A hillock in the wilderness burst into pieces, revealing a deep, hidden cave. Qianye walked out from the opening, his face pale and his eyes sunken. He was apparently in a state of extreme exhaustion, yet there was a contained vigor within him that made people palpitate.
Qianye squinted his eyes under the long-unseen daylight, taking a good while to adapt to the glare. Looking down at the vast wilderness, he let loose a burst of carefree laughter.
The past seven days had been greatly beneficial for him. The most important gain wasn’t his combat arts, but the fact that he had caught a glimpse of the realm beyond a divine champion. Qianye had come into contact with a fair number of divine champions—Zhao Xuanji and Zhao Weihuang, for instance, were both much stronger than the Wolf King. However, those weren’t life and death battles, so the level of comprehension was lacking.
Now, Qianye could see the world from a different perspective, with greater gradation and detailed colors. He could almost reach out and touch the many minute details. Wherever his perception stretched, all life in its wake would more or less respond to him.
Origin power was the foundation of this world. Every ent.i.ty contained origin power of different attributes, the only difference was in their amount and form. What Qianye could sense now was the origin power hidden within all living things.
Being able to sense the origin power of the world was the first step toward controlling it. And it was this first step that had bottlenecked countless heroes and experts throughout history.
Qianye, at this moment, made progress in neither origin power nor blood energy, but from a different aspect, his control over power had entered an entirely new realm.
These seven days had allowed Qianye to realize why Nighteye was able to command such power despite being merely a count.
After exhaling many days of acc.u.mulated impurities, Qianye ran to the nearest town and ate a big meal. Fasting for seven days had placed great strain on his body. After finally finis.h.i.+ng his meal, he asked about the nearby towns and cities before taking his leave.
Half a day later, an airs.h.i.+p rose from a border town hundreds of kilometers away and headed for Tidehark City. That place was the heart of a vast territory and not far from the Wolf King’s main camp, the Totemic Castle. Qianye was in no rush to settle the score with Ji Rui as dealing a fierce blow to the Wolf King was his main priority.
These were the neutral lands where even a mutually beneficial deal had to be based on a foundation of equal strength. Qianye would never enjoy peaceful days in the future if he couldn’t beat the enemy up until he was hurting and afraid. The main reason Ji Rui had sold him out repeatedly was that he had to make a decision between Qianye and the other party, and he believed Qianye to be insufficient.
Killing mercenaries and disbanding Stormwind Fury only gained him fame among the middle and lower ranks. The true chips were held by characters at the divine champion-level, and Ji Rui knew this very well. He seemed fairly well-off from gleaning a bit of profit between these bigshots, but in truth, his status was as fragile as a castle built on sand.
He really had no choice in the matter if the Wolf King had come knocking on his door, saying he wanted to kill Qianye. That was the sorrowful fate of those without hard power.
Having stayed so long in the neutral lands, Qianye understood the path of survival as well as Ji Rui’s swaying-gra.s.s character. This kind of person could be left for future exploitation as he would obey anyone who was strong enough. Naturally, this kind of person would be the first to bite back if Qianye were to fall from power one day.
Right now, Qianye felt that it was time to make people at the level of the Wolf King feel some pain.
On the sh.o.r.e of the Eastern Sea, there was a boundless, gentle beach and the rugged area where Qianye had once lived, as well as tall, precipitous cliffs.
The Wolf King’s ancient Totemic Castle was built upon these cliffs, standing majestically over the Eastern Sea. The ancient Totemic Castle wasn’t far off from the core human cities—overseeing and protecting them at the same time.
The Totemic Castle was mainly staffed by werewolves, with the only humans there being manual laborers and cleaners. The most tiring jobs in the castle were left to them. Due to its high alt.i.tude, it wasn’t easy to travel to and from the place. Without an airs.h.i.+p, it would take a human half a day’s time to hike up to the castle. The human workers there actually weren’t allowed to leave the fortress and looked more like slaves than staff.
At this moment, the curtain of the night was bearing down on the world, and the leaden clouds were almost touching the castle towers. The tides below the precipice were cras.h.i.+ng into the cliff walls amidst thunderous rumbles, spraying seawater hundreds of meters into the air.
Even the Totemic Castle seemed fairly fragile compared to such a night and the majesty of heaven and earth.
The wind kicked up at night, and the echo of roaring tides reverberated throughout the world. The voice reprimanding servants inside the castle had to be raised quite a bit to be heard.
The dim lights inside the castle were only enough to illuminate certain corners and courtyards. Most of the area was still covered in stifling darkness since the dim yellow glow from the narrow windows wasn’t nearly enough to light up anything. On the contrary, they filled the spectator with a sense of cold dread.
Qianye was standing on one of the cliffsides. This place was as high as the main hall of the Totemic Castle and provided an un.o.bstructed view of the castle grounds.
