After pa.s.sing the final line that was Zhao Jundu, Qianye discovered that the walls of Indomitable were just in front of him. Charging out of the military stronghold and killing his way here, Qianye had gone through countless arduous battles. In order to quickly break through the battlefield and the encirclement, he had adopted a constant stance of exchanging injuries, in a bid to defeat every enemy in the shortest time possible. At this point, even his ancient vampire const.i.tution could hardly keep up with the strain. The injuries on his body only grew in number as their healing grew slower.
The city wall was just in front of him, but Qianye couldn’t feel any delight. Indomitable wasn’t a solitary city—beyond this wall, there were hundreds of fortresses of all shapes and sizes. Moreover, the land outside was so vast and open that a pursuing army could easily surround him before he could get very far. It was fine if he were alone, but he had Nighteye with him at the moment. The vampire princess was extremely weak—she wasn’t much stronger than an ordinary human at the moment, and the six refined silver nails in her body weren’t helping, either. Qianye didn’t dare remove them rashly for fear of hidden poison and contraptions.
After waiting for his stamina to recover somewhat, Qianye took a deep breath and leapt upward. He tapped the wall several times along the way and finally reached the top with the help of this borrowed force.
His eyes lit up immediately after ascending the wall. There was a brightly lit area not so far off in the distance—it was actually an airs.h.i.+p port! At this moment, the place was fairly busy with numerous airs.h.i.+ps landing and taking off in the area, and there was a military guns.h.i.+p patrolling the air.
Qianye scanned the entire port and was quickly attracted by a certain airs.h.i.+p parked at a corner of the tarmac. This grey vessel was long and slender, and came with three masts. It was clearly of an old design, yet it gave off a sense of absolute agility.
The airs.h.i.+p was very familiar. Qianye recognized it as the premium-quality vehicle Song Zining had custom-ordered for personal use. This vessel’s most outstanding quality was its speed—its three origin sails were reportedly the same model as the ones on Marshal Lin’s airs.h.i.+p. Hence, its speed in the void was simply incomparable.
Qianye was just about to run toward the airs.h.i.+p port when he slowly turned back, overcome by a sense of alarm.
A hundred meters away, a dignified-looking old man materialized from the darkness. The moment he appeared, he became the center of the world, and all the drifting origin power in the vicinity began to rotate around him. Even the origin power around Qianye gravitated toward the old man.
This person was clad in an imperial uniform. There weren’t a lot of decorations on his well-fitted attire, but there were two crossed scepters embedded in his collar.
Qianye’s pupils shrank upon recognizing the symbol of an imperial marshal.
After fleeing all this way, he had finally encountered a true bigshot. It was just that Qianye didn’t quite know which marshal this elderly person was.
Qianye laughed coldly. “It seems people think quite highly of me. Even a marshal has taken to the field.”
The old man showed no expression at all. “It’ll be the empire’s shame if we let a lowly vampire like you escape. Hence, this marshal has no choice but to take this trouble. I won’t cause trouble for you if you give up willingly. If you insist on struggling, however, this marshal has all too many methods for humiliating you, and even the Zhao clan will lose a fair bit of face. At that time, death will be an extravagant hope. As for that vampire princess in your arms, I have my own uses for her, no need for you to worry.”
The word “uses” caused Qianye’s eyes to turn a b.l.o.o.d.y red! Even though he hadn’t come into contact with this community, he had heard of how the imperial n.o.bility “used” beautiful vampire ladies.
The joints in Qianye’s sword-hand crackled. He took a deep breath to suppress the inherent vampiric fury and stared deeply at this old man, carving his image into the mind. “Thank you for your advice. If I somehow survive, I shall return one day to ask you for guidance and to see what uses your friends and family have!”
Qianye’s voice was calm, but his words contained an unalterable resolve. The old man was shaken as he recalled Qianye’s past deeds, knowing that such a person might really cross the divine-champion threshold.
The man’s heart was secretly filled with a frosty intent, and his determination to kill Qianye grew even stronger.
He produced a pair of silver gloves and equipped them. Then, with a loud roar, he threw a punch at Qianye from a hundred meters away.
A silver fist shot out toward Qianye like a bolt of silver lightning. It had barely taken form when it arrived in front of its target! Only then did a shrill whistle fill the air, the sound of the fist intent traveling through the atmosphere.
This punch caused the entire segment of Indomitable’s walls to tremble, with pieces of stone falling off continuously.
In the face of this earth-shattering punch, Qianye reacted at lightning speed. The combined Twin Flowers was already in his hand when the fist intent took shape. He fired dozens of rounds in the blink of an eye, each landing squarely on the fist intent.
However, how could a divine champion’s attack be so easy to block? Without the Shot of Inception, the ten blasts only managed to dim the attack slightly, and eight parts of its power still remained.
Moving the gun into his left hand, Qianye lifted East Peak and quickly executed Sweeping Calm. Three strikes merged into one and slashed onto the incoming fist.
The silver fist intent weakened once more and even paused for a split second. But then it actually recovered its momentum and blasted at Qianye!
With a determined expression, Qianye crossed his arms to protect the vitals in his chest, poised to take on the imperial marshal’s all-out punch with his vampiric body.
