[V6C44 – Sorrow of a Silent Parting]
At this moment, the arachne in the hall was at the end of his strength. He had just stopped moving when countless midgets swarmed over him like a grey tide. The arachne viscount’s massive body was torn and devoured instantly, leaving only some sinister looking white bones.
Some of the wild beasts were still unsatisfied and turned to the arachne’s skeleton with their shocking biting power. The arachne’s bony frame, that was even harder than steel, was bitten off piece by piece and devoured.
The werewolf was still fighting, but his once blazing darkness origin power had grown fairly dim—he probably wasn’t going to last very long, either.
There wasn’t a noticeable reduction in the number of wild beasts and aboriginal midgets. Some of the wild beasts that didn’t make it inside started turning their attention toward the other passages. They were especially restless after failing to share the last prey.
They soon discovered Li Kuanglan and surged toward him like a roaring grey tide.
“Courting death!” Li Kuanglan’s eyes revealed killing intent, but the cold smile on his lips never faded away. The “Cold Moon’s Embrace” in his hands flickered into sight then quickly vanished. A wave of frost rushed out amidst a flash of blue radiance and enveloped a small part of the cave-hall.
The wolves charging at the very front were covered in a thin layer of frost and petrified mid-leap. Their bodies flew almost ten meters through the air before falling to the ground in the same posture as when they had touched the frost qi of the Cold Moon’s Embrace.
Several grey wolves crashed to the ground and shattered into pieces.
And it wasn’t just them—the beast tide behind them was also frozen in the same manner. The numerous beasts slid forward under the inertia and shattered as they crashed into one another.
Within that split second, everything touched by the frost qi of Cold Moon’s Embrace—except some of the largest beasts—was completely frozen through. Their bodies became incomparably brittle and shattered upon touch.
Even those several meter long ferocious beasts with a lion’s head and six legs slowed down to a crawl and finally succumbed to the frost qi, turning into an unmoving ice sculpture.
Half of the fierce beasts wreaking havoc in the hall had been eliminated by Li Kuanglan. However, he was apparently unsatisfied as he broke into a serious frown.
His original intention was to wipe out all life in the hall, but the aboriginals and beasts possessed exceptional resistance. The might of his sword strike was much lower than he had expected. He discovered that his origin power in frost-qi form had deteriorated over ten times quicker than usual after leaving the blade. It was as though the suppression of the void colossus’ remnant will even affected the might of combat arts.
Li Kuanglan’s eyebrows rose. Cold Moon’s Embrace shot out once again to end all life in the hall, including the dying werewolf viscount. Everything was indiscriminately turned to ice. He glanced around at the countless passages in and around the hall before leaving in Qianye’s direction.
However, his pursuit was destined to be unfruitful because Qianye had long since made several turns within the maze and progressed into its depths. With the latter’s ability to restrain his aura and conceal his tracks, even old veterans familiar with mountainous terrains wouldn’t be able to find him, let alone Li Kuanglan.
Qianye was running quickly along a narrow but mildly sloped passage when his ears moved ever so slightly. He immediately withdrew his aura and entered a small cave only large enough for himself.
After a span of several breaths, the tunnel along which he had been walking became suffused with the stench of blood as a group of giant lizard-like beasts with thick scales rushed past. Their heavy footsteps caused even the mountainous ground to tremble—one could imagine just how powerful a collision with them would be.
Such armored lizards were only rank-eight or nine on their own, but they were apparently unaffected by the void colossus’ suppression. They were like siege tanks in large packs, their strength greatly magnified within these narrow tunnels.
This pack of armored lizards was almost a hundred strong, and it took quite a while for them to run past. Qianye waited for a while before climbing out of the small cave and walking back toward where these lizards had appeared.
It was a byway which he had passed on his way forward. After taking a turn, he came to a fork in the road, then another, and another. Qianye simply picked one at random without much hesitation and arrived moments later at a rather small cave-hall.
Qianye had just stepped into it when he sensed a sinister gaze fall upon himself—it felt as though there was water flowing past his body, but that was merely an illusion. In truth, most of his concealment and withdrawn aura had been removed at a single glance.
No greater than a hundred meters away, Eden’s vertical eye was shooting out a faint green light as it locked onto Qianye. Beside him, Nighteye turned the dark muzzle of her sniper rifle toward him.
An ambush! Qianye’s first reaction was to move away from his original position and roll toward the side.
In his True Sight, there were two indistinct masses of darkness origin power within the hazy gloom of the hall. One of them was extremely familiar, and despite the shapelessness of the origin power masses, Qianye could outline her silhouette in his heart countless times over.
As he stood in an unprecedented daze, Qianye heard Eden roar, “Fire!”
Nighteye was seemingly shocked. Her entire body trembled slightly as the sniper rifle rumbled. The origin bullet flew out amidst a hazy glow of blood and tore through the short distance toward Qianye’s forehead.
The latter felt his brain go blank for a moment, but his well-honed combat instincts kicked in as the threat of death arrived close at hand and his body did its utmost to assume an evasive stance.