There was a storm brewing over the horizon. The whistling gusts carried pieces of gravel from down the mountain which, like flying blades, would cause anyone struck to bleed.
Qianye had been standing here for an entire two hours, observing the geography and distribution of manpower inside the castle. The faint glow of fire behind the main hall of the castle caught Qianye’s attention. The scale of this bonfire definitely wasn’t small if it could remaining burning in this weather and even illuminate the entire hall.
Werewolves were a race that revered their ancestors and traditions. Even to this day, many werewolves were against technology like airs.h.i.+ps and origin arrays. The totemic flame held an extremely important position in werewolf traditions. In the past, Qianye had come into a lot of contact with werewolves, so he immediately recognized this flame and understood that it was an important location.
Lowering his body, he jumped dozens of meters forward and landed on the other peak. The whistling gales, on contact, would split into two and flow around Qianye. He was like a swimming fish as he lithely navigated the tempest and pressed forward.
This was his gain from the past seven days. He could already draw upon the surroundings without deploying his domain or even spending much origin power.
Qianye weaved about as though he were in flight and arrived atop the sentry tower behind the castle.
This sentry tower was located in a corner facing the sea, with two steep cliffs on either side of it. Perhaps because he felt that no one would come up from this side, the seemingly-bored werewolf on duty only gazed out at the sea while yawning.
The Eastern Sea was vast, hazy, and dark. This werewolf could find nothing no matter how hard he looked.
Qianye was standing above him at the moment, but this werewolf was completely oblivious as he struggled against drowsiness.
Qianye was looking at the rear courtyard where there was a bulging hundred-meter rock in one corner, forming a natural barrier of sorts. Below it was a pit with a raging flame burning inside. Two werewolves happened to arrive at this point and carefully poured two trays of black stone into the fire.
The burning increased a fair bit after the stones entered the flame, and Qianye could smell a faint fragrance that immediately cleared his head. Apparently, the black stones were specially formulated items and not ordinary fuel.
There were colorful strips of cloth tied all over the mountainous rock, and a totem decorated with a blood-stained wolf head stood behind the fire.
This was a werewolf tribal totem, and the flames in front of it were a form of offering. This flame could not be extinguished, so long as the tribe existed. When moving, the sacrificial flame would be preserved and transplanted to its new resting place.
There was an old werewolf prostrating before the fire, his upper body bare and covered in red-green patterns. The wooden staff in his right hand was decorated with sinister-looking skulls and sharp fangs—it looked rather crude and primitive, but here in the neutral lands, it also seemed to exude an aura of power.
The werewolf elder was shrouded in a powerful aura, but his white hair and withered skin spoke of his waning years. Most dark race experts maintained their youthful appearances for the greater part of their life. An elderly appearance meant that he was almost one foot in the grave.
From his understanding of werewolves, Qianye concluded that this werewolf was likely the shaman of this tribe. Additionally, the totem’s location at the highest point of the castle proved that the Wolf King belonged to this tribe.
Eyes narrowed, Qianye entered the sentry tower with a single sidestep like a specter. There, he placed a hand on the watchman’s neck and broke it with just a bit of force.
The werewolf soldier didn’t even get the chance to grunt before collapsing. Qianye donned the dead man’s uniform, descended the tower, and made for the totem.
The werewolf shaman was still on the ground, chanting a mournful, ancient hymn—a ceremony for communicating with their ancestors. Reportedly, powerful shamans could really hear the voices of their ancestors and receive advice. They might even receive the protection of their ancestors at the critical juncture and gain a burst of fighting-power.
The shaman was performing an important ritual tonight and just the communication phase would go on for several hours. This ceremony was to borrow the power of the tribal ancestors to clear away the danger plaguing the Wolf King’s body.
The rear courtyard was watched over by dozens of werewolf guards, as well as occasional patrols circling the plaza. At this moment, a werewolf soldier was traversing the shadow under the walls as he made his way toward the praying shaman.
The ceremony had already gone on for several hours, which, for the innately irritable werewolves, was a form of torment. Hence, most of the werewolf soldiers there were starting to slack off. One had to know that this was the ancient Totemic Castle, a place no enemy had ever dared to infiltrate. So it wasn’t so surprising that the guards were lax.
Finally, someone discovered the abnormality. A werewolf knight stared at one of the soldiers and shouted, “Who are you? Why don’t I recognize you?”
This bl.u.s.ter only alerted some of the guards because the wind was howling too loudly.
Some of the werewolves looked up to see the suspicious werewolf standing at the foot of the wall. At this point, that person was only fifty meters away from the shaman.
Most of the werewolves hadn’t figured out what was going on. They were still trying to figure out who this guard was when Qianye whipped out the Twin Flowers and took aim at the shaman’s back!
“Stop!!!”
A violent roar echoed through the air above the Totemic Castle.