[V6C144 – Sorrow of a Silent Parting]
Qianye stood calmly in place without the slightest of movements. The man who had crashed into him took several steps back before managing to find his footing. His vision turned blurry and some fresh blood seeped out of his mouth. This full-force collision felt as though he had crashed into a mountain, the complete rebound of force inflicting heavy injuries upon him.
“You dare b.u.mp into me? This daddy will kill you...” That man looked up and rubbed his eyes. The profanities he was spitting out stopped midway as Qianye’s face came into view. He immediately bowed down with an awkward laugh and apologized repeatedly, “Sire, Qianye! This little one didn’t know it was you.”
He edged back while speaking and then turned to flee.
Qianye remembered this person. He was a lone hunter from the Transcendent Continent, rank-eleven in origin power.
Qianye felt better after seeing the other party turn deferent and flee in defeat. It would seem the series of actions he had taken to establish his might—especially beating up Du Li—was fairly effective. The top seats of the aristocracy might not put this in their eyes, but these mercenaries and bounty hunters who licked blood from the blade on a daily basis would only submit to the strong.
On the way back, Qianye b.u.mped into someone unexpected, Du Li. At this moment, the man was half lying in the back seat of a jeep, his face as pale as a ghost and his breathing irregular.
The jeep had come from the direction of the military hospital. It would seem Du Li had just completed his treatment, but his injuries were clearly not light seeing as how he needed a car to drive him back.
Du Li became quite tense when Qianye intercepted the car with a raise of his hand. He moved toward the other side subconsciously while staring at Qianye. “Y-You, what are you trying to do? We’ve already fought.”
“Nothing, I just wanted to see if you’re doing okay. I didn’t go too hard on you back then.” Qianye smiled.
Du Li squeezed out a smile, one that was even uglier than weeping. “I’m quite well.”
How was that well? He had received a bunch of internal wounds when Qianye smashed him into the floor. Although it wasn’t enough to take his life, he would have to suffer for quite a while.
Qianye nodded in response and asked indifferently, “Where are my spoils?”
Du Li’s expression s.h.i.+fted, but this time, it was clearly due to the physical pain. He said through gritted teeth, “I gave all of my belongings to the Li family people and asked for them to be handed to you. I followed all the rules!”
“I was just asking.” Qianye left with a smile.
Qianye cultivated for an entire night and day after returning to his residence. There, he purified the origin power he hadn’t yet refined with the Glory Chapter. At this point, Young Dragon had also been repaired. As such, Qianye collected his equipment and left the base once again.
No one knew whether it was a twist of fate or just pure coincidence. On the third day after entering Misty Wood, Qianye felt something in his heart while gazing at the mist in front of him—he knew he had encountered Eden yet again.
The Misty Wood was such a vast place. The battlefront between the two factions was incomparably long, now stretching thousands of kilometers after the connection of four warzones. Yet, these two had actually met again.
However, neither of them attacked right away. They only stood in silent confrontation with the Misty Wood between them.
Qianye knew that Eden had also found him. Up to this day, he still had no idea how the latter had been able to discover him. The same applied to Eden.
Qianye raised Thunderbolt but lowered it again after a moment of hesitation. He had already locked onto Eden’s location, but their reaction speed was enough to dodge a shot from around a hundred meters, to speak nothing of several hundred. The only way was to catch the other party unaware.
This shot would surely miss and once again initiate a battle with no definite end in sight.
Tangling with Eden came with great benefits despite the loss in contributions. At the very least, wrestling along the fine line between life and death improved Qianye’s combat strength significantly. There were even new revelations which became evident in his fight with Du Li.
Solely in terms of daybreak origin power, Du Li’s cultivation actually lived up to his rank. His origin power capacity was even greater than Qianye’s, but this minor advantage didn’t help him at all in battle. Qianye had beaten the man until he had no ability to retaliate—to be exact, he didn’t even manage to block a single attack.
However, the benefits weren’t without any sequelae. Qianye recalled the contract and two ranking papers Li Tianquan had brought out. He was naturally unwilling to withdraw for no reason amidst the criticisms. He decided to have a go at the rankings since he had no way around this matter anyway. Moreover, he was determined to take first place.
Qianye didn’t care much about politics, but he wasn’t ignorant about it. He had a vague feeling that Li Tianquan’s reason for targeting him so wantonly—in addition to someone pressuring him from behind—was that the Li family’s war situation was going too smoothly. They had exceeded their targets for contribution points with low casualty rates, and all of this was credited to Li Tianquan, further solidifying his position.
At least half of this was through Qianye’s efforts. He knew best how terrifying an expert with superior visual range and stealth proficiency was in this Misty Wood.
If he were to keep fighting against Eden here, he would have no opportunity at all on the rankings.
