Volume 5 – A Distance Within Reach, Chapter 45: Internal Strife

“Stop him!” The woman became excited. She clambered onto the steel rack atop the car and shouted loudly toward Qianye. At the same time, she began to fire toward the sky with the assault rifle in her hand.

Qianye’s expression was cold. He had no intention to pay them any heed and completely ignored the woman’s show of force. He accelerated once more and caused the engine to emit a bewitching clamor as he sped into the distance.

Sand Snake ordered the jeep to make a sharp turn and chase after Qianye. At the same time, he brought out a large bore sniper rifle, took aim, and fired at Qianye’s back. This was a gunpowder rifle, but it possessed such firepower that a solid hit was enough to kill ordinary fighters immediately. Sand Snake was aiming for his life!

Qianye having no intention to invite trouble didn’t mean he would tolerate anyone trying to kill him. He pulled on the throttle and raised the output to the max, turning the docile motorcycle into a wild monster. Its engine rumbled as the vehicle drew a wide arc amidst the flying dust and charged toward the incoming jeep.

It was unknown when a sniper rifle had appeared in Qianye’s hand. He held the gun with one hand and aimed the long, cold barrel at the jeep as the origin patterns lit up rapidly.

The woman on the car had sharp eyes and good knowledge. She immediately became flustered after seeing the gun in Qianye’s hands and screamed, “Eagleshot! That’s an Eagleshot, turn around! Turn back!”

“No! Charge over and suppress him with gunfire!” Sand Snake roared. The jeep suddenly sped up and rushed toward Qianye like a wild horse.

Qianye’s right hand on the gun was rock-steady as he pulled on the trigger.

The Eagleshot’s unique timber echoed across the wilderness. The jeep windshield shattered into countless crystalline fragments, and in the front passenger seat, Sand Snake’s head was nowhere to be found; only a headless upright corpse remained.

The woman began to scream hysterically. The shocked driver spun the steering wheel subconsciously and caused the vehicle to spin around uncontrollably in the wilderness.

The Eagleshot rang out once again and the jeep’s engine exploded violently, blasting the remaining passengers into the air. Soon, the burning hot metallic fragments swept through and tore those Carrion Vultures apart like a hot knife through butter.

Qianye was still sitting firmly on the motorcycle with the Eagleshot in one hand. His expression was calm, and not a single fluctuation could be seen in his eyes as he slowly raised the muzzle toward the other two jeeps. The two vehicles made rapid turns and accelerated frantically in a bid to escape with their lives.

Qianye wasn’t interested in chasing after them. He put away the Eagleshot into Andruil’s Mysterious Realm and swung the motorcycle around to resume his journey.

Sand Snake had made a fatal mistake—he thought that a powerful weapon like the Eagleshot required a proper positioning to fire. He felt that not only would Qianye surely miss if he fired from a single hand, but he would also harm himself in the process. That was why he had ordered his men to charge. He wanted to draw close before the other party had time to take proper aim.

In Sand Snake’s eyes, whoever used the Eagleshot must be a sniper. And no matter how powerful a sniper might be in close combat, it was impossible for him to outfight these Carrion Vultures that roamed through the wilderness. Moreover, he was all alone. But there were always accidents in this world—Sand Snake would have never imagined that the Eagleshot had long since become a single-handed weapon for Qianye.

The only reason he had brought this weapon along was because he was extremely familiar with it. With his current strength, not only could he use it with one hand, but he could also fire over ten shots in one go with power left to spare. The Eagleshot was much more practical against weaker enemies compared to a grade-five weapon.

Qianye also encountered some groups of dark race warriors along the way. They possessed comparatively sharper senses and were able to detect, albeit vaguely, the dangerous blood energy and suppressive might brought about by the difference in rank. As such, all of them stayed away from him.

Qianye got down from the motorcycle after entering dark race territory and stored the big fellow into Andruil’s Mysterious Realm. The small space was immediately stuffed quite full.

Qianye changed into a light armor for convenient movement, then equipped himself with the Twin Flowers and Scarlet Edge. He then left the main road and made his way through the mountains toward the first dark race settlement on his map.

According to reports, this settlement housed a number of arachne and hundreds of servspiders. Qianye observed from a thousand meters away and confirmed the situation of the settlement. He then wrote an “aracnhe-3” on the map and rushed toward the next settlement.

This settlement could be considered a strategic location for transportation and, as such, was of a bigger scale. Qianye was much more cautious this time and climbed atop a small hill a thousand meters away. With his superior eyesight, he was able to observe the general situation within the settlement even at such a distance.

There were over a thousand dark race citizens here and it could even be considered a small town. After surveying the place, Qianye marked out a “mixed-6” on the map.

