Brahms, who had been struggling for his last breath, suddenly stopped moving. The limbs that had just gouged deep trenches in the earth hung eerily in mid-air, as dust and residual energy slowly settled. Qian Ye, like a statue, stood there motionless.
“Qian Ye?” Wei Bernien sensed something amiss and swiftly flew over to him.
Only then did Qian Ye react, turning his head and murmuring, “I’m fine. Just… too… tired.” His face was pale as paper, but from time to time, a peculiar flush would rise to his cheeks.
Wei Bernien landed beside Qian Ye, and upon hearing him speak, he felt relieved. “This battle was indeed grueling, but we won it decisively. You deserve the highest credit!”
Qian Ye managed a weak smile, not answering. He could feel the blood force within him swelling, as if it would explode at any moment. He even feared that opening his mouth might cause a surge of blood essence to gush out.
With the last of his strength, Qian Ye pulled out the Shining Fang, and as the dagger left his body, the human half of the spider demon viscount suddenly withered, the skin losing all its luster and acquiring numerous wrinkles, as if it had aged a hundred years in an instant.
Wei Bernien apologized, “I only meant to let you deliver the final blow to this spider demon, but I hadn’t expected you to be so exhausted. Sigh, I should have considered this more carefully.”
“Not at all, it was my honor,” Qian Ye smiled genuinely.
Wei Bernien didn’t pay much attention to the viscount’s strange condition. The dark races were known for their multitude of innate abilities and arcane techniques, and after death, they could take on all sorts of odd shapes. He glanced up and down at Qian Ye with some concern.
Qian Ye was covered in blood, with many wounds still open, mingling with the stench of gunpowder and various energy auras. Thankfully, he seemed merely exhausted, his breath still steady and strong. Wei Bernien switched his great shield to his left hand and moved to support Qian Ye.
Qian Ye stiffened for a moment, and then two figures climbed up from below, rushing to his side and supporting him, one on each arm. It was A Qi and A Jiu, the twin sisters. Their beautiful eyes gazed at Qian Ye, tears welling up. Though they were covered in dirt and blood, they appeared unharmed.
“General, I need to rest for a while,” Qian Ye’s voice trembled with extreme weakness.
Wei Bernien saw the twin sisters and retracted his hand, smiling and nodding. He assigned several officers to clean up the battlefield and left.
Wei Bernien himself had suffered significant injuries in this battle. Brahms, though lacking in cunning, was fiercely powerful, one of the best among the dark race viscounts. If Wei Bernien had not possessed the Thousand Mountains Technique, any other human warlord with less defensive power would have been gravely injured, if not killed, by those direct hits.
The great battle finally came to an end.
Cheers erupted from the town, growing louder and more frequent. All the warriors embraced, laughed, and shouted. The veterans were somewhat reserved, but the younger soldiers were almost manic. Even the severely wounded ignored their pain, pumping their fists and roaring, releasing their joy!
This was a resounding victory!
Killing a spider demon viscount and annihilating an entire regiment of dark race regular troops was an unprecedented achievement in the expeditionary army’s sector. Such a feat would almost certainly lead to promotions for the surviving soldiers. The Empire was always generous with rewards for military achievements.
Surviving such a battle also demonstrated both strength and luck. Although the victory came at a heavy cost, Qian Ye saw corpses everywhere he walked, many of them familiar faces.
Victory always came at the price of sacrifice.
Whether in the dawn or the eternal night, the illustrious names of great figures were built on the foundation of bones and adorned with the blood of others.
Turning a corner, Qian Ye saw Song Hu, unharmed, which brought him a sense of relief. Song Hu was rallying the mercenary soldiers, and when he saw Qian Ye, who was barely able to walk, he hurriedly found a place for him to rest.
It was a house with only the ground floor intact, and a half-sunken basement that served as a practice room. Qian Ye instructed A Qi and A Jiu to guard the entrance, under no circumstances to enter and disturb him.
As the heavy stone door closed, Qian Ye’s face turned crimson, and a cloud of blood mist spewed from his mouth.
This did little to ease Qian Ye’s condition. The blood force within him was boiling, beyond his control, as if he were in a cauldron. Part of it began to vaporize, seeping through his skin, enveloping him in a misty cloud of blood.
