[V6C187 – Sorrow of a Silent Parting]
The dark race army’s attack was exceptionally fierce. According to the original plan, the first line fortress had to hold out for one day at least. In the end, they were forced to withdraw to the second line within a matter of hours. However, due to Qianye’s presence, the defense forces were able to kill numerous enemies. The death toll among ranked n.o.bles, especially, was far beyond expectations and caused a huge setback to the dark race army.
The two defensive line fortresses weren’t too far. Amidst the silence, the high-speed wars.h.i.+ps soon arrived at the central second-line fortress. Here, they unloaded the soldiers and experts still capable of fighting, along with the ballistae they had retrieved from the front lines.
At first, Song Zining was supposed to retreat to the rear along with the wounded, but he insisted on staying and actually a.s.sumed the post of defense-force captain. This wasn’t a good office to hold at such a time because the highest officer in the fortress would have to hold fast until the very end. He would only be able to withdraw after the retreat order had been issued.
There were several other major generals, but he was the only one who had experience working under Zhang Boqian. Just like that, he obtained this fiery position.
The last fortress had fallen too quickly, and the retreat was also fairly decisive. Hence, the Zhang clan army had only just pa.s.sed through when Qianye arrived here.
Standing on the fortress walls and watching the leaving Zhang clan army, Qianye sighed. “Can we really win the war on this void continent?”
“We definitely will.” There was no hesitation in Song Zining’s reply.
“Why is that?” Qianye wasn’t sure where Song Zining got his confidence from. At least up to this point, the empire was being beaten back repeatedly. The Song clan being driven from its territory was just a matter of time. The situation in the void was also extremely dire. Reportedly, the imperial fleet no longer dared to engage in a showdown with the enemy.
How was one able to win under such circ.u.mstances?
Song Zining pointed above. “With Marshal Lin’s strategy and Marshal Zhang overseeing things, how can we ever lose?”
Qianye was somewhat astonished. He spoke only after a while, “I never expected you to be so confident in them. This can be considered… idolization, even?”
Song Zining admitted with a shrug, “I guess.”
Qianye looked carefully at Song Zining, hardly able to believe his wors.h.i.+p.
At this moment, several combat squads ran out of the fortress and began burying some things in the ground. Qianye inquired, “What are they burying?”
“Mines, I ordered them to.”
Qianye was momentarily speechless. This was an ancient weapon which dated back thousands of years ago. Presently, they could only be found in desolate places like Evernight Continent and only in its most remote battlefields.
Song Zining only smiled in the face of Qianye’s doubts. “I thought of this after seeing you use hand grenades to good effect. They can be considered giant mines.”
Song Zining ordered one of his men to bring over his so-called mine. It was called that, but it was actually a contraption made of cannon rounds, hand grenades, and a detonator. The firepower looked quite impressive, and moreover, they were buried in a dense array outside the fort walls, one every ten meters or so.
Song Zining returned that “mine” to the soldier and said to Qianye, “Not everyone can toss grenades like you. At least, this young master can’t. So we have to find this kind of dumb method. Fortunately, the Zhao clan is well-stocked; even cannon-rounds and hand grenades are in ample supply. They delivered a literal boat-load of them once I brought it up.”
Qianye understood after seeing this mine that Song Zining was imitating his method of killing large swathes of low-ranking warriors to reveal the high-ranking enemy. If the latter happened to be standing at the center of the explosion, his fate would be similar to being blasted by a heavy cannon. The enemy casualty rate was sure to rise sharply.
At this moment, the dark race army was flowing through the valleys and hills like the tides. The three first-line fortresses were like charred pieces of stone washed away in the deluge. The pressure on Qianye and Song Zining’s fortress was the greatest, yet they were the last to fall. The dark races had also suffered grave losses in taking down that fortress, probably greater than the other two combined.
After arriving at the second-line fortress, Qianye and Song Zining only enjoyed a couple of hours of peace before the dark race army came charging once more.
The battle was exceptionally arduous, almost unprecedentedly so.
Even with the willpower Qianye had gained from Yellow Springs, he felt himself somewhat shaken by the endless slaughter. Qianye was besieged from all sides soon after the battle had begun—dark race soldiers were everywhere as far as the eye could see. Murder had more or less become an instinct at this point. Qianye’s brain had already stopped thinking—he found himself dodging, blocking, attacking, and killing purely by reflex.
It felt like there was no end to the fighting.
After an unknown length of time, Qianye suddenly felt the pressure around him ease up and the dark race soldiers around him become spa.r.s.e. At this moment, he looked toward the sudden sound of rumbling engines and saw two familiar imperial airs.h.i.+ps circling in the air. Their hatches slowly opened and several cables were dropped down.
