye’s interrogation before spilling everything.
It turned out that Faras wasn’t a piece of meat on the cutting board. As a primo, he had various secret arts at his disposal. Presently, he had abandoned his guards and left on his own after sensing the approach of an inexplicable danger. Qianye had caught up to the three viscounts here because they were the slowest of the lot. Meanwhile, Faras was quite likely thousands of kilometers away, already deep into Dark Nation territory.
Qianye had never imagined that the stately primo of an ancient clan would be so cowardly and timid. But according to Zhao Gongcheng, Faras was clearly lacking in combat experience to such an extent that this mighty count was actually trapped by Zhao Jundu—who was two ranks below him. He had nearly died under the Iron Curtain on Evernight Continent.
But now that Faras had already escaped, Qianye had no other choice than to give up chasing after him. With a flick of his hands, the vampiric blade stabbed into the last vampire’s core.
“Y-You said you wouldn’t kill me!” The vampire’s eyes went wide as he looked down at the blade in his chest, his fingers clawing at Qianye’s hand. However, his body quickly grew limp as his essence blood leaked out.
“I didn’t promise you that,” Qianye replied indifferently.
Qianye left after collecting proof of contribution from the three viscounts and ran toward human territory.
At this moment, in the distant Dark Nation, Faras expression was unsightly as he stared at Nighteye who had appeared in his path.
The latter looked coldly at him, imprinting his figure within her eyes. “Scram back to your clan and stop pestering me. Otherwise, I’ll kill you right now!”
Faras forced out a smile and said, “Without our help, is your Monroe clan going to face the Perth clan alone? The Queen of the Night has awakened, you know.”
“You need not worry about that. Scram!”
Faras’s breathing sped up as he roared, “Do you think the Monroe clan will protect you? Without the Black Winged Monarch, how are those old fogeys going to disobey the will of the Queen of the Night? They will surely use you as a bargaining chip in order to maintain the clan’s status. Otherwise, how would I have gotten the chance to propose this marriage? If you don’t marry me, are you willing to marry that holy son?”
Nighteye replied indifferently, “I will marry no one.”
Faras sneered, “That’s impossible! You won’t be able to maintain your bloodline alone.”
“That’s my business.”
With that, Nighteye stepped forward and brushed past Faras’s shoulder. “Go, don’t let me see you ever again.”
Faras gazed blankly at Nighteye’s receding figure. Suddenly, he shouted out loud, “Why?! I was willing to give everything to obtain you, including my family name! I begged His excellency Habsburg for a long time before he agreed to support me because this would very likely lead to opposing the Queen of the Night. Why can’t I obtain you even so? Why?!”
Nighteye was slightly startled. All along, only Faras had expressed his intense desire while the attitudes of the Sperger clan elders were unknown. That was why the Monroe clan still had no idea to this day that Habsburg himself had expressed his consent.
This would’ve become a fairly important counterweight.
Grand Duke Habsburg was one of the most brilliant geniuses of the Evernight Faction and might advance to the prince-rank within three decades. Moreover, he hadn’t even reached middle-age. Such a young prince was rare even in the entirety of the dark race’s history. However, that wasn’t all. Rumor had it that he could advance further, even surpassing the second generation primogenitor, Prince Samael. At that time, the long river of sacred blood would gain yet another Great Monarch.
That was the reason why they were confident enough to accept the Black-Winged Monarch’s primo.
But that was meaningless to Nighteye. She pondered for a moment and said calmly, “For either you or anyone else, it’s too late.”
Faras was dumbfounded and only came to understand moments later. He roared at the top of his lungs, “Who is it? Tell me and I shall kill him! As long as it’s not the holy son, I will kill him!”
But Nighteye didn’t linger. Her figure sped into the distance and vanished into the boundless night.
Faras stood there in a daze. He suddenly recalled how he had no thoughts of taking action from the moment Nighteye appeared up until her departure. It was true that the Iron Curtain’s limitations were in place and he was also wounded, but it wasn’t enough to explain why he had lost the will to fight.
The present Nighteye was different from last time. Faras felt that he could no longer see through her although she had only increased one rank during this time to become a second-rank viscount. There was still a large gap between her and a mighty count like him.
Faras was puzzled as he gazed in Nighteye’s direction, his heart filled with a strong sense of unwillingness. “You can’t escape. You’ll fall into the holy son’s hands sooner or later!”
His cries reverberated throughout the wilderness, but no one knew whether or not Nighteye could hear it.
At this moment, Nighteye seemed to have merged into the night as she sped noiselessly through the darkness. There was a faintly discernible figure in the road ahead—it was Twilight. She couldn’t shake Nighteye off no matter how quickly she ran. On the contrary, the distance between them was slowly growing smaller.