Qian Ye had only wanted to shatter Brahms’ heart with a single strike, but he never imagined that the usually gentle sensation of the Shining Fang draining blood would turn into a torrent, flooding his body with countless streams of potent blood essence.
The strength of a warlord was immense, and the spiders were known for their vitality. If not for Qian Ye’s bloodline and the ancient Song scroll refining his energy, he might have burst from the sheer force of the blood.
Even now, Qian Ye was in a dangerous situation.
The blood force from the viscount, though brimming with life, was essentially a dark energy. Unlike the previous three colors of blood, which were mere trickles compared to Qian Ye’s dawn energy, this powerful dark force now flowed in his veins, overshadowing his depleted dawn energy.
Even the energy nodes were threatened; the newly ignited node in his knee was being stained red by the black tide.
Qian Ye’s body burned like fire, but his heart was cold.
There was no choice now. Expelling the blood force with his own strength was impossible. To rely on the three colors of blood to absorb and convert it would take at least three months, by which time his nodes might have already turned dark.
Qian Ye sat cross-legged, placing the Shining Fang before him, and found a jade tablet of the Song scroll. As his fingers brushed over it, the characters appeared.
This was one of the many dark energy cultivation methods in the Song scroll, a chapter called Xuan. Qian Ye had once attempted and completed a cycle of this technique, though it only mildly reduced the blood’s power. He had no intention of cultivating dark energy.
Yet, he had no choice. The Song scroll’s introductory techniques had the effect of purifying and refining energy, typically using ten parts to produce one part refined energy.
Qian Ye hoped this method would be equally efficient for dark energy. Whether the resulting dark energy would conflict with the Dawn Blade, he could not consider at the moment.
He began to guide the black tide according to the Xuan chapter. Perhaps due to the overwhelming amount of dark energy, a small vortex of spider blood began to form.
With a soft pop, the jade tablet disintegrated, transforming into glowing particles that merged into Qian Ye’s fingertips.
Qian Ye paid no attention to the tablet, focusing instead on the small vortex in his lower abdomen. The spider blood rotated within, gradually decreasing as the black tide replenished it. This method indeed consumed the blood, and Qian Ye breathed a slight sigh of relief, continuing to guide the cycle.
As the black tide diminished, the vortex expanded. Eventually, all the spider blood in Qian Ye’s body swirled around the dantian, like a grinding wheel, each rotation eroding a bit of the blood, and the vortex expanding slightly.
At this moment, the existing dark red and purple blood in Qian Ye’s heart lay dormant, motionless, and he could sense a great fear toward the swirling vortex. Only the golden blood continued to circle the heart, seemingly unaffected by either the dawn or dark energies.
After an unknown amount of time, another anomaly occurred: a small, vividly red blood mist formed in the center of the vortex, alive and active, yet confined within the dantian.
The golden blood immediately noticed it, freezing in place, as if directing all its attention toward the vortex.
For a moment, it remained still, and then another wisp of mist joined the small cloud.
An intense desire from the golden blood surged into Qian Ye’s consciousness, and before he could react, it shot through the vortex, engulfing the blood mist in a single swallow.
The golden blood, swollen like a snake, bulged in the middle. Before it could make another move, the vortex sped up, engulfing the golden blood in a blinding, luminous mist.
The whole process took only a blink of an eye, and Qian Ye could do nothing but watch as the golden blood weakened and disappeared into the vortex.
Stunned, Qian Ye felt a sudden emptiness. The golden blood not only granted him unique abilities but was the core of the Dawn Awakening. It was also the strongest of the three bloods.
But these were only reasons. For some reason, when the golden blood dissipated, Qian Ye felt a void, a faint, unexpected pang of loss, almost like an illusion.
Meanwhile, in a distant place, a group of high-ranking dark race soldiers moved swiftly through a deep underground passage. Most were upper-tier bloods, including three viscounts and a baron, with the weakest being a knight.
Among them were two tall, pale-faced demonkind, exuding a deep, unfathomable aura.
Though the group numbered less than a hundred, their presence in any war zone on the Eternal Night continent would cause a stir. Their power could easily sway the outcome of battles across several counties.
Yet, they seemed indifferent to the conflicts above, focused solely on their journey. At the end of the passage, a hall without doors appeared, and at its far end, stood two massive bronze gates, towering dozens of meters high.
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