Chapter 27: The Ultimate Escape

“No. The scene was pristine, without any clues left behind. The one who struck must be a master.”

Wu Zhengnan paced back and forth in the room, his murderous aura spilling out, causing the temperature in the office to drop rapidly.

He suddenly stopped by the window, looking down at the soldiers still training below, and said coldly, “Just because your men can’t find anything doesn’t mean there are no leads. You don’t need to bother anymore; I will have the Dark Blade take over!”

Hearing about the Dark Blade, Qi Cheng’s face twitched. This was definitely not a pleasant term.

Wu Zhengnan thought for a moment and said, “Investigate what Qi Yue has been up to recently and if he’s offended anyone. It’s possible that someone was after him and happened to discover this transaction.”

“Yes!” Qi Cheng secretly admired Wu Zhengnan. Though he appeared tough and rough, he was actually ruthless and meticulous, which is why he had stood firm for so many years.

After Qi Cheng left, Wu Zhengnan pressed the summoning bell on the corner of his desk. Moments later, a person with an otherworldly appearance walked in.

This man was nearly two meters tall but extremely thin, with unusually long limbs. His skin was pale, and his eyebrows and hair were a faint, almost invisible yellow. He had a pair of eerie amber eyes with vertical pupils, resembling those of a certain type of reptile.

As soon as he entered, he asked, “General, who are we to kill this time?”

“Qi Yue is dead. Go and find out who killed him, then bring that person back. Alive, if possible. If not, a corpse will do. My only requirement is that he should not die too easily! Besides that, do whatever you please, and don’t worry about the target’s identity,” Wu Zhengnan growled.

In front of this person, he could let his emotions run free.

The odd man was startled and said, “So, it was the young master who died! Alright, how many people can you give me?”

Wu Zhengnan waved his hand, “Use the Dark Blade as you see fit!”

The strange man extended his long, crimson tongue, licked his own nose, and then sneered, “Rest assured, General. No matter who they are, they won’t escape from me, Yu Renyan.”

“Go. I await your good news.”

Yu Renyan exited Wu Zhengnan’s office. As he passed the female adjutant, his body suddenly twisted into a bizarre angle, almost touching her cheek, and his long tongue gave her pale neck a heavy lick!

The female adjutant, caught off guard, instantly turned pale, but quickly composed herself, standing straight and silent, not daring to show any sign of evasion.

Yu Renyan let out a high-pitched laugh, glanced at her with a sidelong look, and strode away.

Half a day later, Yu Renyan arrived at the place where Qi Yue was killed with a dozen men, carefully examining the area. Qi Cheng’s subordinates had already searched the place several times, finding nothing new.

They then proceeded to the remains of the vampire corpses.

Yu Renyan suddenly crouched, picked up a piece of the corpse, and examined it closely. Then, he delicately plucked a broken strand of hair from it.

He stuck out his tongue, rolled the hair into his mouth, and chewed it slowly, saying, “This is the hair of the person. I have remembered their scent.”

A cruel smile spread across Yu Renyan’s face; he loved hunting living prey.

The traces left by the perpetrator were surprisingly few, indicating a skilled opponent. But only such an adversary made the hunt interesting. He tossed the piece of flesh high into the air, opened his mouth wide, and swallowed it whole. Then, unsatisfied, he picked up another piece, seemingly savoring the taste.

But instead of putting the new piece into his mouth, Yu Renyan continued to savor the one he had just swallowed, his expression becoming increasingly strange. Suddenly, he spat everything out.

What followed was uncontrollable. Yu Renyan ended up lying on the ground, vomiting profusely!

The Dark Blade members, who were accustomed to Yu Renyan’s peculiar actions, had never seen anything like this before.

It seemed like he had eaten something bad, and everyone looked at each other in bewilderment. Who had ever seen Yu Renyan suffer from indigestion? He was like a vulture, surviving entirely on decaying flesh. But no one dared to approach or ask him.

Yu Renyan vomited until even bile was coming out, and then he collapsed, panting heavily.

As he panted, he suddenly laughed nervously, muttering, “Interesting! Very interesting! A toxin specifically targeting the dark blood power, and I don’t know what it is! Impressive, now the game gets exciting! Follow me!”

He suddenly sprang up, flipped in mid-air, and landed on all fours, moving swiftly like a large insect. His face was almost touching the ground, his nostrils flaring, constantly sniffing, heading north.

The Dark Blade soldiers knew Yu Renyan had found a lead and silently followed.

These were rare elites within the Expeditionary Force, and Yu Renyan was their leader. He had the opportunity to join the top ten elite units but chose the Expeditionary Force because here he could truly indulge himself.

Qian Ye, far away, was unaware that a group of vicious and cunning wolves was following him.

