[V6C124 – Sorrow of a Silent Parting] Qianye’s daybreak talents had suffered greatly after the theft of his origin crystal. Lin Xitang had evaluated him comprehensively—his inherent talents were first-rate but dropped to fourth-rate after taking his body into account.

Presently, all the hidden injuries in his body had been healed, and his talents were widely believed to be Venus Dawn. Qianye himself had always been doubtful, however. He had no confidence that such a Venus Dawn could defy the assimilation of his primogenitor bloodline.

The only method Qianye could think of was to raise his daybreak origin power as much as possible and use it to suppress the darkness. Optimally, the former should be one level higher than the latter to be free from the influence.

This meant that he would have to find a way to use up the present store of essence blood instead of assimilating it. Fortunately, the Wings of Inception and Book of Darkness were both major consumers. It was just that their usual source was the essence produced from the Mystery Chapter. Qianye had no idea whether they could directly absorb essence blood.

Qianye tried to establish a connection with the Book of Darkness and Wings of Inception in his consciousness. Then, he split the essence blood in his body into two parts and channeled it toward them.

The Wings of Inception immediately devoured half of the essence blood like a whale swallowing the river. Its current feathers materialized even further as a new one began to form. The Book of Darkness, on the other hand, was much slower. It absorbed the essence blood strand by strand as though it were picking out the best parts.

Qianye was in no rush, either, and waited patiently.

An entire hour passed by before the Book of Darkness managed to absorb the remaining half of the essence blood. Qianye opened his mouth and shot out a stream of dense black energy, almost comparable to a splash of black ink. It actually sizzled and eroded the purple substance after landing, and soon, even the ground underneath had come into view.

It didn’t end there—the scope of this black mist’s corrosion continued to expand, turning everything it touched into a pool of black. A large pit—two meters deep and several meters in radius—appeared before Qianye in the blink of an eye.

This corrosive power was twice as powerful as that of the impure toxins usually expelled after cultivation. This alarmed him quite a bit.

One had to know that this purple substance wasn’t so simple since it possessed powerful corrosive properties of its own. Apart from some extremely rare metals, there was virtually nothing it couldn’t devour. It went without saying that its natural resistance to erosion was also powerful. But now, it was completely helpless against Qianye’s black energy, and a large area of substance was destroyed in mere moments.

The black energy was born of the Book of Darkness. The essence blood he had provided the book came from thousands of dark race warriors of differing levels—it was nothing less than a mish-mash of blood. Moreover, it hadn’t been purified by the Mystery Chapter. In the end, the Book of Darkness turned out to be quite picky and continuously spat out the impurities during the absorption process. At times, the book would even remove half of a low-grade essence blood in the form of impurities.

But Qianye had never imagined that this black mist of condensed impurities was so toxic. Judging from its present destructive power, even an Evernight count would be badly wounded if struck.

Beads of sweat appeared at the tip of his nose after recalling how the black energy had stayed in his body for an entire hour. He suddenly thought of something—could he have gained a killing move? If he could store the black energy for a period of time and shoot it out during battle, even a high-ranking dark race expert might suffer if caught unprepared.

Qianye soon discarded this attractive thought, though. The reason being that such a toxin was no different from a ticking time bomb. If for some reason Qianye lost control of it, even his vampiric constitution might not be able to endure the corrosion, and he would melt into a puddle of black liquid just like the purple substance.

He shook his head and continued observing the situation inside his body. The Wings of Inception wasn’t as picky as the Book of Darkness, and neither did it care whether the incoming essence was pure or mixed. It accepted and devoured all the essence blood thrown at it.

The wings on the dark golden blood energy became more vivid, and a third feather was starting to form. A little bit more essence blood, and he would be able to form the third Shot of Inception, which would equate to three lifesavers in the battles to come.

After temporarily getting rid of the excess essence blood, Qianye placed his attention back to the Book of Darkness. He wondered if there would be any changes to the book after absorbing so much essence blood.

The Book of Darkness trembled slightly as his consciousness arrived and gradually flipped open.

…

In the southern territory of the imperial mainland, a magnificent city stood near the coast—its name was Waterfront City. A great number of sails stood towering over the harbor, and a steady stream of airships was shuttling about the four airship ports to its side.

There was an independent district to the southwest of Waterfront City. This dazzling and inexplicably luxurious section of the city was occupied by a continuous array of mansions.

At this moment, several people were seated around a table in a peaceful courtyard, enjoying the tea and scenery. However, there seemed to be a hidden storm brewing around them.

A man in his thirties placed his cup down and said in a deep voice, “Things don’t look good over on the void continent. The Evernight Council’s reaction was faster and fiercer than anticipated. Fifth brother, your current office is with the imperial fleet, right? How is the situation there?”

Across him was a man of similar age. He was tall and strong, but his countenance was stained with traces of hardship that made him look even older than his elder brother.

At this moment, he said with a grave expression, “My sixth fleet was originally the reserve force among the reserve forces. We aren’t at full strength at all and only have one-third of the troops and ships stated on paper. But I just received orders to transfer capable personnel, form a sub-fleet, and head toward the floating continent battlefield.”

