The group traveled swiftly for one day and night, only heaving a sigh of relief when they were a bit further from the high-gravity region.
Among them, Ji Tianqing and Li Kuanglan were of higher cultivation and possessed a large repertoire of secret arts. Zhao Yuying, on the other hand, wasn"t adept at long-distance running, so she had to stop and catch her breath. Qianye was half-dead from exhaustion because he had to carry Wei Potian all the way. Fortunately, the group could no longer sense the threat they had been feeling before.
After pitching the tent, they immediately started cultivating as no one had the energy left to talk. Song Zining set up several drifting leaves around the camp to serve as a warning.
As someone with a vampire const.i.tution, Qianye could recover swiftly as long as there was essence blood. After channeling a cycle of the Song Clan Ancient Scroll, most of his origin power had been replenished. He opened his eyes and glanced around to find that Ji Tianqing was only half recovered—and she was regenerating the quickest.
Now that he had some time, Qianye began observing the Book of Darkness.
After opening the book, he noticed that the first page had an extra line on it. “Chapter Two: Flourish.”
After Genesis, it should’ve been Refinement, but the latter had not only grown smaller, but it had also been pushed to the bottom of the page where the epilogue should be. This Flourish Chapter was the true second chapter of the Book of Darkness.
Remembering something, Qianye flipped the book to the Genesis chapter. He had read its contents countless times—a speck of light appeared in the middle of nothingness and expanded in all directions.
It would be correct to say that the void wasn’t nothingness. Qianye found out from the Book of Darkness that it was also a certain existence. There was only nothing before the void was born: no s.p.a.ce, no time, no material, no spirit. Nothing existed in that expanse of darkness.
The universe was only born with the expansion of the void.
Although he had watched this play out many times, Qianye could hardly understand what was there before the void expanded. What did the void occupy? Nothingness was easy to describe as a word, but it was beyond difficult to imagine.
Without further thought, Qianye flipped to the second chapter, Flourish.
Represented by the ancient words for Flourish, the second chapter talked about how myriad life appeared amidst the first radiance. Light gave birth to mist, mist produced clouds, and stars gradually appeared amidst the clouds. Then, one after another, non-burning planets appeared between the stars. As the number of stars and planets increased, floating continents appeared as well, each forming their own little realm.
Qianye watched this record of creation with bated breath, and was almost lost in it.
In the blink of an eye, the entire sky was filled with stars, continents, and planets, each with its own flouris.h.i.+ng heaven and earth.
The Book of Darkness wasn’t big, but it was able to replay the creation of a thousand realms. It was an incomparably awesome ability, but there was no immediate use for that. At the very least, Qianye couldn’t see how this would increase his strength.
The Book of Darkness took but a moment to replay the evolution of this world. Qianye opened his eyes to find that not much time had pa.s.sed—Ji Tianqing had only recovered eighty percent of her energy, let alone the others. As such, he sunk his consciousness into the book to comprehend the evolution process.
After repeated observations, Qianye got the sudden idea to try focusing his attention on certain stars. The Book of Darkness began drawing on his blood energy and origin power to magnify the star until it was the size of a rice-grain. Qianye could now see that it was a ball of raging flames.
There were clouds of misty energy swirling around the star, forming a belt of light. If this star was a true world, then it would be incredibly big. The ring of light around it was even bigger, so much so that Qianye couldn’t figure out how to measure it.
Looking at the Book of Darkness, Qianye knew he was looking at the entire universe. His consciousness was incomparably small compared to the vastness of time and s.p.a.ce. This made him tremble involuntarily.
Qianye was suddenly shaken. “That’s void origin power!”
The void origin power in the ring of light was so dense that it was glowing. One could easily imagine how intense the energy there was.
Looking at the belt of light, Qianye felt that it was somewhat similar to an origin vortex. Humans would cultivate until origin power condensed from gaseous to liquid state, and then form an origin vortex. This process was quite similar to how the starry mists condensed into starry clouds during creation. According to this train of thought, weren’t those planets comparable to the origin crystals formed after becoming a divine champion?
Qianye studied the ring of light carefully, and found that there were countless specks of origin power being drawn in by the central star, which were then radiated back into the cold, dark void in the form of fire and light.
He then thought back to the process of creation and was suddenly enlightened. It turned out that human cultivation integrated the concepts of Genesis itself. The founding ancestor who had pioneered the path of cultivation had to be an unparalleled genius!
While he was shaken by the discovery, another question appeared in his mind.
He had looked up at the starry skies before and had also traveled between continents. He had also experienced the void itself briefly during his fight with Linken. Be it on the Western, Transcendent, or Evernight Continent, whether he was in the void or standing at the edge of the continent, the stars above all looked the same.
The records left behind by peerless Imperial experts say that the stars hanging in the sky were extremely distant—the distance was unimaginable. The entire universe, except for the planets and continents, was occupied by a cold, empty void that filled one with despair.
