Volume 5 – A Distance Within Reach, Chapter 70: Dividing Loot

A vampire from the group noticed things going south and shouted loudly, “Don’t listen to her nonsense! The count will be back immediately. Finish them off or everyone will die when His Excellency return!”

Zhao Yuying laughed coldly. She drew the Mystic Spider Lily from Qianye’s waist and fired off a round with a raise of her hand. That vampire’s brain was blasted apart, sending blood and brain fluid flying everywhere and drenching those nearby.

Gunshots rang out continuously. Zhao Yuying fired a dozen or so shots in succession and killed off all the isolated dark race members before stopping.

The slaves all lowered their heads. No one dared look at Zhao Yuying—her murderous intent had suppressed the entire scene.

Zhao Yuying then ordered, “Everyone strip naked. Leave nothing on your body. Then you may leave!”

As soon as these words were spoken, the slaves immediately discarded everything and ran out of the mine naked. Their only wish was to get as far as they could from this terrifying woman. Some of them were hesitating at first, but they noticed people around them were doing as they had been told. They realized they had no choice but to join the naked army as Zhao Yuying’s gaze scanned over them with overflowing killing intent.

Perhaps there were still foremen and aides of Stuka among them, but they could no longer affect the general situation.

After the scene was emptied, Zhao Yuying turned to Qianye with a frown. “Qianye, what was that just now? Can’t bear to attack?”

Qianye laughed ruefully. “These people can be considered civilians, right?”

Zhao Yuying laughed coldly, “To hell with civilians! Can you tell them apart from those guards and warriors hiding among them? It’s fortunate that they didn’t have a sniper or they would have shot you. Who put this nonsense in your head?! Remember, this is a battlefield, and everyone charging at you in a battlefield is your enemy. The same goes for women and children!” [1]

Qianye continued to laugh wryly, “Okay, okay, I only hesitated for a little bit.” He then shot a glance at the two crates of gunpowder grenades Zhao Yuying had kicked over.

Zhao Yuying followed his gaze and said in a baffled manner, “Where did these things come from? They seem to be of human make.”

Qianye’s heart skipped a beat because he had pulled this out of Andruil’s Mysterious Realm. Naturally, no one noticed it during the chaotic battle, but Zhao Yuying was very clear what armaments Qianye had on him when she dragged him out. In any case, it was impossible for him to have brought these two big crates.

“Found them in the storehouse,” Qianye replied boldly.

This explanation was somewhat far-fetched. Additionally, one would know something wasn’t quite right just by asking those in charge of the storehouse. Zhao Yuying’s attention was soon shifted away from this small matter, perhaps because she had never imagined there would be an item like Andruil’s Mysterious Realm. She saw East Peak stuck in the ground nearby and immediately recalled the earth-shattering slash that had grievously injured the arachne count. That blow was already equal to a blast from her Mountain Splitter in terms of raw power, but Qianye wasn’t even a champion yet.

“Where did you learn that sword stance from just now? It’s so powerful!” At this point, Zhao Yuying noticed she had overlooked a major issue. “Oh right, I’ve never asked you before, but just what kind of art are you cultivating? Why does the induced innate gift look like the Bai family’s birdman inheritance?”

Qianye hesitated for a moment. “My cultivation art is the Combatant Formula. That sword strike is something I thought up.”

Zhao Yuying immediately glared at him. She grabbed Qianye by the collar and almost lifted him up. “You thought of it on your own? Stop joking. Do you know the significance of a sword strike that can break a count’s defenses? Even the Zhao clan secret arts available only to its core scions are merely at this level, and there are less than a hundred core descendants in each generation. You’re actually telling me that you thought up something like this?!”

The true secret arts of the major clans shared a common standard. That was the ability to draw upon the origin power from the void, not just from the surroundings. Only such a secret art would give the practitioner a chance at breaking through to the divine champion level.

But all such secret arts had to go through dozens of generations and hundreds of years of revision in order to reach perfection. Only then would they truly become an inheritance. Many of them were lost throughout the long years because there was no one suitable to cultivate them.

“It’s merely a single move,” Qianye said with a guilty conscience.

Zhao Yuying still couldn’t recover her calm—a single move? And “merely”? The value of a secret art couldn’t be measured by the number of moves. More often than not, the more powerful a secret art was, the less the number of moves.

Countless geniuses had, in their entire lives, only managed to cultivate one or two such moves to perfection and managed to draw out their full power. Creating a technique was only heard of with legendary characters.

At this moment, Zhao Yuying glanced at Qianye once again and felt increasingly displeased. A proud and arrogant person like her wasn’t willing to stay below someone else. Now that she had suddenly encountered a genius who far surpassed her, one whom she could never catch up to, her first thought was to strangle him to death.

Zhao Yuying stole glances at Qianye’s neck, sending a sudden chill down his body. Fortunately, she remembered that there was still some blood relations between them and muttered to herself, “This is Little Five. Ah, he’s also quite cute. It’s a pity to strangle him to death. How about I strangle him half dead?”

She felt that it was good idea.

Qianye felt an indescribable sensation of danger. He felt as though he had to do something or else bad things were about to happen. As such, he quietly took a step back and reached out his hand. “My gun.”

“Why are you so anxious about this tiny gun? This sister will find you a pair of good ones after we go back!” Zhao Yuying patted her chest. She was just about to hand the Mystic Spider Lily back to Qianye when, with a sudden “Eh?”, she brought the gun before her eyes and started examining it.

