Monarch of Evernight (Web Novel)
chapter-41

t [Volume 2 - Bloom of the Other Shore Flower]

Although it was several dozens of kilometers away, the light was still reflected in Nighteye’s eyes. She hesitated for a moment before turning to sprint toward the direction of the light.

After ten-odd minutes, Nighteye was already outside of Lighthouse Town.

The gate of the little town still hadn’t been repaired yet, but even if it had been, that mere five-meter wall was but air in front of her. With a mere light leap upward, she had already silently landed on top of the ten-meter gate tower.

The bald sheriff was sitting just a several meters away, hugging his wine jug and rifle while napping. He reeked of alcohol, evidently having had too much to drink, and was completely unaware of Nighteye. Then again, even if he hadn’t touched a single drop, and had been on high alert, there was still no way for him to have discovered Nighteye’s existence.

Nighteye swept her gaze across the little town, streams of light passing through her eyes. In her vision, the blood and vital energy of every single person in town showed themselves. To her, the fresh blood of these people was all precious tonics that could accelerate the healing of her wounds. However, the town didn’t contain anyone with high quality blood, greatly disappointing her.

However, Nighteye relaxed her furrowed brows right away. High quality blood also meant an equally powerful expert with great vitality, and in her current state, she was no match for those true experts.

Nighteye suddenly spotted Qianye’s bar. Only a syllable “Li” on the signboard was emitting a faint light, even fainter than it had been in its earlier days, but the darkness was no impediment to Nighteye at all.

“Red Spider Lily? There’s actually someone in such desolate region that knows of the Red Spider Lily?” Nighteye was a little taken aback.

With a single leap, she flew through the air for several dozen meters like a swallow before beginning to fall. After another leap, she was already at the bar’s door.

The door was unlatched. When Qianye returned, his blood of darkness had flared up, and while hurriedly searching for the medication, he had forgotten to lock the door.

Nighteye was equally curious about the bar. Gently pushing open the door, she walked into the bar’s lounge, her eyes sweeping across the surroundings. Under those two unfathomably deep pupils, there were no secrets to speak of. She could even see that underneath the flooring tiles in the center of the lounge, there was rectangular shaped cavity with a long briefcase hidden inside.

She wasn’t particularly interested in the contents of the box. In a hellish deserted the place, there couldn’t possibly be any sort of precious or unusual treasures. Rather, she held no small amount of interest in the owner of the bar; not just anyone would know of the Red Spider Lily, or of the special meaning it held. To write out these words without even a single misspelling was a little too impossible to be the product of pure luck.

Nighteye walked toward the back of the bar. But before she’d even made a few steps, her vision suddenly darkened, and a wave of irresistible dizziness suddenly struck her!

“What a powerful Blood Shackle! Damn…” Nighteye had no time to respond, and swayed as she passed out, falling onto the floor.

Qianye was in the middle of cultivation in the bedroom. Once again, he withstood the twentieth wave of origin tides, and just as he was contemplating whether or not he should try for the twenty-first wave, he suddenly heard a dull “thud” from the lounge outside, as if some heavy object had dropped onto the ground.

“A thief?” Qianye was mildly puzzled.

All of the thieves in the town were Sir Zhao’s subordinates, and who among them would be so stupid as to actually steal from him? A foreign wanderer was even more impossible as they would only go to the residential areas, not to a special place like a bar or inn. After all, on the Evernight Continent, a special place equalled a dangerous place.

Qianye stood up quietly, reaching out to grab a military knife as he slowly headed outside. His movements were gentle but steady, his footsteps completely silent, his breathing slowed to an extreme degree, and even his heart rate decelerated, all to lower the chance of him being detected.

When he walked into the hall, the door that had been recently repaired not too long ago was left ajar with just a crack, and other than that there were no other anomalies, except that there was a woman on the floor.

Qianye didn’t rush to approach her, but rather made a small patrol around the doors and windows. After making sure that there wasn’t anyone waiting outside in ambush, he flitted across the entrance like a ghost. He didn’t close the door, but during this action, he had already laid a thin, silk wire across two protruding nails by the door, and had hung up a small grenade at the same time.

If anyone else chose to rush in, they would have to break this silk thread, and get a taste of hundreds of little metal pellets blasting out.

Having installed his warning and defense trap, Qianye finally walked another circle around the woman. He then approached from her inferior side, and gently nudged her calves.

She didn’t react at all.

Qianye then lightly poked her calves with his knife, and her body reacted instinctively, jerking away with a low moan, after which she immediately became motionless again. Only then did Qianye slightly slowly lower his guard. Her reactions were very normal, and evidently, she’d truly passed out and was not merely playing dead.

Of course, he wasn’t discounting the possibility that she was one of those true experts that would be able to fool even an experienced hunter like Qianye. However, he had seen the dark races play dead on many occasions, and he knew that their intellect and power were basically positively correlated. Generally, those that could pull off such a high-level acting technique wouldn’t need to play any tricks with Qianye, and could just directly pounce over and pinch him dead.

The Red Scorpions were one of the trump cards of the Empire’s troops, but that didn’t mean that they were omnipotent. Many of the dark races’ physical abilities were even stronger than those of Black Scorpion level warriors, much less an immature rookie at the bottom of the Red Scorpion like Qianye. In a one-on-one duel, a human’s naturally weaker body would be at a large disadvantage.

After Qianye finished probing, did he finally begin to carefully size up this woman.

She had relatively short, black hair, and even as she lay curled up on the ground, he could tell that she was tall, had long legs, and that her figure was well-proportioned with not a hint of excess fat anywhere.