He had been running at a steady pace of forty kilometers per hour for almost ten hours. This was a method to shake off pursuers, distancing oneself through prolonged running. There was no trickery involved, just a test of both sides’ tracking and counter-tracking abilities, as well as their endurance and willpower.

Previously, Qian Ye could achieve his goal by running for four hours. The Red Scorpion’s minimum standard for extreme running was three hours or more than one hundred and twenty kilometers. Now, with his third-level origin power and the enhanced physique of a vampire, his stamina had doubled. He decided to push his limits and entered Stonehold Territory after ten hours.

At the border, Qian Ye took a short break, resting for an hour, before continuing.

A white-headed eagle flew overhead, its sharp gaze fixed on the solitary figure below. On the vast plain, the figure kept running at a constant speed.

The eagle hesitated for a while, finally feeling that the person’s behavior was too strange, giving it an inexplicable sense of fear. It let out a long screech, turned, and flew away, abandoning the obvious prey.

A day later, Yu Renyan also appeared at the border of Stonehold Territory.

His face was even paler, covered in dust, and his dirty hair showed he was exhausted. Having accidentally ingested a piece of the vampire corpse contaminated with Qian Ye’s blood energy, he experienced repeated bouts of vomiting and diarrhea, severely depleting his vitality.

Upon realizing that his quarry used extreme running as a means of escape, Yu Renyan grew anxious. As a true master of wilderness tracking, he knew that he had already started late by at least half a day, and being too far behind meant losing the trail entirely.

This was an unacceptable failure.

Yu Renyan could only use the most straightforward and effective method—full-speed pursuit. However, things did not go smoothly from the start. The target kept running, as if his stamina was inexhaustible!

By the fifth hour, Yu Renyan could no longer sustain it and rested for three hours before resuming the chase.

When he reached the border of Stonehold Territory, only three of the original Dark Blade soldiers remained, the rest having fallen behind.

Yu Renyan discovered that the target had also taken a rest, which brought mixed feelings. The joy was in the tiny traces confirming the right direction, and the fact that the target was human. The worry was the target’s performance in extreme flight, which was unlike any normal human, even those elite monsters.

Yu Renyan decided to set up camp at the place where Qian Ye had rested, choosing to recover his strength before making his move.

He realized that the initial half-day gap had widened to a full day, meaning he could not catch up with the target’s speed. The expert had left minimal traces, and the scent over a day’s distance was faint. Continuing like this would soon lose the trail. Additionally, once the target entered any of the four major cities in Stonehold, they would disappear like a drop in the ocean.

Instead of wasting energy fruitlessly, it was better to recuperate and plan the next step.

But this did not mean Yu Renyan was giving up. On the contrary, the challenge excited him, making him feel as if he was always in a state of climax, almost unable to suppress moans of pleasure.

Yu Renyan was determined to pursue and kill! On this rugged continent, there were few worthy opponents for a sixth-level tracking and assassination expert like him.

When Qian Ye entered a small town, he appeared as a young mercenary.

He had a hearty meal at the busiest restaurant, had a drink at the most crowded bar, pinched the waitress’s round bottom, and then slipped out through the side door of the bathroom.

When he left the town, he transformed into a middle-aged man with a short beard.

After this detour, Qian Ye believed that anyone following him would lose the trail here. He continued without stopping, arriving at the Dark Blood City, a border city of Stonehold Territory, after three days and three nights.

The city was massive, with four giant perpetual towers at the corners of the main square, supported by mountain-sized steam turbine groups. Enormous, poorly designed overhead pipes sprawled across the city, extending like a spider web to every corner, providing power and heat to the defense installations throughout the city.

This chaotic layout of the city’s energy infrastructure made it impossible to sabotage without leveling the entire city. Perhaps this was the architect’s intention?

Dark Blood City, located on the front line of conflict with the dark races, was a crucial supply base for the Expeditionary Force, hunters, and pioneers.

The city’s chaos matched its aerial pipes, with the Expeditionary Force only maintaining nominal control. Crimes and deaths occurred frequently, but no one paid much attention.

This was a paradise for adventurers and outlaws, but a hell for the weak.

Nearly a thousand years ago, a great battle between humans and vampires had taken place here. Both sides mobilized millions of troops, and the humans, at the cost of 1.1 million lives, killed over 600,000 vampire warriors, winning the eight-month-long campaign.

After this battle, the humans established a fortress city here. The blood of both armies seeped into the earth, staining it for hundreds of years, hence the name Dark Blood City.

This was also the place Qian Ye had chosen to settle.

It was Qian Ye’s first visit to Dark Blood City, and he was awestruck by the sight of the grand, thirty-meter-high city walls and the towering, multi-story city gates.