Monarch of Evernight (Web Novel)
chapter-412

All sounds disappeared once Qianye opened his eyes. Apparently, it was just an illusion. The forest was just as silent—so silent that one could hear the blood-flow beneath the skin, as well as the sound of one’s beating heart.

He had undergone training in extreme silence back at Yellow Springs. That was a greatly dangerous class during which many students had gone mad. Qianye knew what he had to do at this moment and, after some thought, decided to try inspecting his body.

The blood crystal he had absorbed just now wasn’t enough to completely activate his True Sight. But it had revived the dispirited blood energy in his heart, and he was now able to feel his numb body gradually recovering.

Pain, both light and severe, marched at Qianye from every corner of his being, but the sensation rejuvenated him instead—this was the feeling of being alive.

Qianye’s physical condition, however, was in an extremely bad shape. His injuries were simply too severe; the penetrating wounds alone numbered three. His internal organs had all sustained damage, and even half of his liver had been shattered. His blood-flow at this moment was so slow and viscous that only a small amount would leak out of broken vessels. The blood was suffused with a faint trace of blood energy—it was due to their existence that Qianye hadn’t bled out all this time and was able to maintain the ability to fight again. This was the ability of the vampiric constitution rune.

However, the blood energy in his body was already fairly weak. Once it had dried up completely, the stagnated blood would spurt out instantly, and a major blood loss would ensue. Qianye clenched his teeth and drew out an ordinary blood energy from his heart before mobilizing a strand of daybreak origin power to shatter it.

This was equal to a small confrontation within his body. Qianye released a muffled groan as the blood energy dispersed, and his face instantly turned pale. But the scattered blood energy rapidly merged into his blood and injected new life into the withered blood energy around his wounds. Afterward, his bodily functions became obviously activated and moved to restrict the injuries from worsening.

This was a secret technique born of the vampiric constitution rune—shattering blood energy to repair grievous injuries.

In terms of healing effects, this method produced instant effects and was far superior to the human mind arts. Except important areas like the blood core, heart, and brain, all other injuries could be treated no matter how severe they were. The trade-off was that a vampire’s quality was directly proportionate to the number of blood energy he possessed. Shattering blood energy was tantamount to lowering one’s own rank.

Qianye drew out yet another ordinary blood energy and shattered it in the same way. After all, he wasn’t a vampire and, although he knew the principles, had no knowledge of how to control them completely. He could only use such a clumsy way to disperse them. However, it was as though the blood energy in his body possessed spirituality. After he had shattered two of them, the rest crawled into the depths of his heart and refused to emerge no matter how he tried.

Fortunately, the two wisps of blood energy were enough to control his wounds. Presently, the purple blood energy was curled out in its rune without the slightest movement, and only the dark golden blood energy still retained some liveliness.

Qianye’s perception was seriously impaired within this forest. Not only had he lost all sense of direction, but even his concept of time was fairly vague. He brought out his origin power sundial and found that his lengthy process of recovery had only taken one hour.

But Qianye soon discovered that the hands on the sundial weren’t moving—it had apparently stopped functioning. He couldn’t help but wonder if the time dial had also failed. This was a rather serious problem because it was the same forest in every direction, and one might spend an entire day walking in circles.

Qianye began to observe the surroundings in detail. After his injuries were stabilized, the Eye of Truth also regained some clarity.

This time, the Black Forest had gradually removed its disguise and revealed its true nature. This place was similar to other areas on Evernight in that it was suffused with darkness origin power. But while exceptionally active, there were many other things mixed into it. When Qianye noticed those impurities, his previously clouded senses were restored, and a feeling of numbness emerged on his skin.

Qianye’s heart trembled—he was no stranger to this sensation—it was akin to coming into contact with materials like black titanium. This meant that there was extraordinarily powerful radiation within the Black Forest.

Qianye stood up slowly and glanced at his surroundings, his True Sight slowly unraveling the secrets of this place. He eventually saw strands of void origin power seep out, scatter and were later neutralized—apparently, this was the source of the radiation.

There were many forms of void origin power. Pure and moderate daybreak or darkness origin power could be utilized, but the void origin power appearing here was fairly close to the middle ground between daybreak and evernight. It was oddly violent and warped, bringing only destruction and little benefit. Those below the champion rank couldn’t stay long under such a degree of radiation. Only dark race members with their power physiques could hope to linger within.

Qianye took a deep breath. Clearly, this violent void origin power was one of the secrets of the Black Forest.

It was impossible for this piece of land to suddenly appear on Evernight Continent. It was just that no one knew where its original location was. The vast amount of void origin power was proof of its extraordinary qualities—and on Evernight, special places meant danger.

