Chapter 1352: The Tempest Appears
As a glorious marquis, he was among the upper echelons of Evernight. It was rather embarrassing that it would take eight of him to cause trouble for Qianye. After all, Qianye was just a vice-duke and some distance away from the next rank.
Qianye wasn’t bluffing, though. It had long been known that he had no fear of group attacks and group battles. The combination of Spatial Flash and his destructive killing blows was a nightmare to many lower-ranking enemies.
Margo’s awkwardness only appeared for a moment before he regained his calm. “Sire, rest assured. I’ll be back.”
Qianye was a bit surprised. “Is my side that good?”
“There’s nothing good at the moment, but you’re the biggest reason.”
Margo’s face was beyond thick, so much so that the other divine champions had to admit they were inferior.
Qianye arranged for an airship to take the prisoners back to the Empire and then to Fort Continent. There were tens of thousands of captives but only a few hundred Imperial escorts. The one actually responsible was Tatumu.
And after finding out that they could redeem themselves after reaching Fort Continent, the prisoners stopped entertaining any thoughts of escape. All of them boarded the airsh.i.p.s quietly and left Blacksun Valley.
Qianye reorganized the army after absorbing a new batch of reinforcements and supplies. He then led his forces out of the secret base and made for the central region.
Following this supply run, Qianye had only sixty thousand troops under his command, while the dark races had garrisoned hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the central zone. He was actually going head-on against the enemy with these meager numbers. This made old generals like Liu Chengyun feel deeply restless.
Qianye ran into a series of arduous battles before Margo’s return.
The dark races repeatedly assembled superior forces to intercept him. This time, even Qianye couldn’t avoid being drawn into a long, bitter fight. The enemies weren’t arrogant enough to face off against Qianye one-on-one like Larga had.
Every time, the overseeing duke would surround Qianye together with several marquises and work together to cover all blind angles. Qianye would have to use Spatial Flash and powerful moves like Sweeping Calm to take down a couple of marquises.
As time went on, Qianye also sustained a fair number of injuries. This was especially true in battles against dukes, where he would have to trade wounds in order to threaten the opponent. And these dukes would run away once the battle was at a disadvantage.
Qianye couldn’t really do anything against a duke who was intent on running away. Even Larga managed to flee with such horrible injuries. The current dukes were highly vigilant and would retreat at the slightest damage, denying Qianye the opportunity to kill them.
The long-lived races’ fear for their lives was on full display here.
After five battles within seven days, Qianye had repelled five enemy forces and defeated five different dukes. The wounds on his body only increased in number, and the soldiers under his command dwindled. Even though the Empire was replenishing him as best they could, it was impossible to make up for the grave losses.
The dark races’ losses shot up to four times the Empire’s own. Such a loss-ratio was right on the heels of Song Zining’s battles before Nighteye’s arrival.
This could be considered a glorious accomplishment. Looking at the reports from the front line, the old men from the military clenched their jaws as they forked out whatever manpower and resources they could muster for the black hole that was Blacksun Valley.
Although it was a victory all the same, it was just as Qianye had said—his methods were different.
Song Zining calculated every move and detail, maneuvering troops strategically to outsmart the enemy. Every dazzling operation would end up with the dark races falling into a trap. After Nighteye’s appearance, however, Song Zining could no longer rely on divination. The only way left was to build fortresses to regain some advantage.
Qianye’s way was simple and direct. He would charge straight into the central command and target the enemy commander. He would single-handedly keep most of the enemy experts busy while the three divine champions went on a killing spree against the viscounts and counts in the field.
Qianye was always at a disadvantage in battle, but he would always persevere until the end and trade blow for blow. It was always the dark races that would fall in the end.
Seeing the increasing number of wounds on his body, including those that were difficult to heal, the three divine champions couldn’t help but shudder. For some reason, this reminded them of Zhao Jundu. The fourth young master had also killed his way in and out of the enemy forces like a demonic god, turning his origin flames from azure to a nightmarish black.
Looking at Qianye was like seeing Zhao Jundu from back then.
Perhaps due to the repeated defeats or because the Empire was once again marching for the central zone, the enemy mustered an army of a hundred thousand and an extremely special enemy.
Qianye had come face-to-face with the Tempest.
Among the ten Grand Magnums, the Tempest was even more well-known than the Red Spider Lily. The latter would frequently leave public eyes owing to a lack of operators, while the Tempest had always been in the hands of the Summit of Peaks.
Its unique square barrels were incomparably eye-catching, and its fame reached new heights after Nighteye wielded it against the Profundity Monarch.
Seeing the weapon but not the intended wielder, Qianye’s gaze landed on the person carrying it.
