[V6C111 – Sorrow of a Silent Parting]

Qianye’s steps were soundless as he sneaked toward the source of the sound. He stopped moving when he was three to four hundred meters from his objective and glanced about at this surroundings. There, he picked a tree and slowly climbed onto it, slowly poking his head out at the top. His suspicion came as no surprise since that sound could very well be a trap.

Qianye activated True Sight and saw the mist gradually thin out along his line of sight. The silhouette of a temporary dark race base came into view several hundred meters away.

The many shadows moving about in the camp consisted of dozens of warriors, and there was indeed a mixture of arachne, werewolves, and vampires.

The arachne were few in number, but there were seven or eight giant servspiders, recognizable from their greenish-grey colors. The one with somewhat shorter limbs was a type of forest spider. It would seem the dark races had invested greatly into this project—they were using forest spiders as a supplementary vehicle to send the werewolves and vampires into battle.

It was just that this Misty Wood wasn’t an ordinary forest at all. Even though the disappearance of the void colossus’ will allowed ordinary soldiers and servspiders to enter the forest, the purple ground substance was still a significant source of trouble for them.

Moreover, places with perception interference like Misty Wood contained a type of natural pressure. The servspiders were clearly restless. The sound Qianye had heard just now was an arachne clawing at a tree in agitation.

The servspider only calmed down when an arachne inside the camp shouted sternly. At this moment, a worried-looking vampire walked over and exchanged a couple of words with the arachne. The vampire baron gazed up at the hundred-meter trees around them, his expression growing heavier as he stared at the elliptic treetops.

He finally waved his hand and shouted, “Stop resting and pack up camp. We’re leaving this accursed place.”

All the dark race warriors looked at the vampire baron in astonishment. They had gone through an arduous march and were just about to camp and rest. Moreover, they weren’t even quite sure of the direction. Where were they supposed to go?

The baron’s expression grew heavy all of a sudden. He reached for the handgun at his waist, but his head exploded into a bloody mist before he could draw his weapon.

Soon afterward, a crisp thunderous sound arrived from afar.

All the dark race warriors leapt up in a split second. Some of the werewolves sped toward the source of the gunshot sound while others climbed onto the treetops in an attempt to find the enemy from high-ground. The only two arachne among them began flanking the tree, emitting a series of cries and instructing the servspiders to use their large bodies to form a barrier up front. As for the vampires, they covered each other’s advance as they moved toward Qianye.

Qianye had no intention to change positions. Thunderbolt roared continuously in his hand, blasting one dark race soldier after the other into corpse fragments. Thunderbolt’s massive firepower could even injure a viscount in one round. It was simply an overkill to use it on these blood knights.

The lucky survivors rushed out a hundred or so meters, but they were stunned after failing to find traces of the enemy after checking every tree. Thunderbolt’s cries never stopped, and each roar would signal the loss of a life.

For a moment, neither the ferocious werewolves nor the sinister vampires understood where the enemy was hiding. Insofar as they knew, even the powerful demonkin snipers would only have about a hundred meters of range in the Misty Wood.

But sniper rounds were still flying in from the thick mist ahead of them. Each shot would take down at least one of them no matter how they dodged or sidestepped the projectiles.

Facing a sniper with a range of more than two hundred meters was pure suicide in the Misty Wood. As the two arachne who had stayed behind in the camp fell down one after the other, the remaining dark race soldiers discovered that all those above rank six in their midst had been killed off.

With only low-ranking soldiers remaining, they were quite likely to be killed even if they could surround the sniper. The soldiers instantly stopped hesitating and began to scatter in all directions.

Qianye sighed upon seeing the enemies running away in different directions. He put Thunderbolt away, drew his vampiric blade, and started chasing them down one by one.

Even though Qianye’s speed and vision were far superior, he still lost track of the remainder after hunting down seven or eight of them. He gave up on chasing them down and, instead, traced his steps back to the battlefield to clean up and collect proof of contributions. Afterward, Qianye quietly erased his traces and continued into the depths of the Misty Wood. As for the corpses, they would turn into nutrition for the entire forest.

Qianye subconsciously chose to go in the direction where the last werewolf had vanished from his line of sight. He thought of something along the way. This dark race squad seemed to be fairly experienced—they managed to prevent themselves from being wiped out even after losing their high-ranking warriors. Clearly, they were the elite of the elite.

Although these well-trained soldiers weren’t very high in level, they definitely weren’t expendable cannon fodder, either. They might even hold leading positions in a couple of bases. At the thought of this, Qianye raised his speed to the max and focused on differentiating the faint traces the enemy had left behind. The environment in Misty Wood was special. That purple substance could devour everything, so there wouldn’t be any tracks left behind after a while.

Qianye shot through the woods like a cheetah. He had run over ten kilometers when he suddenly saw a werewolf warrior lying still beneath a large tree.

