Volume 2 – Bloom of the Other Shore Flower, Chapter 52: Night of Devilry

The duo confronted each other for a few seconds before simultaneously taking a strong sniff, catching the scent of the other party’s blood energy.

“Which family do you belong to? Why are you here?” the young girl asked in a low tone.

“That’s my question too,” Qianye answered.

The young girl’s eyes flared with bloody light. She said, “You’re not planning to interrupt my meal, are you?”

“I’m just about to leave. I have to say that your taste is pretty terrible, though!”

“It’s none of your business!” The young girl bared her bloodsucking fangs.

Qianye slowly backed away and turned a corner. He then descended to the floor below with slow, steady footsteps.

Murderous intent flashed across the vampire girl’s eyes several times, but after listening to Qianye’s steady footsteps, she remembered the tiny red hint of light that had shone in his eyes. After a moment of hesitation, she ultimately decided to give up on him and continued to run up stairs in complete silence.

Qianye exhaled only after he had exited the building. He hastily channeled the Combatant Formula to cover up the blood energy he had just summoned.

Every moment that he spent here increased the likelihood of his true identity being exposed. The moment he noticed the girl’s blood energy, he immediately activated his night vision and attempted to call forth the blood energy within his body. The results were unbelievably good, causing the girl to immediately mistake him for a vampire.

Qianye decided to toss this brief episode to the back of his mind and walked faster. He ran toward the next planned target.

When Qianye passed by an alleyway, he brushed past yet another tall, thin, and strange-looking person. Both parties stiffened and put some distance between each other.

Qianye didn’t pause and continued to hurry along his way.

The man with long arms and long legs stood for a while as he watched Qianye’s departing figure. He frowned as if he were thinking about something. Suddenly, he muttered to himself, “That guy’s carrying an Eagleshot on his back! Strange. Could he be a soldier from another expeditionary force corps?”

He shrugged and spat on the ground with a little bit of disgust. He said to himself, “Those expeditionary force scumbags are the worst! But why did that guy feel so familiar?”

This strange man was none other than Yu Renyan. He really had turned his trip to Darkblood City into a personal holiday. After having single-handedly hunted down some dark race warriors, he even participated in a mercenary group’s campaign to exterminate some arachne along the way because he hadn’t been completely satisfied yet. Only when the situation in the wasteland became tense did he finally consider returning to the city.

Although the two had crossed paths, Yu Renyan hadn’t immediately recognized Qianye due his complete transformation, both inside and out. Moreover, Qianye was carrying an Eagleshot, a weapon that not just anyone in the expeditionary army could use. Even if Yu Renyan had decided to interact with Qianye, he might not have necessarily been able to harm someone capable of using an Eagleshot.

He stood still for a moment, unable to shake the feeling that something was amiss. In the end, he couldn’t think of anything and had no choice but to leave. However, just as he went around the street corner, Yu Renyan saw a big man quickly walking ahead of him. He immediately cried out, “Stop!”

The big man heard his cry and stopped, then slowly turned around. He looked at Yu Renyan with a sinister smile and asked, “Do you want to die?”

Yu Renyan cracked his knuckles and sinisterly retorted, “Right back at you! I can smell the stench of a gray-skinned dog coming from your body!”

The big man leaned forward slightly and coldly said, “You’re a little hunter. So what? If you think I’m like the other werewolves, then you’ll be dead wrong!”

“It just so happens that I’m a little different from other hunters as well.”

As he said this, Yu Renyan pressed forward, heading straight for the big man.

The battle ended just as quickly as it began!

Almost half the street was reduced to ruins before the two figures separated from each other, flying in a particular direction. They vanished into the night in the blink of an eye, leaving the whole district in confusion.

Not far away, Qianye had been walking toward a small, five-story building when the battle caught his attention. He turned to look toward the source of the noise caught sight of a figure vanishing into an alley at high speed.

The figure’s wind-like speed, as well as the origin power it radiated, caused Qianye’s heartbeat to quicken a little. He immediately told himself to calm down. The more normal a person acted on a dangerous night like this one, the safer they were.

The situation in Darkblood City was extremely strange right now. He had no idea how many dark races had slipped into the city nor why they were allowed to run rampant with virtually no restraint.

However, Qianye knew that this situation wouldn’t last long. There was no way the expeditionary forces would tolerate a situation like this. Before long, they would seek out and kill all the dark races in the city with an iron fist. However, a manhunt like that often killed far more innocents than dark races. When a city became devoid of order, the first ones to suffer were always the defenseless civilians.

Qianye gathered his wits and took a moment to examine this small building.

The building before him obviously wasn’t like the slums he had been in earlier. It had rows of windows that stretched from the floor to the ceiling, freshly painted walls, and several large metallic pipes fixed onto the outer walls for transporting fuel, steam, and hot water. A burly guard sat by entrance hall, and the building even had a parking lot in front of it.

Anyone who stayed here could already be considered middle to upper class citizens of Darkblood City.

Qianye walked straight toward the entrance, causing the guard to immediately stand. His fat, two-meter-tall bulk blocked his path.. “Hey, who’re you looking for, kid? This isn’t a place where you can just go for a stroll.”

The guard tapped his palm with a malicious look on his face as he glared at Qianye’s adventurer clothing. However, his movements abruptly came to a stop when Qianye punched him right in the stomach!

