[V6C38 – Sorrow of a Silent Parting]

“Armas? This… is truly unfortunate.”

Armas was one of the elites who had been sent by the Monroe clan to support Nighteye. Although he was only a second-rank viscount, his sword arts were extremely powerful and greatly suited for operating under the suppression of the colossus’ will.

However, all groups were dispersed once they entered this world from Giant’s Repose. It was just that Eden and Nighteye were located quite close, and were thus able to meet up on the second day. They had been taking their time to roam the surrounding areas without rushing toward the colossus’ remains because they wanted to rendezvous with their teammates. They would be qualified to seize the ancient essence fragment only after accumulating a certain amount of military strength.

Unexpectedly, Armas had fallen here without even a corpse remaining. Eden quickly observed the surroundings—being able to finish Armas off without signs of an intense battle proved that the opponent was powerful. It might even be one of the empire’s twin stars, and Eden didn’t wish to bump into them at all before reaching the ancient essence fragment.

Nighteye collected Armas’ items without a word and continued onward.

…

Meanwhile, Qianye was also roaming the area, and an increasing number of dark race members had died in his wake as he gradually approached the colossus’ remains. The closer he came to the inner circle, the more dangerous things became, and the greater his chances of encountering the other faction’s experts.

Qianye hadn’t seen Zhao Jundu yet up to this point. He had, however, bumped into a couple of experts from the imperial noble families. But Qianye liked to move alone so he merely got in touch for a simple exchange of intelligence and parted ways with them.

It was at this time that Qianye’s ears moved ever so slightly. He quickly leapt onto the closest tree and glanced into the distance, from whence came a long, resounding howl.

This wolf howl had come from at least a kilometer away. This was nothing in the outside world where even the sound of an ordinary beast howling to the moon could travel several kilometers. However, it was truly out of the ordinary in a world protected of the colossus’ will. A howl reaching over a kilometer in range despite the suppression proved how powerful this werewolf was.

Qianye’s expression turned odd because he seemed to recognize this sound. Was that... William?

Apparently, he was in a fierce battle with someone nearby and had unleashed such a roar at the height of his battle intent.

Qianye hesitated for a moment but still made his way toward the direction of that howl. However, he maintained a state of bloodline concealment throughout the journey and seemed to have no intention of letting either party discover him.

Qianye had always felt a good impression toward William’s attitude. Since sharing food with him in that unknown cave in the wilderness, William had treated him more like a friend and less like an enemy. Regardless of his true intentions, it was a fact that he had helped Qianye several times. Thus, he could hardly ignore the werewolf’s kindness despite his natural vigilance against the dark races.

But William was still a werewolf who belonged to the Evernight faction, so they would naturally be on opposite sides if they were to meet under the present circumstances.

One kilometer wasn’t far at all, but it became a rather long trek with his perception limited to within a couple hundred meters. As he arrived near the scene, Qianye saw the ground virtually overturned and a dozen or so giant trees leaning at odd angles.

The fight had already ended and William was nowhere to be seen. What surprised Qianye was that William’s enemy was neither an imperial soldier or a vampire. Instead, they were peculiar men the size of a three-year-old child. They possessed large eyes, small limbs, wrinkled brown skin, and were wielding wooden stakes in their hands.

There were dozens of such small corpses, and most of them had traces of claws or bites upon them.

Qianye’s eyes froze at this point. Had William been fighting in his werewolf combat form? Qianye had never seen William’s true combat form at this point. There was only that one time on the Western Continent where the latter had changed into a giant wolf to intercept him. The transformation then had doubled his suppressive might, a testament to how powerful his combat form was. This also meant that these odd little men were definitely not as simple as they seemed on the surface.

Qianye drew East Peak and stabbed one of the corpses on the ground. Qianye was surprised to find that there was actually some resistance at the tip before it went into the body. East Peak, at this point, had reached a whole new level after being reforged at the Zhao clan. It was just a casual stab, but the sword almost failing to pierce through went to show just how shocking their natural defenses were.

He picked up one of the short wooden spears and observed it carefully, whereupon an almond-like smell of bitterness wafted into his nose. As soon as he had inhaled this smell, Qianye felt a constant sting on his skin, and the hand holding the spear turned somewhat numb.

Clearly, this was poison—and an unfathomable venom at that.

Basically, Qianye’s present constitution and auric flame blood afforded him immunity to most toxins. Even the special anti-vampire poisons used by the empire were ineffective on him. Who would’ve thought that this unassuming short spear in front of him was actually carrying such a terrifying poison?

No wonder William had revealed his combat form. He needed to wipe out these little men with reinforced speed, lest he got stabbed by their poisoned spears. This was also an indirect proof that even William’s count-level defenses weren’t completely invincible against their attacks.