It was at this moment that a small figure suddenly appeared. Like a bolt of lightning, it crossed the distance of a hundred meters at the moment of imminent peril and crashed into that silver fist!
“Boom!” The impact was tremendous. Finally, the wall Qianye was standing on could hold out no longer. It caved in with a loud rumble, revealing a huge defect therein. Qianye could hardly find his footing and was pushed back repeatedly by the tempest of origin power.
At the core of the tempest, the collision had thoroughly dispersed the silver fist intent. That small figure popped out from the explosion and crashed into Qianye’s arms.
“Zhuji! What are you doing here?”
Little Zhuji looked up, appearing rather dizzy and lightheaded. “Mommy told me to come.”
Mommy?
As though he had sensed something, Qianye looked up toward a distant location. There, at the extremes of his vision, he saw Song Zining turn away and disappear into the night.
He then looked down at Zhuji. Apart from being dazed, the la.s.s was actually unharmed. Although Qianye had already reduced half of the silver fist’s power, this little fellow being able to scatter the fist intent meant that her const.i.tution wasn’t far off from Qianye’s own.
The old man’s face turned livid upon seeing that his attack had turned out fruitless. The revolving origin power around him began to accelerate as his body absorbed vast amounts of energy like a bottomless abyss. The silver brilliance around his hands became increasingly fierce, almost as though two silver suns had risen in the dark night. Without a doubt, this was an earth-shattering attack!
Just as the punch was about to be unleashed, a pair of luminous wings unfurled behind Qianye and his figure flickered out of existence.
Astonished, the old man looked everywhere but couldn’t find so much as a shadow. Having lost his target after a full power-acc.u.mulation, the man felt extremely distressed and uncomfortable. He let out a m.u.f.fled groan as the silver light on his fist scattered, and a stream of fresh blood seeped out from the corner of his mouth.
How could the elder be satisfied with this outcome? He flew up and expanded his perception to cover a thousand meters. Qianye had no way to hide while carrying a wounded Nighteye.
However, his search came up empty-handed after sweeping the area several times, almost as though Qianye had vanished into thin air. Both alarmed and furious, the old marshal scanned the area in great detail once more and found an extremely faint wisp of blood energy. His heart skipped a beat when he gazed at the direction of this trail and saw the airs.h.i.+p port. However, he still refused to believe Qianye could actually escape right under his eyes and sneak into the airs.h.i.+p port. Hence, he only expanded the scope of his perception and continued scouring the immediate area.
At this moment, Qianye had arrived beside Song Zining’s airs.h.i.+p under the cover of the shadows. Just now, Qianye had taken advantage of the time the old marshal was acc.u.mulating power to activate his last Spatial Flash. With the amplification of the Wings of Inception, he managed to travel over a thousand meters in a single step and fled successfully into the airs.h.i.+p port.
The silver airs.h.i.+p sat silently on the ground. Qianye destroyed the lock on the cabin doors with a swing of his sword and pushed his two companions in. Then, he entered the cabin himself and locked the door with a vampiric blade.
Qianye rushed straight into the control room after boarding the vessel. He heaved a sigh of relief—as expected of a premium-quality item, the vessel was highly capable and easy to control. It was so much simpler to operate than ordinary airs.h.i.+ps.
Airs.h.i.+p operation was a required subject for all high-ranking imperial officers. Qianye flipped all the control switches in quick succession. As the origin array drove the engine into a full roar, he was delighted to find that the vessel was fully fueled and easily capable of reaching another continent.
Qianye pushed on the control lever and brought the engine to its maximum output, causing the high-speed airs.h.i.+p to take off with a sudden jolt.
The airs.h.i.+p’s movements were immediately discovered by the guards who were on high-alert. Ear-piercing alarms echoed throughout the airs.h.i.+p port—soldiers rushed over one squad after another, and the guns.h.i.+p in flight turned about to intercept the ascending vessel.
“You take over!” Qianye instructed Nighteye on the basic controls before rus.h.i.+ng out of the control room. He soon arrived at the deck turret and activated its autocannon.
This airs.h.i.+p was equipped with multi-barreled autocannons at the front and a large ballista at the back. For its size, the airs.h.i.+p was somewhat over-geared in terms of firepower.
The autocannon barrels started to spin as Qianye stomped down on the foot pedal, spitting out a stream of metallic flames which stopped the guards in their tracks. Then, he turned the flaming whips toward the high-speed airs.h.i.+ps that were just about to take off, causing them to fall back to the ground amidst a shower of debris.
It was at this time that the airs.h.i.+p jolted fiercely. A ballista bolt flew out from the rear end of the vessel and, amidst a surge of silver radiance, blasted the patrolling guns.h.i.+p that had just completed its turn mid-air.
Qianye glanced back to find that Zhuji had run over to the ballista turret and actually scored her first hit.
At this moment, the turrets surrounding the airs.h.i.+p port began to open fire, quickly weaving a net of firepower in the sky. Without the need for Qianye’s instructions, Nighteye accelerated the vessel continuously and charged straight into the fiery net!
The silver airs.h.i.+p penetrated the torrential fire like a phoenix rising from the ashes and sped into the boundless void.
The airs.h.i.+p sped up continuously after unfurling its three sails, leaving the floating continent further and further behind it. In front of them lay the endless void… as well as a vast new world.