Chapter 1219: Mystery of Whitebone
Qianye said nonchalantly, “I’m a bit tired, I need to rest a bit.”
“Are you okay? Why don’t you go down?”
“That won’t do. Once I go down, my glorious image will be gone,” Qianye replied.
Caroline found it both funny and annoying, but she realized things when she glanced at the sea of werewolves down below. Qianye’s prestige of killing the Whitebone Duke in one blow had intimidated the hundred thousand enemies below. The entire situation would change if he were to show a drop in power—even if they didn’t launch a counterattack, things would be extremely troublesome if they fled in all directions.
Having understood this point, Caroline said, “Okay, I’ll go down and take a look.”
The two had been conversing high up in the air, so no one really heard them. Swinging her whip, she once again summoned a sea of lightning and rode it steadily toward the Whitebone Duke’s corpse. There, she picked up the duke’s remains with a wave of her hand and returned to Qianye’s side.
All the werewolves were reconciled after witnessing this scene, realizing that their Whitebone Duke would never be revived.
Qianye scanned the werewolves of the Jade Sea, then roared with a stern expression, “Kneel!”
This shout was accompanied by a wave of rolling origin power and his domain spreading out to cover the entire battlefield. Everyone at the scene felt as though they had fallen into an inferno—the unbearable heat and great pressure were as though they had been submerged in a pool of lava. There was a wisp of ancient vampire aura in the sound waves, one close to the darkness origins. Every werewolf felt a shiver born from the source of their bloodline.
Under Qianye’s might, the werewolves of the great corridor fell to their knees subconsciously, so too did the weak and feeble-willed from the Jade Sea. With some taking the lead, more and more followed suit until only a few dozen true experts remained standing.
Qianye’s eyes swept over them like lightning, reflecting their images in his pupils.
The expressions of these keen experts changed drastically the moment they were reflected in Qianye’s eyes. Trembling, many of the titled experts kneeled in surrender, but there was no lack of defiant ones.
Qianye wasn’t about to take his time with them, either. His gaze paused very briefly on each of them before moving onto the next. Whether they were willing to surrender or not, no matter how high their rank was—from counts to all the way down to knights—Qianye would not spare them a second glance.
Looking all around him, he found eight of them who were still standing.
Qianye’s expression turned cold. “Kill them all.”
Those werewolf experts woke up from their dream, immediately scattering in all directions with loud cries. Yet how could these werewolves compete with Caroline, her speed, and the power of her blue lightning? She caught them one after the other and killed several of them in succession. No matter how high-ranked the enemy was, they would turn into charred masses with a single lash of her whip.
The two that had fled the farthest thought they would be able to escape, but their bodies and movements turned sluggish all of a sudden. The lightning whip soon arrived and destroyed their last hopes of survival.
In the blink of an eye, the final forces of resistance dispersed from the Jade Sea. As for those prostrating on the ground, there was no more standing up after kneeling.
Caroline returned to Qianye’s side without dealing with the corpses. “Are you okay?”
Qianye said with a smile, “Not very.”
His words didn’t quite fit that radiant smile of his. Caroline knew that the domain accompanying his order to kneel and the suppression of the werewolf experts’ secret arts would be rather exhausting.
Qianye pointed at Eiseka and ordered, “Clean up the field.”
The werewolves from the Jade Sea grew restless as the great corridor forces started to move, but they remained kneeling on the ground. Seeing that no one dared to get up, Qianye stretched his hand toward Caroline.
Caroline was puzzled.
Qianye’s smile never changed. “Help me back.”
Only then did she come to. Ignoring whether it was his intention, she took Qianye’s arm with a charming smile and dragged him back to the warship. The countless eyes on the ground could not see any change in Qianye’s composure. On the contrary, they found his stature charming and gentle. After returning to the airship and retiring the attendants, Qianye gave up on maintaining his glorious demeanor and collapsed into the chair.
Caroline was shocked. “Are you alright?”
Qianye couldn’t even open his eyes. He said in a daze, “There’s no way I wouldn’t be. I’m… just… tired.”
He couldn’t even finish his sentence before his head tilted to the side, and he fell deep into sleep.
