Monarch of Evernight (Web Novel)
chapter-67

[Volume 2 - Bloom of the Other Shore Flower]

Sure enough, Sky Snake laughed. He settled himself, his entire body relaxing. He spread his arms, exposing his unprotected chest.

“Shoot! Shoot! It’s best if you kill me! If you kill me, then your little guys will be happy!”

Yu Yingnan bit down on her lower lip so hard that it turned white, but her fingers froze in midair, unable to press down on the trigger. After her mind-numbing anger subsided, she realized that if she pulled the trigger, severe consequences would occur. Besides, a trifling gun that used gunpowder had no way of killing Sky Snake in one hit.

A hand reached over, steadily but forcefully lowering Yu Yingnan’s gun.

Qianye seemed as if he couldn’t see that Sky Snake’s underlings had already taken out their weapons and only looked at Sky Snake. He said, “Since you use your name to protect your reputation, you wouldn’t prevent us from leaving at this moment, right?”

Sky Snake narrowed his eyes and stared at Qianye for a little, then laughed loudly, “Why would I do that! My best customer, you guys can come and leave whenever you wish! You’re welcome to return at any time!”

Qianye nodded his head and then said to Yu Yingnan, “Let’s go, let’s leave this place.”

“But,” Yu Yingnan still wanted to say something, but Qianye half supported and half clutched her right shoulder that was controlling the gun and walked out.

Yu Yingnan felt an irresistible, strong force clutching her right shoulder. Any struggle would be futile, so she could only follow Qianye as they walked. She did not even think of questioning why Qianye could restrict her with just the power of a rank three Fighter.

In the eyes of Sky Snake’s gang, on the other hand, it seemed that Yu Yingnan followed Qianye of her own will. They all felt indescribably weird since they had never heard of anyone who could persuade this hot-tempered female hunter.

“Wait.” Sky snake called out to stop them.

Yu Yingnan instantly turned around and stared at Sky Snake, her eyes full of fury. In contrast, Qianye half turned around with a questioning look on his face, He did it so naturally that it seemed like nothing had happened.

Sky Snake looked at Qianye thoughtfully, pondered, and then said, “How about this, I’ll give Old 2 some face. I’ll void any interest she has and I’ll give her two more months to pay back her original debt. It’ll be fine if she returns her original loan within two months.”

“You!” Yu Yingnan couldn’t contain her anger, but Qianye nodded towards Sky Snake, and then dragged her outside.

After leaving the headquarters of the Sky Snake Gang and reaching the street, Yu Yingnan suddenly howled in frustration and heavily punched a tree on the roadside!

“Why did you stop me?” Yu Yingnan shouted at Qianye.

“Because you weren’t ready to fight to the death, and we can’t beat them.” Qianye calmly responded.

“How do you know I wasn’t ready to fight to the death?”

Qianye didn’t answer and only silently looked at her. Under his gaze, Yu Yingnan’s fury began to subside. She then ultimately punched the tree again and said, “If it was just me...”

“Maybe a good idea would be to find a place to sit down and listen to your story.”

A moment later, the two people returned to Yu Yingnan’s house.

She found a few bottles of liquor that she had hidden, and directly gulped it down from the bottle without using a cup. After two bottles lacked even a drop of alcohol, her excited mood finally started to slowly but surely return to normal.

Yu Yingnan stared at the bottle of liquor she was swinging around in her fingers and said, “You probably want to know why I have such a large debt, right?”

It wasn’t a complicated story.

A year ago, during a mission, she had been met with an enormous tragedy. Her small team was annihilated, with her as the sole survivor. Yu Yingnan believed that she was to blame for bringing them to such a tragic end. Thus, in the next half year, she had found every late team members’ family and sent them to relatively safe cities along with enough money for these families to live.

The children of these team members that still needed to go to school, including Yu Yingnan’s own younger brother, were still living in Darkblood City, receiving basic combat training.

In this manner, Yu Yingnan had not only spent all of her savings, but also incurred a massive debt with Sky Snake. If she chose to turn completely hostile, she was worried that Sky Snake would hurt the families of her fallen comrades, and maybe even their children.

If the Sky Snake Gang intended to force her into a dead end, then she would not be afraid and would fight them to the death. However, it was still just money business. She truly did not have the resolve to fight them over this. She could only endure.

This bit of money was barely even worth considering for powerful families, but in a place like Darkblood City, it was enough to force people into their graves.

After saying this, she forcefully buried her face in her two hands, and said with a whimper, “Sorry, I dragged you into this. Don’t worry, I will return the money for that gun!”

“That isn’t important, but won’t you let Old 2 know of this?”

“Because Old 2 had already helped me many times. I already owe him so much, but if he knew of this, he would still pay off this debt for me. Truthfully, Old 2 has already used a lot of resources on me.” Yu Yingnan couldn’t say anything else and could only forcefully pull on her hair.

