Monarch of Evernight (Web Novel)
chapter-45

[Volume 2 – Bloom of the Other Shore Flower]

Inside another valley, Qianye laid hidden inside the underbrush, looking through the gaps of the blades of grass at the advancing vampire warrior that was searching not far away. The vampire warrior snapped a thin thread with his foot, activated the mechanism as the tin foil bag suddenly exploded. Immediately, a bright silver flame began to burn.

This vampire soldier had slightly faster reaction time than the previous. Right when the light flashed, he had already turned around and closed his eyes so that they were not harmed too badly. Moreover, he had quickly backed away before opening his eyes and starting to search for any enemies in hiding.

Yet, Qianye did not give him an opportunity to recover. The moment the vampire soldier began backing away, Qianye had jumped up and threw a tin foil bag. When the vampire soldier opened his eyes, he saw the tin foil bag a few meters in front of him and Qianye pulling a thin string with his hands. Another flash of light illuminated in front of the vampire soldier’s face!

The vampire soldier ultimately suffered. He screamed with pain, and instinctively covered his eyes.

Qianye pulled out his Kohler pistol, clutching it tightly with his two hands. He emptied the seven bullets within his magazine at once despite the massive recoil, which he recovered his aim in time for every following bullet.

Every bullet landed on either one of the vampire soldier’s hands or his face, but not one was able to penetrate the hands that were still covering his eyes. Two bullets were embedded in his chin bone, but were not able to penetrate through bone either.

Qianye felt his heart chill. What a tough body!

At this distance, guns that used gunpowder had no way of penetrating the body of an high rank vampire soldier. That also implied only Black Scorpion veterans were able to fight one! If Qianye met an advanced vampire soldier in a direct confrontation, he definitely would not have any chance at victory.

However, from the strength of his darkness origin power and his reaction time in battle, Qianye could tell that this vampire truly had the strength of a rank two Fighter. Could it be that he had some sort of special innate aptitude? Qianye’s thoughts shifted quickly, his hands pulling the trigger for the last time without any hesitation.

The vampire soldier had been forced back by the barrage of bullets, which caused him to continuously scream even louder. The bullets were all coated in silver. Once they entered his body, they immediately began corroding his flesh. However, Qianye knew that his bullets were only cheap, silver-coated bullets. Silver-coated bullets could only exacerbate the injuries and would not reach the point of lethality, but real silver bullets were controlled by the army, so he had no way of getting them.

Qianye dove forward and passed the vampire soldier’s front in a flash. Like a ghost, he then circled around to the soldier’s back and stabbed him with a knife smeared with liquid silver. The knife cut through the heart in one jab before Qianye speedily retreated.

The vampire soldier let out a mournful cry, struggled for a moment, and then fell over at last.

Qianye finally released his breath as deep-seated fatigue overwhelmed him. This battle took only a short while, but it exhausted almost half of his origin power. He had used every strategy and trick he knew, consecutively setting traps for his opponents before finally deciding the result of this battle.

However, the cries of this vampire soldier had already spread far and wide. The other vampires were definitely alerted and increased their vigilance. To ambush one again so soon would be much more difficult.

Qianye continued searching the body and found a gold badge inside the vampire soldier’s pocket. On it was a symbol of a crescent moon and a scepter, but Qianye had never seen this symbol before. It might perhaps be some ancient family’s insignia.

Qianye pocketed the badge and then similarly took some of the crystal currency generally usable in dark races that the vampire had brought along with him.

Lastly, Qianye pried out the vampire’s fangs.

This time, he examined them carefully. This pair of fangs was slightly longer than those of low rank vampire soldiers that he had fought before. It also had a finer texture and a higher transparency. The openings for sucking blood and injecting venom were also slightly wider. The accumulation of these minor differences confirmed that the vampire wasn’t an ordinary, but an high ranked vampire soldier.

However, as to why a high ranked vampire soldier had experienced a sudden drop in power, a drop from rank six to rank two, must have other reasons. Perhaps, it have had to do with their pursuit of Nighteye.

Qianye pondered for a moment, then decided not to erase his traces and only adjusted a couple of things and before quietly leaving.

Having lost two high ranked soldiers, the titled vampire definitely wouldn’t easily let the killer escape. Thus, these traces could give clues to that vampire big shot and throw him off in analyzing Qianye’s battle strength.

Within the traces also remained some of Qianye’s scent, which any keen vampire could use to easily track him. This was Qianye’s goal. His true target was the boss of those vampires!

Far away, Nighteye was slightly surprised. Another piece of her Blood Shackles had snapped. She now felt that maybe she should raise her opinion of the little guy known as Qianye. Even though his strength was pretty damn weak, he was obviously extremely cunning. Just the ability to consecutively kill two elite vampire soldiers gave him the qualifications to be placed on par with experienced vampire hunters.

About half an hour after Qianye left, a handsome young man was standing inside the valley. He frowned as he looked at the vampire soldier’s body. Behind him stood four other vampire soldiers who were all slightly trembling at this moment.

This man was dressed in a tuxedo. His slim body, coattail, bowtie, and linen blouse, not a single detail wasn’t perfect. He looked as if he was about to attend a banquet. Under the light of the blood moon, his boots seemed especially dazzling.