Qianye learned nothing more after a period of research. He was no biological specialist, so he could only judge the combat strength and style of these little men from his past experience. This yielded limited results.

Qianye picked up a couple of those spears, wrapped them tightly with beast skin, and placed them into Andruil’s Mysterious Realm for later research.

These corpses would soon be devoured and disintegrated by the purple substance, never to appear again. The forest seemed unchanged, but the appearance of these little creatures proved that this world was much more dangerous than they had previously anticipated. Moreover, where had they even come from?

Qianye suddenly recalled the beehive-like structure in the crowns of those large trees and that there were certain things being gestated in them.

A puzzled Qianye continued his investigation. Moreover, he kept his True Sight active at all times and didn’t dare relax. Judging from the clues at the scene, William had clearly been ambushed and attacked from all sides by those little men.

After advancing for some time, Qianye suddenly noticed a certain part of the ground substance bulging up abnormally. He rapidly rushed over and slashed it open with East Peak.

This time, Qianye had added blood energy to the blade’s edge, preventing the cut edges from repairing themselves. The blood energy eroded swiftly through the substance and revealed two partially-devoured corpses underneath. Their identities could still be discerned because the ornaments on them were mostly intact. Both of them were aristocratic family experts—one was from the Kong family, and the other was from a certain middle-ranked family.

The flesh on their chests had been eroded quite a bit. Qianye flicked an air bullet which quickly broke through their damaged chest bones and revealed their internal organs. As expected, their internal organs had all been shattered.

Qianye’s gaze became solemn, knowing that he was already closing in on this mysterious opponent. Judging from the state of those corpses, it had been less than two hours since that person’s departure. Two hours was enough to go quite far, but not to the point where he couldn’t catch up.

Qianye flipped through the dead man’s backpack and fished out two boxes of exorcism bullets, then left with hastened steps.

About an hour later, Qianye poked his head out from behind a large tree-trunk. He seemed to have discovered an abnormality in the crown of a tree at the extremes of his vision.

Qianye shrunk back behind the tree and climbed upward with the trunk as cover. He then climbed into the spherical treetop and slowly peered out. He moved with such caution that the treetop wasn’t swaying at all.

That opponent’s ability was simply too strange, so Qianye wasn’t willing to let them gain the initiative. The best way to deal with this kind of opponent was to snipe from stealth and not give the opponent any opportunity to use their abilities.

There was indeed something strange about the treetop across from him. Qianye couldn’t see anything, but his True Sight had outlined the hazy silhouette of a hiding person.

The long sniper rifle stretched out inch by inch from beneath Qianye. The weapon had been covered with a layer of purple substance for camouflage, but even moving it into firing position took him several minutes.

Qianye was fairly patient, an attribute he had gained after experiencing countless battles. At this moment, the distance between the two parties had reached the limit of Qianye’s vision. He was still fairly cautious even though he had never encountered an enemy who could see farther than him.

The Refined Silver Bullet of Extreme Yang in his rifle chamber would strike the target as soon as he could confirm that the other party was a dark race expert. By then, the enemy would be gravely injured if not dead.

Qianye slowly adjusted the scope. Finally, the image of a treetop came into view.

At the center of his crosshair was a deep, serene rifle scope!

It was a scope decorated fully with a vampire flair and aimed right at Qianye. There was no need for a second glance—Qianye knew that the opponent’s crosshairs were also on his scope.

Qianye held his breath!

He knew not whether he had been discovered or if the other party just happened to be aiming in this direction. For an ordinary person, the only thing in his scope should be a patch of hazy white mist.

However, Qianye knew she also possessed superior vision. He never saw her face clearly, but merely from that pony-tail and raven-black hair—just from that hazy silhouette—he knew it had to be Nighteye, that person most deeply entangled with his life.

But, had she also seen him?

Qianye didn’t move. His line of vision passed through the two crosshairs to reach Nighteye.

However, that was only an illusion. He couldn’t see Nighteye’s eyes, just as Nighteye couldn’t see his. The crosshairs acted as a bridge for one to see the other, yet they also became a wall preventing them from true eye-contact.

After recognizing Nighteye, Qianye realized that the mysterious opponent he had been chasing after was her. Only her eye ability would possess such powers of penetration capable of piercing the defenses of ordinary champions.

“Crack!” A light sound shattered the silence of the forest. It turned out that Qianye had unknowingly exerted enough force to break the solid bark of that tree. Fortunately, no ordinary person could catch this minuscule sound at such a distance.

However, the scenery around Nighteye fluctuated ever so slightly—Qianye immediately realized there was someone beside her.

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