“That’s odd. Why was the firepower so much weaker when this mommy fired off a dozen rounds just now? Don’t tell me this damned thing is selective?”

Qianye was dumbfounded. In truth, he was already extremely surprised at how Zhao Yuying managed to fire the Mystic Spider Lily so many times in succession after a big battle. He had truly gained a new recognition of Zhao Yuying’s origin power capacity.

It was just that the Twin Flowers, in Qianye’s hands, was constantly affected by the Wings of Inception—its firepower from ordinary shots fell between that of grade-five and six custom-made guns, and a fused shot was equal to a custom-made grade six weapon. Meanwhile, in Zhao Yuying’s hands, it was only an ordinary grade-five handgun. Add to that the reduction in firepower for a human using a vampire weapon, the discrepancy naturally became obvious—its firepower in her hands was only grade-four, approximately.

Qianye said vaguely, “This, custom-made…”

No one knew whether or not she had noticed that the Mystic Spider Lily was made in a classic vampire style. She stopped her observation and mumbled, “Both of you are perverts!” before tossing the gun back to Qianye.

Zhao Yuying then slapped Qianye’s shoulder and said patiently, “Little Five, remember this. There’s no one in this world worth trusting with everything you’ve got. On the battlefield, whoever charges at you with a weapon is an enemy. Outside of the battlefield, those who want to fish money from your pocket are enemies.”

Qianye could only listen to the lecture.

Zhao Yuying’s eyes lit up as she scanned the large origin array at the center of the plaza. “I lost too much today, I must have half the profits.”

Qianye was immediately dumbfounded. What else had she lost apart from having used too many origin grenades? He immediately said, “Didn’t you just say that anyone looking to fish money out of my pocket is an enemy?”

A fist landed on Qianye’s shoulder with a thump.

Zhao Yuying replied furiously, “I’m your sister. How can you be like this? Your things are all mine, and my things are still mine!”

“You!” Qianye suddenly realized that his attempt at reasoning with this lady was akin to climbing the proverbial tree to catch fish.

Although Qianye had used up two Refined Silver Bullets of Extreme Yang, they were nothing compared to the profits from this mine raid. This holds true even for the special version made by the Song clan.

In addition to the resources before them, they had also caused Stuka to escape with grievous injuries. This outcome wasn’t bad at all.

Qianye didn’t want Stuka to die immediately. A count was a major character who could be termed an excellency. Even though this place, in the eyes of the Evernight Faction, was only a rural area, the loss of a count would at least draw the attention of Count Stuka’s clan. They might even dispatch other experts to take over.

Meanwhile, the arachne count who had been struck by the Extreme Yang Bullet would, at most, live a couple of years more. Judging from Stuka’s harsh governing policies, it didn’t seem like he would allow anyone to meddle in this area. It just so happened that this would give Qianye a much-needed buffer period during which he could slowly devour the count’s territories.

While waiting for the origin array’s disassembly, Qianye and Zhao Yuying engaged in a round of seriously haggling.

In addition to the mine itself, the value of the origin array wasn’t appraisable. Moreover, the thirty surviving smiths were also a sizeable fortune. The standards of those who could construct a law array of such scale were, no doubt, first-rate even in the dark race domain. Obtaining these smiths was equal to gaining a batch of first-rate origin array technicians.

It was fine if Zhao Yuying wanted to split the components of the array as long as its core remained. But Qianye wasn’t willing to let go of even one of the smiths because they would become a foundational stone when Dark Flame was ready to upgrade in the future.

The issue of loot division was solved at last with Zhao Yuying taking half of the array components and Qianye receiving the array core and smiths.

Although the disassembly was easier than the construction, it still took the greater half of a day to take it apart and sort the components into crates. The modules took up an entire three containers.

The mine was located deep in the count’s area of jurisdiction, and it was a long way from Blackflow City. The losses would be too great if any accidents were to occur along the way. Qianye personally rushed back to Black Ridge and transferred the airship over. The crates and smiths were stuffed into the airship and then escorted back to Blackflow City by Zhao Yuying.

Qianye didn’t stay idle after returning to Black Ridge. Taking advantage of the arachne count’s recuperation period, he decided to take this opportunity to expand his martial accomplishments in dark race territory.

He split his army in two. Part of it followed Qianye toward the werewolf viscount’s territory. Qianye found the werewolves’ movements to be quite odd and decided to bring his troops over for observation.

The other unit stayed behind. There, they would wait for Zhao Yuying’s return and then attack arachne viscount Musk’s fort under her command. As for Dark Ridge, the Wei clan champion would oversee the scouting and logistic forces therein. Count Stuka, the only one who could threaten Black Ridge, had been incapacitated and wouldn’t be able to do battle on the short term.

The occupied lands would become interconnected after Qianye and Zhao Yuying had taken down their respective viscounts’ territories. Then after knocking out the dark race settlement at Silverflow Fjord, most of Count Stuka’s territories in the east and south would have fallen into Qianye’s hands. At this point, this westward expedition would be accomplished perfectly.

Qianye set out with only a company of special forces in tow. The werewolves had completely retreated and were holed up behind their natural stronghold. Ordinary warriors were useless regardless of the numbers and would only serve to slow down their marching speed. It was faster to travel with a small number of elites.

Back at Blackflow City, Wei Potian was sitting within a study and repeatedly examining a piece armor.

…

[1] I modified the raws it bit for better flow. It was originally “where did you learn such a disease?” The disease/ailment here refers to the subjective shortcoming of a person.

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