Caroline stared at him for a good while, then let out a sigh. As someone of demonkin birth, she was fairly capable of observing the state of someone’s body. She knew Qianye’s situation quite clearly. He was truly tired and exhausted. The werewolves of the Jade Sea wouldn’t have been so obedient had he not deployed his domain and used the Eye of Control to subdue the experts.
Qianye didn’t sleep very long before his eyes opened up again. “What is it that smells so bad!?”
At his mention, Caroline realized that the room was indeed filled with a certain odor. It was rather faint at first, almost indiscernible, but a careful whiff filled her senses with a complicated odor of decay.
Caroline realized that things were looking bad, but it was too late. Considering how sharp her senses were, she could immediately differentiate dozens of foundational notes which mixed together to produce hundreds if not thousands of scents. This impact was no weaker than a slap from the Whitebone Duke.
Caroline’s vision darkened, and she almost fell unconscious. If even a mid-rank divine champion was like this, one could easily imagine how strong the smell was. Even the exhausted Qianye was woken up by it.
Isolating herself with origin power, she finally found the source of this putridness—it was the Whitebone Duke’s body. The corpse was currently rotting at a visible rate, producing a puddle of green fluid on the floor. The stench of rot intensified at an alarming rate.
Caroline was helpless at this point. “Qianye!”
Without much thought, Qianye’s Venus Dawn shone upon the Whitebone Duke’s remains. The scorching flames of Daybreak burned the rotting flesh and blood into oblivion, then froze into a thin layer of crystal over the Whitebone Duke’s corpse. The werewolf’s dead body stopped deteriorating after being sealed in this icy crystal.
The extreme heat of Venus Dawn could actually freeze the target? Qianye had never thought this was possible. He had simply channeled his origin power while thinking about protecting the Whitebone Duke’s body.
Caroline flipped the duke’s body over carefully and studied it in great detail. After observing the surface, she removed the equipment on his body and placed the objects in his storage to the side. Finally, only that half-decayed body of the werewolf duke remained on the ground.
Caroline drew a dagger and cut open the duke’s body. After studying his innards, she sighed deeply. “I understand now. You can remove these smells.”
The entire room was suffused with an unbearable stench. The duo had long since held their breath and was spending origin power to converse. Qianye felt great relief after hearing her words. A layer of Venus Dawn appeared around him, completely burning away the scent of decay in the room.
After the light had receded, there was only a wisp of fragrance left in the room. It was the smell of showering sunlight, a lingering scent as everything in the room was illuminated by Venus Dawn.
Caroline took a deep breath. “Who would’ve thought daybreak origin power would smell so good?”
Qianye said, “You can interact more with Zining when you have time. His Worldly Prosperity can emulate everything in the world, the most basic use of which is to mix all fragrances together. Now that’s something that truly smells good.”
“Those are just ordinary smells, what I mean is the scent of origin power.”
Qianye glanced at Caroline in surprise. “Is that even possible?”
Caroline shook her head, puzzled as well. “Perhaps at extreme levels, some origin powers just feel good. And monsters like this fellow just make people sick.”
Qianye walked over to the messy corpse. “What’s with him?”
“He should’ve died long ago, but he has been using all kinds of messed up ways to extend his life. Apparently, he has absorbed too much decaying origin power, and even used daybreak origin power to stimulate their effectiveness.”
A thought popped into Qianye’s head. “Daybreak origin power? You mean…”
“Sacrificial offerings or whatever, it’s not important what they're called. But the remaining traces here tell me that the origin power comes from humans. Only humans know how to cultivate daybreak origin power.”
“That’s not entirely certain, your Thunderfrost Temple also leans toward Daybreak. That has always been something I couldn’t figure out.”
Caroline replied, “Neither could I. Our ancestors are clearly demonkin who drifted to the neutral lands. You also know what the neutral lands mean for the demonkin. That’s why the earlier ancestors suffered greatly and died early deaths. Only in the recent few centuries did they discover the power of Frost and Thunder. These two energies leaned toward daybreak, yet we are able to absorb and use them. The predecessors of every generation couldn’t tell the reason despite extensive research, so we just consider it a reward for our hardship.”
Qianye glanced at the Whitebone Duke. “What did this fellow do to get himself into this state?”
Caroline snorted. “The fear of death drove him crazy, so much so that he was trying to implant bloodlines, the bloodlines of young, talented werewolves.”
Qianye had never heard of such a thing. “That's possible?”