Ningsong Zining shrugged, saying, “Who knows? Those dark races always have all sorts of strange and bizarre reasons; it’s impossible to fathom how their minds work. Even if it’s because the number of cannon fodder has increased due to favorable weather in recent years, and they want to cull a batch by starting a war, such occurrences have happened before.”
Qianye still pondered over the map, stating, “It’s said that the appearance of the Evernight Councilor near Dark Blood City was for the treasure of the Black King.”
Such a situation is, in fact, worse than an all-out war. Wars are orderly, and most regions of Evernight are resource-poor. Without a strong determination to breach the core zones, the scale of the conflict can be controlled. The consumption of cannon fodder, the deployment of strong figures, and the pressure on various regions can all be anticipated in advance.
But treasures, to the human race, might just be laughed off as nonsense. Yet, the dark races harbor almost fanatical worship towards those great powers lost in history, and who knows what level of strength such worship may attract. The actions of these dark powerhouses are completely unpredictable. In their eyes, civilians are like ants; they might pass through without touching a single hair, or turn everything into scorched earth.
Song Zining didn’t care much and remarked, “Those dark powerhouses have too long a lifespan and often do utterly boring things.”
He drew a circle on the map around Blackflow City and Four Rivers Base, stating, “That Wei Po Tian is in big trouble this time. I originally thought he had taken Wu Zhengnan down so quickly, having already prepared a series of plans. Now it seems that’s not the case at all. Reorganizing the Seventh Division alone, without a few months and spending tens of thousands of gold coins, there’s no way to rebuild combat strength. Heh, I think he’ll definitely be scolded to death by his family this time.”
Seeing Song Zining’s obviously gloating expression, Qianye smiled bitterly, “You burnt Wu Zhengnan’s remains, afraid that my blood aura would be discovered, right? After all, without my issue, things wouldn’t be so troublesome now.”
Song Zining raised an eyebrow, “What does it have to do with you? It’s just that Wei Po Tian is an idiot. You don’t need to worry about the expeditionary force headquarters. I’ve already reached an agreement with General Xiao Ling Shi. The reactions of the upper echelons of the expeditionary force are just a show. They also need to give explanations to their subordinates. But if the defense of the Seventh Division goes wrong, it will be Wei Po Tian’s problem.”
Recalling Wei Po Tian’s complaints from the morning, Qianye suddenly felt something was off and asked, “You didn’t tell Wei Po Tian about the true attitude of the expeditionary force headquarters, did you?”
Song Zining said matter-of-factly, “That’s my network, why should I tell him? Let him worry a bit longer. Anyway, the Wei family will soon send someone important to clean up the mess for him. As long as the expeditionary force headquarters doesn’t ask you to testify, there won’t be any problem.”
Song Zining waved his hand, saying, “Don’t talk about that idiot anymore. A wild boar isn’t even thick-skinned enough. What use is he? What do you plan to do next? Do you want to go back to the Upper Continent with me?”
Qianye automatically filtered out Song Zining’s harsh words. He pointed at the position of Blackflow City on the map and solemnly stated, “I want to establish a mercenary group here. On one hand, it’s to accommodate those seeds, and on the other hand, I want to participate in the war against the dark races, but one person’s power is always too thin.”
Song Zining looked at Qianye for a moment and smiled, “Personnel, equipment, logistics—how do you plan to handle them? Tell me about it.”
Qianye earnestly listed the thoughts he had been considering all morning. His previous training had been elite individual soldier training, except for military drills, he only had a rough outline for the rest.
However, Qianye currently had some initial resources. Just the nearly four hundred seeds were enough to form a medium-sized corps. After setting up the mid-to-lower level officers, recruiting some free mercenaries would be almost enough. These seeds were currently armed with the captured expeditionary force equipment, which could at least last for a while.
Logistical support was the most difficult part. Although Qianye now owned a small town and mining area, it was taken over from the Fifteenth Division. The costs and production were unclear and couldn’t be immediately counted as a certain source of funds.
The main sources of funding for a general mercenary group were two: one was the reward for completing various tasks, and the other was the bounty for killing dark races and taking parts to the imperial institutions. The Empire issued a massive amount of bounty every year, which supported countless hunters, adventurers, and mercenaries. This huge sum of bounty was made up of the bones of innumerable dark races.
Qianye’s idea was to take on defensive territory tasks from the reorganized Seventh Division. With the initial scale of the mercenary group, it would be sufficient to garrison several settlements or defend a small town.
Hearing this, Song Zining shook his head slightly, then smiled, saying, “Well, that’s a good idea. In your current situation, it’s indeed unsuitable for you to rejoin the Imperial army. Establishing influence on the periphery is a good choice.”
However, Song Zining was very dismissive of Qianye’s plan to purchase military equipment and sell minerals through the Far East Heavy Industry. He proceeded to criticize the unreliability of the Far East Heavy Industry branch in Cut River City. Afterward, Song Zining offered Qianye two secret trading routes: one was his own company, Ningyuan Group, and the other was to arrange a few senior artisans to the vicinity of Blackflow City. This time, his industry in the Evernight Continent had expanded significantly, and he needed to set up a branch to manage it.