It was an exceptionally handsome vampire. He looked fairly young and seemed to have just come of age. Those near-perfect facial features and tall nose pointed to his noble bloodline, while his young age hinted that his strength was just approaching its peak with even more room to grow.
The insignia depicting a bat holding a blade in its mouth proved that he was from the Morway clan. He was probably a descendant of the Azure King, otherwise, Nighteye wouldn’t have entrusted him with the Tempest.
Qianye suddenly recalled a piece of information he had learned back in the Empire. Reportedly, Nighteye had awakened the soul of a mysterious character from ancient times, someone who had close ties to the Azure King.
For some reason, seeing that handsome youth filled Qianye with a surge of hatred. It felt as though he was looking at the young Azure King from the past. Qianye couldn’t explain this unreasonable feeling; all he knew was that he didn’t like the man.
Qianye led his army forward until they were just beyond the dark race’s firing range. There, he stopped the march with a raise of his hand and ordered the troops into formation. He flew into the air and arrived before the dark race army, completely ignoring the hundred thousand soldiers below.
“The Tempest is here, where is she?”
The vampire duke said proudly, “What gives you the right to ask about her Majesty’s business? Defeat me, Saniel, if you wish to know about her.”
Qianye narrowed his eyes, scanning Saniel from head-to-toe. “Where is the Awakening Dream?”
Saniel replied, “It seems you know quite a bit. The Awakening Dream is one of the three holy weapons of the Evernight Council. Naturally, it is in Her Majesty’s hands.”
Qianye said, “True, you won’t be able to wield that sword. Even the Tempest is a bit forced.”
Saniel had enjoyed dozens of years of fame since his rise to power. He was much younger than the other dukes, but in fact, he was well over a hundred years old.
He couldn’t suppress his anger in the face of Qianye’s mockery. “If I’m not suitable for the Tempest, who else is?”
“Me,” Qianye replied.
“Ha! You…”
Saniel broke out in a peal of loud laughter, but he suddenly noticed something off about it. “What did you just say?”
Qianye’s figure suddenly blurred out before him.
Spatial Flash! Saniel was just thinking that it was impossible when Qianye appeared right in front of him.
The vampire only wanted to scream that Qianye was crazy. The latter had actually left his three divine champions in the rear and teleported into the central army?! Could he not see how many experts there were? Did he not notice his opponent was a duke with the Tempest strapped to his back?
The questions merely flashed past because there was no longer any time to think. Qianye’s body erupted in a thunderous boom as one slash after another descended on Saniel.
The duke responded with a flurry of sword strikes that intercepted all of Qianye’s blows, but each parry became more arduous than the one before. By the time he had gotten to the sixth and seventh blow, his hands were already trembling.
Qianye was like a mature void colossus hiding beneath that delicate exterior. Every move contained such terrifying power that Saniel felt as though he were facing an arachne prince.
He suddenly recalled the eighth blow of the Sweeping Calm.
“Save me!” Saniel shouted, no longer caring about his dignity.
There were over ten marquised in the army, four of them at the glorious marquis rank. Experts at that level could take part in the fight between Qianye and Saniel.
It was just that they knew their commanding officer rather well. They were concerned about him losing face, so they didn’t dare join in without his express consent. However, Qianye had struck so fast and hard that the fatal eighth blow was there in the blink of an eye.
Saniel and the other keen experts realized things were dire when they saw the changes in Qianye’s aura—it had become ephemeral and cryptic, even causing the surrounding space to warp. Qianye had reached an entirely new realm in terms of strength to be able to warp space even before the attack. How terrifying would that power be if he were to launch it?
Saniel no longer wanted to take that eight slash. He had come to understand how the wound on Larga’s body came to be. Back then, he simply thought the demonkin was useless, but now, he understood that escaping this eighth slash with one’s life was no easy task.
At this point, all the glorious marquises had noticed that the key to victory lay in stopping Qianye from unleashing this eighth slash. They went all out on Qianye himself, shrouding him in origin bullets and sword radiances.
Qianye flickered away with Spatial Flash, effectively dodging all the incoming attacks. Saniel turned around all of a sudden and found Qianye behind him, the eighth slash ready to launch!
By the time East Peak came down, Saniel was over a hundred meters away. He also possessed a skill for escape, just not as good as Spatial Flash.
But only when he was a good distance away did he realize that Qianye had changed the direction of his attack. That slash was never coming for him. East Peak descended upon an arachne marquis, eliciting a miserable cry as he was cleaved into two. Even the arachne core was visible through the cut surface. Such an injury was no doubt fatal.
The fleeing Saniel could hardly celebrate after seeing a subordinate take his place. His blood core was immediately flooded with anger and embarrassment.