Although this kind of body didn’t seem very strong, the explosive power was incredibly scary. In concert with flexibility, coordination and high speed, such a soldier would be the most difficult type to deal with on the battlefield. The corps commander as well as the vice corps commander of the Red Scorpions all had such bodily figures, and Qianye himself was also leaning toward this route.

She was clothed in the jet-black field military uniform, in the style of the ordinary field army of Empire. On her feet were a pair of knee-high military boots. There was very little observable weapons on her; she wasn’t carrying any guns, and there only a short knife and a small leather purse on her waist.

Qianye carefully pulled out the knife at her waist, and then rapidly stepped back several meters. Upon seeing that she didn’t react at all, did he finally began to inspect the weapon.

This was an very ordinary multipurpose knife with a sawtooth on its back. However, it was made of a very special material; seemingly made from the bones from a certain creature, its entire body was without a single scrap of metal in it. The short blade was very heavy, more than ten kilograms, almost giving it the weight of a small war axe.

Qianye tested its edge, and it was incredibly sharp, no less sharper than the Red Scorpion’s issued knife. Furthermore, since it was a blade of bone, it could avoid being detected by many security systems. Though this short knife was so heavy that it would undoubtedly affect how agile it could be, in combat when short weapons meet, it perhaps could have a benefit of cause the opponent to misjudge.

Qianye thrusted the knife into the floor, yet a blood-colored light faintly flashed on the knife, as the entire knife immediately sank into the floor right up to the handle!

Qianye was instantly shocked! The floor of the bar was made of solid limestone, and beneath that wasn’t the usual grille that the rest of the citizens used. That was to say, it wasn’t hollow, and it was flush against the solid foundation. He hadn’t used much force at all, and yet, the short knife had buried itself up to the handle. Could it be that this was actually an origin power weapon?

However, no matter how Qianye used his origin power to probe it and incite it afterward, the blade gave no response at all.

Qianye took the purse she had on her waist, and opened it for a look. In it, there were seven edged thorns, clearly weapons made for throwing. The thorns were made of that same unknown, bone-like material, the three edges of the thorn slightly rifled at an angle. If they were thrown at high speed, they should rotate by themselves, giving the weapon a high level of precision.

From the thorns, Qianye could smell a slight hint of bitter almonds, whereupon he felt a chill crawling up his back, and his actions became ever more gentle and careful. That smell very possibly meant several terrifying venoms, and if he accidentally cut himself, he knew that he probably wouldn’t last a few minutes. The Combatant Formula didn’t provide any ability to heal nor resist against poisons.

There was a small divider inside the pouch, stuck together with several neatly-cut, blood-colored crystals that looked like they had fresh blood flowing inside of them as they emanated a faint smell of blood.

Qianye took the crystal out for a round of closer inspection, but couldn’t tell what was inside. Even after searching through his own memories, he couldn’t find a single mention of it, but it seemed that just by looking at the flowing red inside of the crystal, the blood of darkness within Qianye’s body actually began roiling.

Qianye was slightly startled, and hurriedly put back the crystal, sealing the bag back. This purse too seemed like it was made of an unordinary material. Once it was closed, the smell of blood was completely confined, without a single bit leaking out.

Qianye crouched next to her, and with his fingers, he gently patted her entire body down once, making sure that she didn’t have any hidden weapons. He then finally let out a sigh of relief, and flipped her over.

Once he saw her face, Qianye suddenly felt his own heart tensing up, as though it had skipped a beat.

Her face was so wonderfully perfect that it seemed extraneous to use any language to describe it. Once it appeared, Qianye’s eyes and mind were wholly occupied by it, as if this perfect face was the only thing that existed in all of being.

The dark races had no shortage of stunning people. Even the mysterious and powerful demonkin had many staggering beauties, not to mention the vampires. Regardless of gender, the majority of the powerful among of the dark races were stunning existences that could sway cities.

There were human scholars that had tried to explain this phenomenon; they believed that within the same world, the aesthetic sense of powerful intelligent races would always lean toward the same. As to the cause of that, it would be the world’s essential nature of origin power.

However, setting aside whether or not the theory held merit, the reality caused by this phenomenon was that both humans and the dark races had the tendencies of capturing the other side as slaves. Especially those who were beautiful in appearance and those who held great strength; they could be sold for astronomically large sums, as they could greatly satisfy one’s lust of conquest.

Qianye tried to remain calm, but when he looked at her once more, his mind suddenly trembled. She hadn’t even opened her eyes, but Qianye already felt like he had already seen her unfathomably profound and infinitely deep pupils; it was as though that his entire body, mind, and soul were about to be sucked within by those pair of black pupils, forever sinking and fallen within the darkness!

Qianye was shocked, and subconsciously dodged backwards, his back heavily colliding with the wall. Only then, did he finally breath heavily in large gasps of air like someone who had almost drowned. After that, he was covered by cold sweat all over.

Just now, he had almost failed to distinguish whether or not it was an illusion or reality.

Even while she was unconscious, she could already draw in Qianye’s consciousness, almost causing him to treat illusion as reality, so what would happen if she awoke?

Qianye forced himself to calm down, and carefully recalled the sensation he had just felt, suddenly realizing that there was also the primal instinct of attraction within. Her features were as perfect as Qianye could dream of. Actually, no, they even exceeded his dreams, therefore making him feel such a strong impact. However, what was a beauty that even exceeded his wildest dreams? Did such a thing exist?