The blast echoed through the cave. Qianye flew backward uncontrollably as though he had been struck by a giant hammer and crashed into the cave wall. His head was spinning, and his shattered consciousness could barely gather itself immediately. All he could see in his eyes were fragments of mottled colors amidst the distorted world. The hand of death was reaching for him.
Qianye suddenly woke up on the verge of life and death. All illusions vanished, leaving only a single shadow rushing toward him with great speed and killing intent. Qianye leapt up and dived into the nearest cave, tossing two origin grenades behind him as he left.
Eden had already rushed to the cave entrance at this point, and he couldn’t help but sneer upon seeing the grenades. He swept out his legs in a bid to kick the explosives back to whence they had come. Such a trick would only impede weak soldiers—using it against someone with the Unshrouding Eye was a grave mistake.
However, Qianye turned back to glare at Eden at this point, and the latter saw his own silhouette reflected within those deep blue eyes!
All of a sudden, his origin furnace spasmed as though it had been pierced by an invisible needle. The pain therein—an agony unbearable for a demonkin—caused his entire body to tremble. His feet barely managed to hit one of the grenades, kicking it a couple of meters away, while the other one fell right under his feet.
He was standing at the dead center of an origin grenade explosion! Eden roared in fury as he curled himself into a bundle and did his utmost to protect himself with darkness origin power.
Two deafening blasts rang out in quick succession. The grenade’s power was magnified several times within the small space of the tunnel. The daybreak origin power shockwaves, flames, and shrapnels washed over Eden, pushing him several dozen meters back and toward the wall.
Eden’s curled up body suddenly stretched out just as he was about to hit the wall. His feet tapped lightly upon the cave wall and landed nimbly on the ground, his movements natural and relaxed. Apparently, the close explosion of two origin grenades didn’t inflict any major injuries upon him.
It was just that his origin defenses couldn’t block out the smoke, and Eden’s face was covered in stony fragments with alternating areas of white and black. A large hole had also appeared on his combat robes, revealing the black armor within.
A corner of Eden's armor on the back had been torn as a shrapnel cut through and nailed itself in his body.
Eden let out a cold snort, and his entire body became suffused with demonic qi which rapidly eroded the shrapnel. To the demonkin, this demonic qi that was capable of eroding even metal possessed miraculous healing properties. The flesh around the small wound grew back at great speed, and soon, it had healed completely without even leaving a scar.
However, Eden’s countenance was somewhat pale, and his aura had grown a bit weaker. It would seem that utilizing his demonic qi for healing in this restricted world posed quite a burden on him.
Eden’s face was full of anger after being reduced to such an embarrassing state by two grenades. Daybreak origin grenades had always been inferior to vampire grenades of the same grade. In that person’s hands, however, both the landing point and timing were spot on, allowing it to exhibit its greatest power.
That tunnel had already collapsed. It wasn’t much of a problem for Eden to clear the stones away, but that person had reacted with such speed even against an enemy ambush. It was more than likely that he had already run off.
Eden abandoned the useless endeavor and, instead, turned to Nighteye with a sigh, “You were somewhat slow to fire just now.”
Nighteye was expressionless as she lowered the sniper rifle and began loading it slowly. Only afterward did she look up at Eden with her deep, bottomless eyes. Eden gleaned nothing from those bottomless abysses, but her slow movements made one feel that something was indeed amiss.
“What’s wrong with you?”
Nighteye took aim once more, and by the time the gun was lowered, she had already recovered her usual demeanor. “I was thinking about something just now.”
Thinking about something in battle? But as clever as he was, Eden did not continue pressing the matter. If Nighteye didn’t want to elaborate, there would really be no outcome even if he were to force the issue.
Eden glanced in the direction where Qianye had escaped and said regretfully, “He’s an extremely powerful imperial expert, a pity that he got away. But I’m guessing he won’t have long to live after taking that kind of bullet. Let’s go, we can’t stay here any longer. We should keep moving inward.”
Nighteye followed Eden in silence. She had always been one of few words and Eden really didn’t mind that. He kept his Unshrouding Eye open at all times since it possessed the ability to eliminate concealment. It was especially useful in this kind of complex geography where enemies might be hiding in every corner.
Qianye ran swiftly along the passage and arrived at a down-sloping cave a thousand meters away. The cave was directed downward with no wild beasts moving in or out of it. After finding a small natural stone-room here, Qianye quickly made some arrangements at the entrance before moving himself inside. There, he sat down heaving with his back against the wall.
Qianye swallowed two pills in succession and sat for a while to recover his stamina. Afterward, he tore open his collar and opened up the armor underneath. The battle robes issued to core descendants of the Zhao clan were made up of threaded essence gold, but the blow from just now had punched a sinister hole in the chest armor that was capable of withstanding a blast from a grade-five weapon.
Nighteye’s sniper rifle wasn’t just grade-six; it also contained special effects like armor-piercing and penetration, so its might was exceptionally great at a 100-meter distance. Not only did it shoot through Qianye’s battle robes, but it also tore open his origin defenses with relative ease.