Twilight suddenly halted her steps and said while gazing at the fast approaching Nighteye, “Sister, you’re chasing after me so relentlessly. Could it be that you have no intention of letting me go?”
Nighteye said coldly, “You know very clearly what you’ve been doing all this time!”
Twilight broke into an exaggerated laugh, then shrugged as though she were completely innocent. “I didn’t do anything. I only wanted to see that person, Qianye! He does look quite good and is also quite powerful. Moreover, he’s becoming more and more powerful. To be honest, I think I like him too. I’m thinking about how to give him the embrace!”
“Do whatever you want.”
Twilight was startled by the unexpected reply. She chuckled only after a while and said, “Since you say so, then I’ll go ahead with it. But, what will you do if I succeed?”
Nighteye replied indifferently, “I’ll kill you first, then I’ll kill him.”
Twilight broke into a laugh. “Kill me? Is that even possible?”
Nighteye remained silent and only gazed coldly at Twilight.
Twilight sensed an inexplicable pressure after laughing for a while. She gradually stopped her guffawing and said with a serious expression, “Fine, enough with the nonsense. What do you think of my conditions? Since you’ve already refused Faras, you shouldn’t be dumb enough to refuse me, right? You must know that very few among the sacred-blooded descendants can stand up to the holy son’s pressure.”
Nighteye stared deeply into her eyes and said, “I won’t agree to Faras offer, and I won’t accept yours, either. If you speak of this matter again, don’t blame me for being impolite.”
With that, Nighteye left, leaving Twilight in a daze. After a while, she shouted at the former’s receding figure, “Don’t tell me you’re going to follow the holy son?”
Nighteye didn’t bother to reply as she traveled straight into the distance. Her frail and lonesome figure traveled farther and farther away through the nighttime wilderness, gradually vanishing over the distant horizon.
Qianye was also running through the wilderness. It had been quite some time since he had encountered anyone. Now that the Zhao clan had withdrawn all of its squads, the dark races and the other aristocratic families had no reason to stay, either. Qianye had always maintained good outdoor combat habits and used his True Sight to scan the surroundings intermittently. However, he found not a single sign of life within a thousand meters of him all along the way.
The Iron Curtain had covered the land for quite some time now, and the two factions’ scope of battle stretched tens of thousands of kilometers. It affected the entire border region between the Dark Nation and human territories, producing large expanses of charred land therein. Apart from well-defended cities like Blackflow, the other scattered settlements had long since been relocated or destroyed.
There were also numerous native beasts that had been affected by the Iron Curtain. They frantically attacked everyone they encountered, be it dark race or human. But no matter how much they had mutated, these beasts still weren’t a match for the experts of the two factions, and they were virtually wiped out during the first month of the bloody battle.
Presently, the world under the Iron Curtain had become a desolate silence. The scars of war could be seen everywhere along with sinister white bones and charred, lifeless vegetation.
Qianye climbed up from a valley and onto a stretching mountain ridge. A wide panorama opened up before him as he reached the highest point. The land in front of him was the border of the Iron Curtain. The half-grey, half-clear sky was clearly reflected on the great river winding through the plains.
The sky beyond the Iron Curtain was so clear that one could see beams of sunlight pouring down from the border and onto the river surface. The waves were clear and crystalline with faint golden specks within, almost like a different world from the dark stillness behind him.
A small city stood upon the river bank. It was quite lively with the passage of man, vehicles, and the occasional airship rising overhead. In the distance, one could see groups of buildings resembling scattered villages and towns. However, most of these buildings were different from the ones normally seen on Evernight Continent in that they resembled military barracks. That was the forward base of the aristocratic families.
One of the Zhao clan’s northern war zone forward bases was also located among them.
Qianye’s brows relaxed as he sped up his footsteps and rushed straight down the hill. The tall grey walls of the city grew clearer within his vision after passing through a small thicket.
Qianye suddenly looked up as if he had sensed something and saw a tall straight figure standing up ahead.
Zhao Jundu smiled at him and said, “Qianye, welcome back!” The sharp, spirited countenance of the empire’s number one young genius was akin to the melting of the early snow and was as radiant as a sparkling glacier.
Qianye felt something trickle within his heart. It was his dark but tenacious life. The countless battles, the many life or death situations, the seas of blood, the raging flames—one after the other, he had walked through them, and one after the other, they had faded away.
He suddenly felt with unprecedented clarity that the past… was indeed in the past.
Either pain or joy, regardless of poverty or fortune, whether banal or exhilarating, be it darkness or daybreak—everything belonged to his past. It was unique and unchangeable. Only the future lay in his own hands, uninfluenced by others.
Qianye hastened his steps to meet Zhao Jundu’s open arms, and the two brothers finally embraced each other anew after many years of separation.