Monarch of Evernight (Web Novel)
chapter-584

The vampire’s finger landed toward the rear of the dark race formation. In front was the broken outer wall of the stronghold through which numerous dark race soldiers were squeezing in. A steady rain of origin bullets, grenades, and cannon shells were flying out from within the stronghold to mow the enemy soldiers down but could hardly slow down their charging momentum.

Within the chaotic crowds, there was an unassuming figure marching along with the dark race army. He was a bit more nimble than the surrounding warriors and managed to gain a speed advantage after traveling several hundred meters—but that was the extent of it.

From the surface, he looked to be a vampire blood knight. If one had to point out something wrong with him, it was the fact that the dark race soldiers around him were all falling down for no good reason.

The vampire elder watched him intently for a while before adjusting the image to display the distribution of origin power. Hence, a flickering red light appeared on the knight’s body, the representation of blood energy. Its quality wasn’t that good, either, and more or less the same as others of the same rank.

The vampire elder’s brows locked even tighter. That blood knight’s squad was already approaching the Bai clan outer walls. The entire display was filled with dazzling lights and origin explosions with a multitude of dark race soldiers either charging, dodging, or falling down—he could hardly make out anything else amidst the chaos.

The elder pondered as he moved his fingers and switched the scene to another corner of the battlefield. Here, a beautiful human girl had just scuttled out of the rubble and arrived behind two werewolves. There was an exceptionally broad cleaver in her hand with which she swung casually and cut open the necks of the two werewolves.

This swing was delivered with monstrous speed. The two charging werewolves couldn't even react in time and only discovered that they had been attacked after their necks had been cut through. But the grave injury to their vitals caused them to collapse to the ground, spasming helplessly as their blood flowed out.

The damage caused by this strike was unsalvageable, but it wasn’t enough to kill immediately, either. The key issue here was that the girl wasn’t even trying to make them suffer more. She was only conserving as much energy as possible.

The inertia of the large cleaver didn’t end there. It completed its remaining trajectory arc in the air and spun the girl’s frail body along with it, projecting a direct view of her face on the image. The vampire elder’s eyes couldn’t help but contract. This young human girl was considered beautiful, even by vampire standards. However, her methods actually caused him to feel a faint chill in his heart.

The old vampire’s fingers brushed past her image, eliciting a faint white glow from the girl’s body. However, there were strands of black energy mixed in within.

The milky white glow was naturally daybreak origin power, and that was a normal thing—the strange thing was the black energy. The old vampire had recognized it as demonic energy of the demonkin. How could it appear on her body? Was this yet another mixed-breed?

It was at this time that the old man seemed to think of something and moved the image back to the strange blood knight from a while ago. The latter was just leaping over a wide patch of ruins, but he seemed unable to control his momentum upon landing and crashed into an arachne. The half-human spider was actually sent staggering backward from the impact.

The arachne’s human half spun around and glared at the blood knight, but he didn’t rage. He kept silent because he understood, from the collision just now, that the latter was much stronger than himself.

The blood knight ignored everything and simply rushed toward the outer wall. The arachne was just about to take a step forward when his movements turned sluggish all of a sudden. He swayed unsteadily for a while and finally collapsed, never to get up again.

At this point, the vampire elder could no longer remain silent. He waved a hand and said in a raspy voice, “Tell Russel to bring that strange child to me.”

A vampire count nearby bowed with the utmost respect. “As you command.”

The elder spoke no more and only continued to observe the blood knight.

In the battlefield, Qianye had made his way to the frontlines and his ears were filled with shouts and explosions. He moved close to the backside of a high-ranking vampire warrior and tapped lightly on his back. An extremely sharp origin power cut through the latter’s armor and skin. The attack left an indiscernible wound and, at the same time, injected a wisp of purple blood energy into it.

The area between the outer and inner stronghold walls was a land of death. The air above was covered in a hail of bullets while swords clashed upon the ground. That high-ranking vampire warrior sensed Qianye’s aura but paid little attention to a small collision from a comrade before pouncing toward a nearby Bai clan soldier. But as he activated his blood energy, his entire body trembled and slowly collapsed to the ground.

Qianye was just about to approach a werewolf in the same pattern when a sense of uneasiness arose in his heart. He turned back all of a sudden and saw a vampire expert in black armor flying rapidly toward him. His blood energy was almost aboil and dotted with flickering specks of golden fire.

Auric flame blood!

His sparse golden stars were a far cry from Qianye’s own, but the presence of auric flame blood was a telltale sign that the transformation had begun. The actual combat strength of this incoming vampire count was well above his rank.