Only at this point did Qianye come to. Was it time to retreat again?
Glancing around him, there was nothing left but rubble. The buildings in the fortress had been destroyed, and there were corpses everywhere. There was no way to differentiate between the mixed remains of the dark races and imperial soldiers.
The wars.h.i.+p, just as before, suppressed the dark races with its fierce firepower while the survivors quickly boarded the vessel. A familiar figure appeared near the hatch—Zhao Yuying was kneeling near the door and firing with reckless abandon. She spared no origin power as she rained explosives onto the high-ranking warriors the airs.h.i.+p had missed.
As the fortress commander, Song Zining followed tradition and boarded the s.h.i.+p with the last batch. He appeared quite strained when grabbing the cables. The clean combat robes he had changed into before were now stained with blood. Apparently, he had gained several new injuries.
Qianye also began approaching the wars.h.i.+p while killing the enemies that had slipped through along the way. He couldn’t help but frown after seeing Song Zining climbing the cable with great difficulty.
For those on the Evernight side, Song Zining was the best kind of sniper target. The moment this thought emerged in his mind, Qianye saw a flickering light through the corner of his eyes. Qianye realized instantaneously that this was a sniper round—one sporting extreme firepower.
In a split second, Qianye’s blood core expanded to its limits and shrank. This intense fluctuation shot vast amounts of blood energy into his circulation, and surging power burst out from every small corner of his body!
With a loud bang, the ground beneath his feet cracked and sank, forming a huge pit in the blink of an eye. Qianye shot into the air like a cannon sh.e.l.l, cras.h.i.+ng into a cannon tower and speeding up further from the impact before flying toward Song Zining.
On the wars.h.i.+p, Zhao Yuying had also seen the incoming sniper round. She put down her hand cannon and reached out to pull on Song Zining’s cable. However, she was some distance away and couldn’t make it no matter what.
Song Zining had also sensed the incoming danger, but he was devoid of strength at the moment. He simply had no strength left to defend against the shot since holding on to the cable was already taking everything he had. The seventh young master was still able to smile on the verge of death. He raised his right hand with some effort—apparently, he was going to wave at Zhao Yuying, or perhaps he wanted to wipe away the dirt on his face, so as to die with some dignity.
Time seemed to stop for a brief moment before suddenly returning to normal.
Qianye suddenly appeared behind Song Zining, allowing the sniper round to strike him squarely in the back. The ma.s.sive force which ensued caused the two to collide. Qianye grabbed onto a cable with one hand while catching Song Zining with the other. Then, with a loud roar, he erupted with every ounce of strength he had and rushed into the cabin.
Zhao Yuying picked up her hand cannon and fired several rounds toward the source of this attack, firmly suppressing that terrifying sniper. Having accomplished the rescue mission, the airs.h.i.+p rose into the air, closed its doors, and left.
A mound of dirt gradually arched up amidst the rocks outside the fortress as a vampire count appeared through the soil. With an angry snort, he shook off the dirt and gravel from his body as he gazed at the receding airs.h.i.+p.
As a true powerhouse, he had been hiding in the shadows since the beginning of the battle and never took action. Everything was for that perfect opportunity just now. Who would’ve thought that the certain kill would be foiled by Qianye?
On the Evernight bounty rankings, Song Zining’s position among the younger generation targets was only below Zhao Jundu. In the eyes of the Evernight Council members, this young man who possessed great personal strength, as well as outstanding leaders.h.i.+p talents, was ranked far above Qianye. None of them wished to see another character like Lin Xitang appear in the empire. Just one was already enough to make them suffer deeply.
As for Qianye, he was momentarily quite resplendent during the b.l.o.o.d.y battle, but the bigshots felt that his resources and potential were both limited. The bounties for many of the major clan scions were ranked above him, not to mention those promising princes and princesses from the imperial family.
This was a shot he had been charging up for a long time, and it was also his unique ability. After firing such a powerful shot, he would be unable to battle for many days to come. He was naturally quite upset that the shot had missed its intended target and struck Qianye instead. After all, Song Zining’s bounty was high enough to move everyone’s hearts, while Qianye’s was less than a third of it.
However, he couldn’t help but s.h.i.+ver after recalling Qianye’s lightning-fast movements and demon-like aura. He had a vague feeling that killing Qianye wasn’t so bad, either, because if he were to encounter Qianye face-to-face on the battlefield, there really was no telling who would win. At this point, he couldn’t help but curse the useless people from the Evernight Council for their erroneous intelligence on Qianye and the subsequent low bounty.