“Oh crap,” Qianye cried out in his heart. The werewolf had already died, his neck mangled by some unknown beast. Qianye had no more time to switch targets, which meant that this trail had come to a dead end.

The werewolf had just lost its life. Its fresh blood dripped down constantly and converged into a scarlet flow upon the ground. The surrounding purple substance, agitated by the blood, began squirming and climbing onto the werewolf’s limbs. Before long, it would digest the werewolf completely—even the hardest of metals was only a matter of time.

Qianye cursed his misfortune as he took a couple of steps to the side, evading the squirming substance and glancing around at his surroundings. He arrived very quickly but hadn’t heard anyone or anything moving within 100 meters. The fellow that had torn the werewolf’s throat was likely still hiding nearby.

It was at this time that the mist behind Qianye billowed and a grey shadow jumped out from within. It slashed toward Qianye with a speed so fast that it felt like a gust of wind in one’s face.

Qianye moved slightly to the side and blocked the attacking shadow with his left hand. The latter attacked viciously and bit down on the arm with shocking force. Qianye was wearing the Iron Wall armor and its accompanying armguard, but the latter was already creaking loudly. It might’ve been deformed had Qianye not circulated his origin power immediately.

The shadow was a wolf-like mutant beast with long limbs and dark grey fur all over its body. This creature could merge perfectly into the environs of the Misty Wood. Its bite was strong enough to leave fang marks on metal alloy and snap ordinary steel. It was no wonder that even a werewolf warrior’s strong body couldn’t resist the attack and had its throat bitten through.

But being able to bite through a metal rod didn’t mean it could bite through Qianye’s arm. With his constitution as a high-ranking vampire and the addition of his origin defenses, Qianye would only suffer some broken skin even without armor.

Qianye didn’t recall seeing such a creature the last time he entered the maze cavern. It was faster, better at hiding, and deadlier than the ones he had seen before—even an arachne below the viscount level might not be able to resist its biting power. Had such creatures appeared in great numbers during the last battle, the casualty rates of the two factions would’ve been even higher.

Qianye reached out and grabbed its neck accurately and strangled it with great force, crushing all the bones therein. However, the beast’s life force was exceptionally tenacious. Its jaws on Qianye’s arm didn’t loosen until its skull was completely crushed.

Looking at the two rows of deep fang marks on his arm guard, Qianye named this creature shadowhound. He drew his vampiric blade and plunged it into the beast’s body. Immediately, a wisp of peculiar cold essence blood flowed into his body.

Although the quantity of energy within this essence blood wasn’t large, the quality was comparable to that of a dark viscount. It was just that the cold aura in its essence blood was a type of poison—ordinary vampires absorbing it would suffer a bout of serious sickness. Qianye wasn’t affected because the Song Clan Ancient Scroll could refine essence blood containing darkness energy and purify it in the process.

Qianye tossed the shadowhound corpse to the ground and watched the purple substance devour it. His heart was filled with a gloomy shadow.

This shadowhound was only at the level of an esquire, but here in Misty Wood, its overall combat strength was equal to that of a werewolf baron. Its essence blood was at the level of a knight. This also meant that its combat strength was far above that of its rank.

This battle would become more arduous than expected if the aboriginals in the central cavern began exhibiting such changes.

Qianye continued forward for a while before coming to a sudden stop. He reached out to knock on the large tree near him, sending ripples outward continuously and, at the same time, forming a clear image in his mind. There was a peculiar, quick vibration in the treetop resembling a rapidly beating heart.

Qianye leapt onto a treetop and cut open the bark with his vampiric blade, revealing the lifeforms inside those septate, beehive-like compartments. Their bodies were still in their embryonic forms, but their hearts had developed completely. The contrast made them exceptionally eye-catching.

The problem was that these embryos evidently belonged to different races. Some were midgets whom Qianye had seen, some were creatures like the shadowhound, and others looked like bugs—but no one knew what they would turn into after emerging from their cocoons.

This odd scene caused Qianye to inhale deeply, his hand dropping involuntarily in the process. The sharp blade produced a gash in the bark that was even bigger and deeper.

The tree below let out a sharp howl as though it were in pain! The sound transmitted far and wide, causing the fluids in the tree trunks to roll and boil. The half-developed embryos all melted, and the air was soon filled with the scent of decay.

Qianye felt a spell of dizziness come over him. The smell actually contained a powerful poison, but it was quickly neutralized by the auric flame blood in his body.

In response to the tree’s cries, a dozen or so nearby trees began trembling and let out roars of unknown significance.

In Qianye’s True Sight, he could see vast amounts of energy pouring into the tree trunks. The dozens of energy fluctuations therein grew stronger and stronger until they condensed numerous silhouettes within. Apparently, those terrifying creatures were about to emerge from their cocoons.

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