This was a hunter’s pride. It sounded ridiculous, but she would rather enter the death arena than rely on Second Elder again.

Qianye also poured himself a cup of alcohol, but only held it in his hands. He stared at the slightly yellow alcohol and asked thoughtfully, “Hunters shouldn’t be afraid of the Sky Snake Gang right? You’re a four star hunter, so why are you still being bullied this obviously?”

Yu Yingnan let out a long sight before explaining, “Hunters and mercenaries are different. We have more freedom, but in exchange, Home of Hunters will remain neutral in this kind of conflict. In reality, many hunters want to me to die horribly. In any case, I really do owe Sky Snake money and I can’t even pay it back, so Old 2 doesn’t have a way to use Home of Hunters to suppress Sky Snake. Sky Snake used to be very rule abiding, but I never thought he’d act this way today.”

Qianye smiled and said, “I already had expected that.” The logic was very simple. When the benefits and the opposing assets were no longer balanced, rules were bound to be discarded.

Yu Yingnan was surprised, “Then, do you have a way to take back your origin gun?”

“He still ultimately voided your interest and gave you another two months. The gun could be considered to have been exchanged for two hundred gold coins. We didn’t lose out so badly.” Qianye said.

“This is ‘not losing out so badly’?”

Qianye wagged his finger at her and didn’t let her continue speaking. He then said, “Considering my current background and strength, to sell it without any trouble would be pretty difficult. That’s why we can just let it end here.”

“No!” Yu Yingnan pounded on the table.

“I don’t have the strength, so I can’t keep Flowing Gold Rose. Isn’t that just the rule of Darkblood City?” Qianye calmly said. He was even more clear on this concept than Yu Yingnan. In addition, if he had not taken out the Flowing Gold Rose, they would have had no way of leaving Sky Snake’s control.

However, his tone suddenly changed, becoming indifferent yet containing a hidden chill, “However, I really love this rule. When I have enough strength, I will naturally make Sky Snake return what he owes hundredfold!”

Yu Yingnan looked up, and stared at Qianye as if knowing him for the first time.

Qianye now had his original look, delicate and almost exquisite. When he spoke, his expression was indifferent, but his words had a bloody will that could shatter all obstacles.

Yu Yingnan suddenly found that the boy in front of her became extremely foreign, as if the rookie one star hunter that couldn’t fire into a mob had never existed.

“Now, we should probably finish our mission before we speak of this again.” Qianye glanced at her as he voiced his opinion.

Yu Yingnan regained some energy and then quietly adjusted her equipment before giving Qianye a case. Qianye opened it and saw three lined up origin bullets with her aura. He didn’t decline and put the case in his backpack.

At three o’clock at night, Yu Yingnan and Qianye left Darkblood City one after the other, and then split up, taking different paths to reach their destination.

When he entered the wasteland, Qianye took out his Ambusher and steadily ran toward his destination. He chose to run northwest at forty kilometers per hour as his limit.

A number of hours later, the werewolves that had been chasing Qianye for an hour already had decided to give up. Qianye’s speed and endurance surprised them. He seemed to have boundless endurance as he crossed the wasteland.

In the middle of running, Qianye suddenly shook, and became alert for no apparent reason.

He was on a foothill with mild slopes. The majority of the foliage there were vines and shrubs that had spikes, and the only other structures were scattered ruins drowned within the foliage. Maybe one hundred years ago it had been a small town inhabited by humans, but only a few crumbled walls remained.

Qianye sprinted as he neared the the ruins. At the same time, he vigilantly searched for signs of movement in all directions. Suddenly, he saw a small, floating shadow, far in the distant sky.

The person wasn’t very big, and his entire body was wrapped in a black cloak, hiding the structure of his body.

At this time, they had a few kilometers between them, so Qianye could only barely see mysterious person’s outline. It probably was a humanoid organism. However, when Qianye saw the mysterious person, this person almost instantly reacted and turned his head to look at Qianye.

Qianye was aghast and closed his eyes as fast as he could. His body curled up and rolled on the ground, almost falling into a natural hole under two stones at the side of the ruins. He simultaneously began using several military secret arts to hold his breath, stop his heart, and enter a death-like state.

He just finished entering this state when an enormous consciousness swept past the area, right over his body!

The consciousness was extremely cold. From this instant, Qianye could only feel a black sun gradually rise in front of his eyes.

He almost couldn’t feel fear, he could only feel flames that were darker than the abyss, slowly being dragged across the entire world by the black sun.

Qianye desperately pushed his consciousness into his third, already extinguished, origin node, wildly trying to remain awake. He had an ominous feeling that the moment he relaxed his consciousness, it would be absorbed by the black sun, falling into an eternal night.

After who knew how long, the icy consciousness retreated like floodwater. The black sun’s flames also gradually left Qianye. However, at this moment, the blood of darkness that had been sleeping in his body for a long time suddenly began to act up. It almost instantly boiled over!