At this moment, Qianye’s sensory faculties had been restored more or less. He sensed the blood energies in his body resisting the radiation but were slowly being consumed in the process. The situation before him was dire, and the surroundings were adverse. He might be drained to death in this peculiar forest if he couldn’t think of something quickly. But there were only eerie trees no matter where he looked; there was simply no end to them.

Qianye didn’t hesitate for long and simply walked forward without spending any extra effort to distinguish the direction. Since even True Sight couldn’t find the way, it made little difference how he chose the route.

After walking for an unknown length of time, Qianye sensed something peculiar from a certain tree not so far in the distance. His dark golden blood energy also began swimming quicker.

At a glance, it was nothing but an ordinary tree in this forest, a black tree with a warped trunk and sharp branches akin to steel brambles. But there seemed to be something different in the Eyes of Truth.

Qianye didn’t stop his movements and kept on going toward it. Within this perpetually unchanging forest, every little anomaly might be an opportunity to leave.

The big tree needed three men to fully wrap their hands around it. It appeared normal from the front, but Qianye was immediately astonished as he walked over to the back.

There were a dozen or so holes on the tree. Through the transparent membrane seal, one could see that they were half-filled with turbid fluid, and each held a creature inside. These entities were so grotesquely shaped that Qianye simply couldn’t name them—a number of tree holes simply contained wriggling pieces of flesh within.

This tree looked like the breeding chamber of a mad scientist who had cut off a part from different creatures and stitched them back together randomly.

Without waiting for Qianye to decide his next course of action, one of the tree holes broke open, and the creature within charged out amidst a burst of murky liquid. It shot up immediately after falling to the floor and charged at Qianye’s face.

This spider-like creature had a mouth under its abdomen, lined with dense rows of sharp teeth. It was somewhat similar to a type of sandworm.

Against this pouncing odd creature, Qianye simply drew the Scarlet Edge and placed it before him. This resulted in the assailant throwing itself onto the blade and being pierced through. Although the creature appeared sinister, its attack power was merely at the level of a rank five beast. An enemy of this level couldn’t hope to do anything against Qianye at all.

But the surprising thing was that this indescribable creature actually possessed a surprising amount of essence blood for its build. Moreover, it was filled with surging vitality that was richer and more powerful than ordinary beasts.

The vitality was excessively vigorous to the point where it couldn’t be controlled. The biology Qianye had learned back at Yellow Spring told him that a creature with such vitality would see its tissues grow rapidly and eventually turn into an abnormal ball of flesh before dying on its own.

Similarly, the essence blood flowing into Qianye’s body through the Scarlet Edge might be extremely toxic to ordinary vampires. They would erupt with vigorous power after coming into contact with the body and blood vessels, inciting the tissues to grow at lightning speed.

With this darkness origin power supply, the previously immobile purple blood energy finally moved a bit. At the same time, Qianye breathed a sigh of relief.

At this moment, the entities being gestated within the big tree seemed to have sensed something and started becoming active. Numerous odd monsters broke out in quick succession—even the abnormal pieces of flesh were wriggling with all their might.

The creatures didn’t attack Qianye and instead began to fight and devour one another. Their strengths were more or less similar to the one from before. Qianye was startled and proceeded to observe the developments in silence.

Of the numerous creatures, only one was left in the blink of an eye. Its shape was now somewhat different from when it broke out of the membrane. The creature had expanded to the size of a mountain wolf, but it had three heads and eleven appendages that could be considered legs.

It let out a menacing growl at Qianye but didn’t attack. On the contrary, it pounced onto the tree and started devouring the creatures still within the tree holes. Soon, it started growing at a visible rate.

This process gave the spectator an explicable feeling of discomfort. The odd beast’s body was like a boiling cauldron with unknown organs bulging up here and there. However, its strength didn’t quite increase after this growth and started losing vitality instead.

At this point, Qianye understood that it didn’t have long to live. He thus took a step forward and, after easily evading the oncoming attack, pinned the creature to the big tree.

The beast emitted sharp screeches as it struggled for dear life. But it had no power to speak of apart from the dense vitality and simply couldn’t resist the powerful absorption of the Scarlet Edge. It lost all life in the blink of an eye and stopped moving.

Qianye cut open its carcass with a wave of his blade and found that the insides were in complete disorder. Bone-like objects were growing here and there, the organs had fused together with its flesh, and a number of unknown glands had developed together in one place.

This was a completely chaotic life form that simply shouldn’t appear in this world. But it had provided Qianye with more essence blood than a blood knight.

He was already prepared this time and quite calmly absorbed all of the essence blood. He started cultivating immediately afterward and continued until he had completed one full cycle.

After gaining a supply of darkness origin power, the purple blood energy finally recovered from its stagnation and started swimming around slowly. Although still quite weak, its revival signified that Qianye’s physique had resumed its operation. The recovery might take some time, but at least the immediate peril had passed by.