When their discussion ended, the paper plan in front of Qianye was already filled with many more details.
Song Zining suddenly thought of something and asked, “Qianye, haven’t you let them drink your blood yet?”
Qianye was stunned for a moment, realizing that Song Zining was referring to Number Seven and Number Nine. He was about to say something when Song Zining had already walked to the door and called in the two girls who had excused themselves when the conversation began.
Song Zining looked at Qianye’s expression and smiled, “It’s exactly one week since they left Hidden Spring, and their first drug withdrawal is about to start. If you really don’t want them, you might as well let them die.” Saying this, he quickly placed his hands on the wrists of the two girls, injecting a bit of primal energy into each.
Number Seven and Number Nine started breathing rapidly. These twin girls, identical in height, weight, skin color, and features, were both beautiful and graceful. However, their demeanor was also submissive to the bone, capable of making anyone’s imagination run wild.
They clearly heard Song Zining’s words. Their bright eyes, under the dual effects of the drug and fear, turned slightly red and quickly became teary, making their gaze more captivating.
Qianye could only smile bitterly, cutting open his wrist and adding a bit of his blood to the two cups of wine Song Zining had poured. Worried that his blood might contaminate them, he intentionally controlled the blood aura in his body while bleeding.
After the twin girls drank the blood mixed with wine and their withdrawal symptoms subsided, there was no sign of contamination. Qianye finally breathed a sigh of relief.
He then thought of a question he had pondered for a long time: how did the black blood actually spread? From his experience, it was the blood aura, not all blood, that was effective. Did this mean that, if controlled properly, the blood race wouldn’t easily infect humans?
Song Zining smiled meaningfully, saying, “I should go now. Enjoy those two beauties and don’t waste them.”
Qianye saw Song Zining off and returned to find the twin girls obediently climbing onto his bed. Seeing their bashful and shy expressions, it was clear they took Song Zining’s words seriously.
Qianye was somewhat at a loss, laughing and crying. He hadn’t fully recovered from his injuries from the battle with Wu Zhengnan and couldn’t even practice the rigorous military decision-making. He was in no condition to accept such unexpected favors. The twin girls seemed to be scared by Song Zining’s words. In their view, rejected mermaids had only one path: death. Thus, the two girls seemed very eager for Qianye to truly “take” them.
It took Qianye some effort to get the girls out. He picked up the ancient Song family scroll from the bedside, ready to continue studying. The part about cultivating dark primal energy was not a problem for him; instead, it resolved some of his lingering doubts about coexisting with blood aura. For instance, he found that blood aura, in its essence, was a manifestation of dark primal energy, or what was commonly known as the power of blood.
However, the arcane and profound ancient script still greatly interfered with his understanding. Qianye flipped through the jade booklet, eventually returning to the opening summary on the jade tablet. The previously activated text was already somewhat blurred, and it was this passage that greatly troubled Qianye. Its description exceeded his wildest imagination.
At the beginning of the universe, there were no sun, moon, stars, mountains, rivers, or land. Instead, there was chaos. After the separation of heaven and earth, the sun, moon, and stars appeared, and all things came into being. Cultivation was to return to the primordial chaos before the separation, which was the ultimate path.
According to convention, the summary should be the most refined expression of a cultivation method and the final direction of practice.
However, Qianye had never heard of the term “before the separation of heaven and earth.” Before the War of Fate, the human race was merely a race enslaved by the dark races. The dark races certainly wouldn’t record history for livestock, so only oral traditions passed down among the human race remained. In fact, the entire history of the human race only went back three hundred years before the War of Fate.
As for how this hierarchical world was formed, whether the two suns and the planetary belt at the top, and the dozens of floating continents in the middle and lower levels, coexisted with life, these seemed to be natural laws, existing naturally without anyone questioning or researching them.
Qianye thought blankly about the summary, recalling the deep sky seen on the clear night in Qin Lu. The text on the jade tablet was mostly faded, so he input a thread of primal energy.
Suddenly, his fingertips burned, and Qianye felt as if he had been hit by something. In his consciousness, the entire world wobbled.
Then, the deepest darkness covered everything, and a faint sound arose from an unknown place. Qianye couldn’t tell if it was the tide or the wind. When a very fine, colorless light penetrated the world, Qianye suddenly understood—it was the sound of dawn breaking.
The eye of dawn slowly opened in the deepest darkness, and the entire world instantly spun. Half light, half darkness, swirling and embracing each other, the boundary was crystal clear.
Just as he had entered, without any warning, Qianye woke up from that peculiar world, with a slight warmth remaining in his fingertips. Looking down, he saw that the jade tablet containing the summary of the Song family scroll had already disintegrated, and the remaining pieces were shattering into points of glowing, ancient jade brilliance, and were disappearing through his fingers.
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