He turned around to face a middle-aged vampire soldier, coldly smiling as he said, “So these are the elite soldiers you trained? They weren’t able to chase down Nighteye, and two were killed by a weak human instead! From what I see, our house’s dignity has utterly been lost by you lot!”

The vampire soldier spoke in a low voice, “Sir Wilde, their strength had been suppressed by the Blood Shackles.”

Wilde pointed toward the body’s wound on the backside, where the heart should have been, and sneered, “Even if they were suppressed, their strengths would’ve still been rank two! You see this wound? That human also merely had the strength of a rank two. Don’t tell me the elite soldiers you trained for a few decades couldn’t even defeat a human of the same rank! Are you guys trying to say that the kid who opened a small bar in that little town is actually a soldier from the Broken Wings Angel or something? Or perhaps from one of the other elite corps? Such as the Swords of Radiance, the Red Scorpion, or the Arms of War?”

Under this barrage of remarks, the few vampire soldiers were unable to respond at all.

Wilde coldly laughed for a while, then finally said, “This guy must die! However, I don’t have any confidence in relying on you. I will finish him myself!”

The captain of the soldiers was shocked, and hurriedly dissuaded him, “Sir! You still need to deal with Nighteye!”

Wilde arrogantly said, “That’s not a problem, there’s no way for her to escape. Even if she and that guy were waiting for me together, do you actually think that a rank two human can affect the battle situation between me and her?”

Wilde scanned the four vampire soldiers and wanted to say something, but suddenly looked westward. He gradually revealed a twisted smile as he said, “Ah, look what information the wonderful scent of sacred blood had brought us! It is truly unbelievable. That noble and proud lady Nighteye is actually coming in this direction. Does she want to join hands with that brat? Join hands with a rank two human?”

Wilde especially emphasized phrase “rank two”.

The vampire captain summoned up the courage to say, “Sir, please be careful!”

“Be careful?” Wilde’s smile gradually became ferocious. “Even if I don’t catch Nighteye, there’s no way for her to escape. There are still some unlikable, big dogs that will arrive soon. This area is their paradise!”

“Werewolves? Then Lady Nighteye…”

Wilde coldly interrupted the captain, “My orders were to bring Nighteye back, but they didn’t specify whether she had to be dead or alive!”

Wilde didn’t plan on acting alongside the four soldiers. He believed that these guys who were suppressed down two rank two would only hold him back. Despite being a chain on the Blood Shackles, he still had the strength of a rank five soldier, and was well-matched against Nighteye.

During his battle with Nighteye, there was no place for a rank two insect to interfere. However, he had no problem with killing this insect before he fought Nighteye. This would make him joyful whereas Nighteye, not so much.

Just thinking of that little insect laying in a pool of blood and moaning already gave Wilde uncontrollable pleasure.

However, Wilde very quickly found this chase to be unpleasant, very unpleasant.

Wilde followed the scent and chased after it until he stopped in front of an enormous warship skeleton, his expression becoming extremely ugly.

The enormous skeleton of warship was over one hundred meters in height and one thousand meters in length. It was a Colossus-model main force warship of humans after the War of Daybreak. Now that it had fallen here, it was entirely like the ruins of a small city.

This tiny insect was obviously very cunning, or he would have never chosen this place to hide himself.

Seeing the filthy environment and smelling the pungent scent of metal and other materials that had lingered through all these years without fully dissipating, Wilde rubbed his tormented nose and made a bitter smile as he made his way inside a propulsion pipeline.

This Colossus-model warship truly deserved its name. A person could even stoop and walk through its propulsion pipelines.

Wilde bent over and walked through the enormous propulsion tube for a long time before finally coming out on the other side. What he then discovered, was that it was only a piece of fabric from a shirt that lead him here. However, this scent was much fresher than before, so that little punk couldn’t have left more than twenty minutes ago.

Wilde immediately chased this trail. He was so fast that one would almost be unable to see him. He looked like a mirage traversing the wasteland.

A moment later, Wilde suddenly stopped in his tracks, his expression becoming even grimmer. He was able to feel that Qianye was hiding just in front of him. It seemed that this was the place where the little rascal had chosen as grounds of their final battle. Although, in Wilde’s eyes, the correct phrasing would be a chosen burial ground.

Nighteye also arrived at the other side of the battle ground. She and Wilde were both able to feel each other’s presence, but at this moment, her expression was not much better than his.

Qianye’s choice of location for the final battle, was largest ruin and junkyard near Lighthouse Town.

The smell was immensely putrid. Besides the various types of garbage, there were also a few abandoned factories, while gigantic airships skeletons scattered all over the place. This area used to be the graveyard for airships before the Empire withdrew from the region, and a few hundred years, it had gradually accumulated into a mountain range made of garbage of various compositions.

To high vampires who had mysophobia from birth, while also having an extremely sharp sense of smell, this place was worse than hell.

Wilde’s expression was extremely ugly, but there was no way he could give up on killing Qianye. Two high ranked vampire soldiers had already died in his hands, so as their leader, Wilde had the responsibility to expunge this embarrassment.

“Insect, you better hide well! You’d better not let me find you!” Wilde murmured, finally stepping into the junkyard.