Qianye was confident in dealing with ordinary counts, but he wasn’t so sure about an expert with auric flame blood. He stopped trying to hide his tracks and darted forward diagonally, soon turning into a blurry shadow.

However, that vampire count quickly adjusted his direction and made a beeline for Qianye. Be it the dark race soldiers or Bai clan warriors, everyone along the way was sent staggering back by the impact.

At this point, Qianye realized that he had been compromised, although he couldn’t figure out just how the other party had discovered him amidst the chaos of battle. But he had already crossed the battlefield according to plan and would be able to enter the Bai clan battlefront in just a few steps.

Qianye scanned the battle situation around him, adjusted his steps, and flashed behind a broken wall in the ruins.

The vampire count sneered upon seeing this. He raised his speed abruptly and charged toward Qianye. He ignored everything along the way—not to mention broken walls and rubble, even intact buildings were crashed through.

The sudden appearance of a vampire count drew the attention of the Bai clan with several snipers atop the stronghold turning their aim toward him. Atop the tower, Bai Longjia looked down at the count and then glanced around him as though he had recalled something. The Bai clan general issued no special orders and simply allowed the vampire to charge toward the frontlines.

Russel charged toward the place where Qianye had disappeared and erupted with blood energy, destroying the entire patch of rubble. Stone and metal fragments flew out in all directions, prompting the soldiers of both factions to run for their lives.

But Russel didn’t relax at all, and the blood energy around him grew even denser. As expected, a sword flew toward him right through the dust cloud.

It was an unassuming heavy blade. There were faintly discernible origin patterns on its body which meant that it was no ordinary sword—but that was the extent of it. Those origin patterns acted like receptacles for origin power but showed no signs of erupting with great might.

A shield appeared in Russel’s grasp with a swing of his left hand, with which he sought to block East Peak’s assault. The man’s build was far bigger than that of ordinary vampires, and his shield was as tall as an ordinary person. A slight shift was enough to defend his frontside completely.

The vampire count wasn’t on pure defense—he crashed forward as the shield appeared, poised to knock Qianye over with absolute force. Countless negligent opponents had been wounded by Russel’s heavy first strike, which exceeded the power of an arachne.

Qianye made no motion to evade. The Dark Thread Crystals on his blade flowed with increasing speed and power. He let out an abrupt roar before slashing down at the center of the giant shield!

This blade was a perfect coordination between his origin power and powerful constitution—the damage was unprecedented.

An ear-piercing metallic screech resounded as the blade and shield came into contact. A faint ring of origin power rippled outward and spread to all directions. All the soldiers within several dozen meters, who had failed to escape in time, fell to the ground. They covered their ears in agony as fresh blood flowed out from between their fingers.

Russel’s body was greatly shaken. His face became bright scarlet, and he couldn’t help but take two steps back. Qianye’s blood energy also welled up as he, too, took two steps backward.

They were actually an even match!

Extremely shocked, Russel revealed half a face from behind the shield and stared fixedly at Qianye. Having received orders to intercept Qianye, he naturally understood that the other party was abnormal. That was why he hadn’t held back at all with his attacks. But he had never imagined that the other party would be able to fight on equal grounds against him.

For creatures of either camp, strength was often directly proportional to body size. Russel possessed extraordinary talent—his strength was no weaker than an arachne of the same level, and his physique was also much bigger than ordinary vampires. This person before him wasn’t short, but his build was clearly quite frail. Could this mean that his origin power level was far superior?

Russel shook his head inwardly and refuted this possibility. The origin power instilled within the attack just now was of the void attribute. Although its factional affinity was unclear, he could say with certainty that the other party was only at the viscount rank.

At this moment, Qianye wasn’t as calm as he seemed on the surface. He stood with the blade as support and did his utmost to hide the slight trembling of his hands. That exchange just now was one of those rare occasions in which he had failed to overwhelm the opponent with force. The only reason Qianye hadn’t taken a loss was because he had accumulated his power in advance and East Peak was superior to the man’s giant shield. It was an advantage in weapons.

Qianye’s blood core was beating wildly in his chest. Almost all his blood transformed into a stream of golden flames, transporting great power to every inch of his body. The intense numbness brought about by the collision vanished and new power gushed out continuously.

Qianye sensed his power rising. At the same time, he could sense every inch of his body and every little minute detail was under his control. This kind of sensation was quite wondrous and almost intoxicating.

Russel’s simple crash had actually caused Qianye’s auric flame blood to increase in level. It was now quite close to filling his entire body. At that stage, upgrading to a first-rank viscount would only be a matter of time.

But after the current fight, Qianye knew he wasn’t this count’s match. He might have a chance if he could land a Shot of Inception, but that would draw a lot of unwanted attention in such a battlefield—especially that of the giant warship above.