Everyone’s expression shifted. The calm and handsome leader muttered, “Even Old Five’s fleet is being mobilized. That means the war on the floating continent is doing quite badly and that the news of the main force suffering grave losses is true. We should also prepare accordingly.”

Someone to his left said, “Has Eldest Sister sent any news?”

The leader shook his head. “The imperial harem cannot interfere in politics, even the empress can’t pry into state secrets. Moreover, there are eyes and ears everywhere in the palace, and our previous move against Lin Xitang has alerted them. It’s best for her to avoid arousing suspicion at such a time, lest someone gets ahold on her.”

With that, he glanced at everyone and said proudly, “Besides, our Jingtang Li Clan has so many talents, and our fortune is improving by the day. Why would we need to trouble the eldest sister? Although the battle on the void continent is bound to be difficult, it’s a good chance for us to break the deadlock and take a step forward. As long as we do well here, the status of major clan isn’t out of reach!”

This person was the Li clan’s current lord, Marquis Wanghai, Li Tianshi. The man was only in his forties and still full of youth and vigor. Being able to sit here in this courtyard also meant that he was a core member of the Li clan. At a glance, these people were all in their thirties and forties—Li Tianshi could be considered the eldest here. A scene like this wasn’t common in aristocratic families.

The main executives of the aristocracy were mostly made up of people from two generations. It was already quite rare for someone to become a clan lord before fifty. There was usually no lack of people in their sixties, seventies, or even some centenarians. Song clan’s Song Zhongnian, for instance, was actually the nominal clan lord, but most of the rights were still in Duchess An’s hands.

If one were to discuss this matter in earnest, Zhao clan’s Zhao Weihuang was considered a young expert because he was less than fifty years old. Even so, he was still a couple of years older than Li Tianshi. In addition, the Zhao clan’s authority had to be shared between Duke Yan and Duke You, so the clan lord’s power was clearly weaker. Even Zhang Boqian had inherited the title of Duke Dan only several years after he became a marshal—even so, he was notorious for ignoring common administrative affairs.

As such, a family like the Jingtang Li Clan was indeed rare in the empire.

These people sitting in the courtyard possessed different temperaments. They were all handsome and elegant. The Jingtang Li Family was prominent in neither politics nor military before becoming the empress’ family. In truth, only the upper echelon nobility knew that this family was famed for its divination arts and one of the most ancient inheritances. Their descendants were slightly different in that they possessed a somewhat transcendent demeanor about them.

Perhaps it could be said that this was why the Li family had thrived amidst the outstanding people since antiquity.

Li Cunjian, who was in charge of the 6th Fleet, felt inspired by the clan lord’s words. However, he laughed wryly and said, “Eldest Brother, you have a point there, but the void continent isn’t so easy to conquer. That Misty Wood we’ve occupied is connected to many major battlefields. It’ll surely turn into the main stage for experts during the latter parts of the war.”

Li Tianshi’s expression was unchanged. He said calmly, “It doesn’t matter, we can depend on independent hunters to calm the situation during the early and late stages. Our family will take over during the late phase. We’ll surely be able to hold out through these difficult situations.”

At this moment, someone else sighed. “These outsiders aren’t just arrogant, the resources they’re consuming is also significant. It’s only been one month, but the numbers are already quite sizeable. At this rate, our family coffers will be emptied in half a year.”

Li Tianshi also seemed quite distressed at the mention of this. He sighed. “Spending all this money is still better than paying with the lives of our Li clan descendants. The number of experts willing to join our Li clan is less than expected even though we offered such a high reward.”

Li Cunjian cut in, “A place like Misty Wood isn’t for normal people. If it were me, I’d rather go and dig around the central maze instead of staying in that accursed place.”

“That’s true.” Everyone here possessed impressive strength and naturally had the same thoughts.

Li Tianshi pondered for a moment. “Since that’s the case, we should pay even more attention! We’ll offer an additional choice in the three-monthly prize offered to the top-ranked expert. Put the Storm Pearl up for grabs in addition to the Stillwater Rebirth. The same goes for the next three months!”

“Storm Pearl!” Li Cunjian blurted out. “Our clan managed to refine only twelve of them in the past ten years, and we only have three of them left. Are we really going to take two and put them on the rankings?”

“Why not?” Li Tianshi’s eyes lit up with an eerie glow. “Stillwater Rebirth is used to save lives and has no immediate effect on those independent experts. Holding onto it will inevitably cause a calamity one day. The Storm Pearl, however, is different. It can break any bottleneck below the divine champion level and raise one’s cultivation rank. Who wouldn’t desire it?”

“Moreover, there are too many people in the clan seeking the Storm Pearl. We’ll be offending people no matter who we choose to give it to. Why don’t we just release it like this? Those who want it can fight for it on the rankings! That’ll save us a lot of trouble.” Li Tainshi’s tone contained a trace of unhappiness. It would seem being pressured from all sides wasn’t a good feeling.

Everyone glanced at each other, and even the usually extreme Li Cunjian didn’t know what to say.

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