Those peerless experts exploring the void had to be prepared to never return. That made sense because even vampires, with their ten thousand years of life, might not be able to reach those distant planets.
That being said, how did the founding ancestor know about the creation of this world?
Qianye knew there was no answer to this question. Perhaps one of the predecessors possessed something akin to the Book of Darkness.
Having figured out the origins of human cultivation, Qianye’s thoughts were affected by the enlightenment. He simply emptied his mind and began meditating on the evolution of the universe.
Gradually, his aura became empty, faint, and suffused with an indescribable flavor.
He remained immersed for an unknown length of time before an alert to danger dragged him back from his thoughts.
The earth trembled as killing intent rushed into the air from all directions. The sky was no longer dark but filled with an eerie golden-green and flashes of extreme light. At this point, even the slowest person could tell that things weren’t looking good. Shocked out of his wits, Qianye wondered why he had only reacted at this point.
Everyone woke up in surprise, exchanging glances with unsightly expressions. Song Zining picked up a floating leaf and crushed it with a solemn expression. “They’re outside my domain’s range, so I couldn’t sense them. That’s odd, how did they know we were resting here?
Qianye frowned. “We weren’t slow. How did they even catch up?”
At this point, they had been surrounded in all directions by a big army. It made sense if a couple of fierce beasts had caught up to them, but Qianye’s group had been traveling at extreme speeds. Only a divine champion like the Wolf King would be able to catch up to them.
Ji Tianqing said all of a sudden, “The Great Maelstrom is their domain, anything can happen.”
“What do we do now?” Zhao Yuying couldn’t help but ask. Those in the group were the strongest and most resolute the Empire’s younger generation had to offer. Besides, they were led by Song Zining, known as the future G.o.d strategist.
Song Zining and Ji Tianqing whispered amongst themselves for a bit. “We gather in one place and break out of the encirclement. This direction!”
Qianye glanced in that direction and found that the killing intent there was indeed a bit weaker, but that route did not lead toward the Imperial fortress.
Zhao Yuying said with a frown, “This isn’t the right way, is it?”
“Since they can intercept us here, they’ll surely have an ambush set up on the way to the Imperial fortress.”
“Are they that smart?” Zhao Yuying was surprised.
Song Zining took a deep breath. “I don’t know what’s outside, but how can they not be intelligent when they managed to surround us?”
Ji Tianqing replied, “Let’s charge out first and we’ll see.”
Everyone agreed. They soon formed a small combat squad with Qianye at the van, and Ji Tianqing and Li Kuanglan on either side of him. These two were the most powerful and thus the most suitable to accompany Qianye on the charge. As a long-range shooter, Zhao Yuying was at the center of the lineup. Wei Potian served as the rear guard, while Song Zining would roam the battlefield.
Qianye retracted his aura and moved alone toward the encirclement. He was planning to approach the enemy before erupting in power.
However, killing intent surged as he was a hundred meters away from the enemy, and there was more coming in from the left and right.
Qianye cried out in alarm, knowing that he had been compromised. As such, he stood up and charged at top speed!
Countless tall figures appeared under the night sky. Their ferocity was boundless, and their four arms looked exceptionally sinister with many different weapons in their grasp.
Seeing that the enemy were indeed four-armed warriors, Qianye felt a bit more relieved and focused. He had fought numerous risky battles in the high-gravity region, and couldn’t be more familiar with the four-armed warriors. However, things were different this time. The four-armed natives formed a dense sea of warriors under the moonlight, and there were almost too many to count.
It was a mystery how so many four-armed warriors had appeared out of nowhere. The danger at present stopped Qianye from overthinking things. He let out a loud shout as he activated Spatial Flash and appeared in the midst of the four-armed natives. There, he activated the full power of his oceanic domain and brought boundless weight cras.h.i.+ng down upon them!
However, the four-armed warriors had long since gotten used to ten-times the gravity. They were even more mobile under the domain as they crowded toward Qianye.
This was what he wanted. Blood color appeared in his eyes as countless sanguine threads shot out in all directions, stabbing into the bodies of the four-armed people.
Life Plunder!
At this point, this killer move had gotten even stronger with the upgrade to Qianye’s blood energy. The fine threads of blood were incomparably sharp—even the strong bodies of the four-armed natives were penetrated by several sanguine threads. Not just that, they would usually pierce through several four-armed warriors in one go.
After the sanguine threads were drawn back, each of them brought back a crystalline drop of essence blood. The four-armed natives contained extreme amounts of essence blood, each comparable to a count. With such a great amount of essence blood entering his body, Qianye felt as though he was about to burst. He couldn’t help but spit out a mouthful of blood.
The stabbed four-armed natives staggered, but only a dozen or so of them collapsed, while the remainder were alive. One could see from this just how powerful their vitality was.
Following Life Plunder, the four-armed natives in the area became extremely weak. The crowd behind Qianye rushed forward and broke out of the encirclement.