“What if…” Qianye shook his head. He didn’t continue thinking along this line, but he didn’t attack, either.
It was as though they had reached a tacit understanding. Eden made no move without any action from Qianye, but he was definitely still in the area.
Eden touched the Abyssal Tribute in his hand as his father’s words echoed in his ears.
“Tempering your combat strength is a good thing, but your current results in battle are unacceptable. I won’t be able to speak out for you in the next elder conference if you don’t produce good results in the next battle. Although I hope my direct descendant can obtain a higher candidate’s position, taking that seat without sufficient strength is just courting death.”
Eden was greatly concerned about the elder conference at the Dark Abyss where the successors’ positions would be discussed every three years.
The elders would form a standard cut-off point according to the performance of all peers and remove those who contributed below that point from the successor’s list. This would shrink the pool of successors and allow resources to be focused on nurturing the remaining experts.
At this point, Eden was only ranked in the upper-middle among all the candidates. He was in a fairly dangerous region where he could be kicked out of the list at any moment. This was, of course, related to his young age and Elder Preston’s hands-off method with his descendants. But regardless of the reason, the successor cut-off point wouldn’t be reduced for anyone.
The floating continent was the only place where he could harvest enough contribution points before the conference. All the others in the list, apart from the first-ranked successor, had joined this battle, and Eden had unfortunately fallen to the bottom during this period of time.
Rage flickered in Eden’s eyes at the thought of this and threads of blood spread out continuously therein. If it wasn’t for the prolonged entanglement with Qianye, how could his arch-enemies have trampled over him? For a moment, Eden had the urge to blast Qianye with the Abyssal Tribute and s.n.a.t.c.h back the Carol of Shadows in pa.s.sing.
But his rationality stopped the finger on the trigger. Eden knew very well that the opponent was outrageously powerful and growing at a rapid pace.
He had chased down Qianye during the first battle and nearly took the latter’s life. In the last battle, however, it was Eden running for his life. The circ.u.mstances back then were unusual, and Eden was quite sure that the other party couldn’t fire that inconceivably powerful shot at will. Despite all that and no matter how much he was loath to admit, the other party’s progress was indeed superior to his own.
This was a miracle often enjoyed by the frail human race. Those short-lived creatures would develop at a rapid pace during their brief lifespan. Even the G.o.ds of darkness couldn’t tell them the reason for this.
Eden slowly lowered his Abyssal Tribute and, after one last glance at Qianye’s direction, left toward another.
Qianye was somewhat surprised, but he had no intention of stopping the man. The Misty Wood was definitely big enough to hold the both of them. After Eden disappeared, Qianye picked up his Thunderbolt and headed in the direction of the central caverns.
He knew that things were different this time. The two of them might not start fighting even if they were to meet again on the battlefield. When they do engage in their next battle, it would likely be a fight to the death.
After being freed of Eden, Qianye’s fortune instantly took a turn for the better. He ran into a small dark race squad not long afterward.
This squad was well-equipped and consisted of over five hundred soldiers of mixed races. It was an elite hunting unit of the Evernight Faction, targeting small imperial parties and independent experts.
The leader was a third-rank arachne viscount. This was a reasonable lineup—those special scouts with over two hundred meters of visual range at the center prevented rank twelve or thirteen human experts from taking action. Only experienced hunters above rank-fourteen would be able to chew on this hard bone. Even then, they would have to plan everything out carefully.
But such rules were useless against Qianye. He had already locked onto the arachne viscount from five-hundred meters away. By the time Thunderbolt’s timber reached the dark race soldiers’ ears, that viscount’s waist had been blasted open. Its upper body had been largely disjointed from the impact, and only a small part remained connected to its trunk.
The arachne’s vitality was so powerful that it hadn’t yet died even after such an injury and might actually recover with timely intervention. However, Qianye’s shot was intentional—although the arachne wasn’t dead yet, it had been deprived of all fighting power.
Afterward, Qianye put the Thunderbolt away and rushed over. He roamed about within a hundred meters of this squad, firing continuously with his Twin Flowers and killing all high-ranking warriors. The separated revolvers possessed greater firing speed and minimal consumption, greatly suitable for dealing with such a situation. Even if he couldn’t kill some of them on the spot, it was enough to disable them temporarily.
One baron, three knights, and several esquires fell under the continuous bombardment. Qianye remained hidden within the mist all this time, denying them the opportunity to retaliate. That baron was a fierce character strong enough to challenge a viscount, yet he collapsed to the ground after taking three shots and could no longer clamber up.
The entire squad’s fighting capabilities collapsed within moments, and only at this point did Qianye draw East Peak and charge into the fray. With a flicker of his silhouette, he had arrived in the midst of the dark race warriors using Spatial Flash.