This was the common marking method used by the imperial military. The characters before the number indicated the primary race living in the settlement, while the number indicated the grade. Dark race cities were classified into many grades according to their size, troop strength, and defenses. The larger the number, the more powerful the city.

For instance, the main vampire camp on Twilight Continent was a gigantic city as high as grade-twenty. No one, however, had assessed the dark council’s headquarters before because no human had ever set foot in there up to this day.

In this manner, Qianye kept on probing deeper into enemy territory, covering hundreds of kilometers and a dozen-odd settlements in one day and night. Most of them were minor settlements grade-three and below; only two of them were small towns. There was also a castle belonging to a viscount.

The combined forces in all of the places he had surveyed could equal an imperial regular army division. These troops, however, were scattered in many places, and he could break through them one by one as long as he was fast enough with the offensive.

However, the biggest obstruction, in the end, was at the fjord. Qianye would have to face the wrath of an arachne count if he wanted to build a city there. The latter’s city was no more than a hundred kilometers away, and it was almost equal to breaking ground at his door. War was inevitable.

However, Qianye still chose this place because this arachne count’s strength was the weakest compared to the others within a hundred kilometers.

His rank was the lowest among the counts despite having lived for a couple hundred years. He was already at the end of the road in terms of dark race lifespan, and his strength was gradually declining. Reportedly, his strength was more or less equal to Brahms’. The most important part was that there were no strong descendants in his tribe.

Qianye planned to sneak into the enemy count’s territory and finish his reconnaissance before returning to Blackflow City. With his current strength, he could handle it even if he encountered a number of dark race patrols. However, Qianye’s primary goal was to gather intel, and as such, he resisted the urge to attack even though his essence blood had long since run dry.

On the third day after entering dark race territory, the majestic and beautiful fjord entered Qianye’s vision. The blue water surface below was like a pristine green gem, and the granite mountaintop was where he had planned to build his city. The arachne count’s territory lay just beyond this fjord.

It was at this time that Qianye’s heart skipped a beat. He quickly leapt onto an ancient tree, retracted his aura, and hid himself in the crown.

A werewolf appeared in the distance and was running at full speed toward Qianye’s position.

This werewolf had already transformed—he possessed a coat of dark glossy hair, but there were injuries all over his body. There was a bone-deep wound almost a meter long extending along his back. Additionally, the flesh around it had been mangled up and without the slightest sign of healing on its own. It seemed even the werewolf’s powerful regenerative abilities had lost their effect.

Qianye scanned the place with his True Sight and found that the werewolf’s darkness origin power was extremely pure, far surpassing that of ordinary werewolves. Reaching such purity before the viscount level was a clear indication that he was an extremely talented character in this tribe.

Such a werewolf should possess the strength of a baron, but the injuries were causing him to stagger even as he ran. It was unlikely for him to even beat an esquire in this state. He rushed all the way to the tree where Qianye was hiding and fell down all of a sudden—his body was spasming and he couldn’t clamber up for the moment. The injuries on his body had opened up, and fresh blood almost seemed to be gushing out.

A dozen or so figures rustled through the distant forest and approached quietly.

Qianye squinted his eyes. These were all vampires and they weren’t weak at all. The leader was decorated with a ribbon denoting his status as a rank-three viscount. However, Qianye’s True Sight showed that his darkness origin power purity wasn’t below that of the injured werewolf. Among the vampires he had ever encountered, only viscounts from the twelve ancient clans possessed such strength.

It seemed the werewolf was being hunted down by these vampires.

Qianye still kept his aura retracted, but he had already produced two Mithril Bullets of Exorcism in his right hand and quietly loaded them into the Twin Flowers. Origin bullets instilled with Qianye’s blood energy served as devastating weapons against vampires, and it was indeed quite a waste to use up two Mithril Bullets of Exorcism. He didn’t even want to use them if not for the large number of vampires that had appeared.

However, the internal conflict between dark races was of no importance to Qianye, and he had no intention to take action as long as they didn’t get him involved. Qianye continued observing the development after he had completed the necessary preparations.

That viscount walked over toward the collapsed werewolf and said, “You run quite fast, I must say. You actually managed to escape thousands of kilometers, but now it seems you can run no more. Schiller, I heard you were taken in by the Summit of Peaks and have become so arrogant that you don’t even put our twelve vampire clans in your eyes. Did you ever think you’ll suffer such a fate?”

The young werewolf could no longer maintain his fighting posture and had turned back into human form. He propped himself up with great difficulty, leaned against the tree trunk, and glared furiously at the vampire viscount. “That matter will be known sooner or later even if you kill me here. Duras, you can’t hide it from everyone! All of you will die once this thing gets out!”

“So what? Even the Evernight Council will value our holy child when he succeeds in this endeavor. Who else will dare interfere?” Duras sneered.