Qianye’s entire forearm sunk into the guard’s abdomen. The bodyguard’s eyes bulged as all the color vanished from his face in an instant, but returned just as quickly.

After receiving Qianye’s punch, the guard slowly bent forward and collapsed onto the ground. Qianye then threw a knifehand strike to the back of his neck to knock the him out.

Qianye dragged him into the guard room and closed the door in passing. He then ran up the stairs and reached the fifth floor in the blink of an eye. There were only two families on this floor, and Qianye stopped right in front of a large door to the left and knocked.

A moment later, a small window on the door opened to reveal a shrewd, wizened face. The man looked warily at Qianye and asked, “Who are you looking for?”

As he finished his question, the man’s face immediately twisted in shock. From the other side of the window, the pitch black muzzle of a gun was pointed right at his face. The muzzle of the gun was extraordinarily huge, and just a glance revealed how shockingly powerful it was. Moreover, the man could see origin power flashing inside the muzzle, scaring him out of his wits. His iron door was paper in front of a gun like this!

“Open the door!” Qianye said indifferently.

However, before the man could do anything, Qianye put his left hand on the window and exerted his strength. The wrenching of metal scraped through the air as all of the iron door tore from its hinges and away from the wall!

A slit opened in the door of the other family on this floor, revealing the plump face of a middle-aged woman. When she looked outside, her initial face of fury immediately turned into one of shock and horror. Her thick, scarlet lips opened so wide that they could fit around a large pipe.

The woman immediately shut the window tight with a loud bang and turned off all her lights. Then a heavy crash rang out, which was followed by dead silence.

Qianye didn’t care if the woman had actually tripped on her feet and knocked herself out, or if she was just pretending to be unconscious. He walked into the room of the now defenseless middle-aged man who was forced to retreat in the face of Butcher’s muzzle step by step until he fell onto his sofa.

Qianye dragged a chair over and sat in front of the man he was threatening. He then calmly said, “Mr. Liao?”

The man looked pale as he hastily answered, “T-that’s me! Let’s talk this out, my friend. I have some influence within the Sky Snake Gang, you just need to tell me what you want! Anything can be done as long as it is within my capabilities!”

𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

Qianye smiled faintly and said, “My request is pretty simple. If I remember correctly, you and the Sky Snake Gang placed a bounty on my head of one thousand gold coins!”

Mr. Liao jumped to his feet in shock and exclaimed, “You’re Qianye! H-how dare you come back to Darkblood City?”

“That’s not all. I’ve also prepared a lot of gifts for Sky Snake, and you, Mr. Liao, are one of them.”

“I—”

Mr. Liao wanted to say something else, but Qianye didn’t let him speak any further. He rotated Butcher’s drum magazine and pulled the trigger. An origin bullet erupted from its barrel and easily penetrated Mr. Liao’s body, leaving a gaping hole in his abdomen.

Mr. Liao looked down and stared at the terrifying empty hole in his body and cried out in confusion.The man frantically attempted cover the wound with his hands, but he only managed to raise them halfway before collapsing on the sofa, never to move again.

Qianye stood up and heard snoring inside of the room. They most likely came from Mr. Liao’s family. His profile mentioned that he had a wife, two concubines, and several children. However, Qianye didn’t plan to take more lives this time, so he turned around and left.

Mr. Liao’s death would deal a terrible blow to the Sky Snake Gang. His careful planning was half the reason why it had been able to reach its current state.

Sky Snake’s strength could be ranked among top-tier rank five Fighters, but his special ability was defensive and not offensive. It wasn’t even ranked amongst the strongest thugs in Darkblood City. It was thanks to Mr. Liao that Sky Snake had been able to operate in the midst of the city’s various forces and even build a relationship with the expeditionary forces.

Taking out Black Wolf and Mr. Liao was tantamount to pulling out two of Sky Snake’s poisonous fangs. Sky Snake still had three great experts, but Flying Bird was probably scared out of its wits, while the other two experts needed to consider their future after finding out that even Sky Snake himself had been severely injured. After all, the Sky Snake Gang was not the only gang in Darkblood City.

Qianye’s operation tonight ended with only good results. He got ready to return, rest up, and tend to the wounds on his body. He would knock on the doors of the Sky Snake gang in two days.

When Qianye returned to his little hotel, he collapsed on the bed and fell asleep right away. He had consumed quite a bit of origin power today and felt dead tired.

In a small building with a garden in another part of the city, Yu Renyan stood inside a bathroom and poured a bucket of icy water over his head. There were three lengthy lacerations across his body that ran so deep that they nearly disemboweled him.

When the icy water washed across his wounds, his face twitched in pain. However, the bits of flesh and dried blood stuck inside of them were washed out.

Yu Renyan took out a bottle of black medicine, pressed it to his wounds, pushed down as if it were a plunger.

Light blue flames actually burst from the mouth of the bottle! The flames only licked Yu Renyan’s wounds once, but the pain was so terrible that he collapsed to the floor, writhing. It took a while him to finally get the inhuman pain under control, and even then, he had been completely covered in sweat in the meantime. His eyes shone with hatred, madness, and a bit of excitement as he breathed heavily.

That big man was extremely powerful. Not only was he rank six just like Yu Renyan, his combat skills weren’t the slightest bit weaker either. Both parties had been injured in that brief clash. Yu Renyan was horribly wounded, but that big man probably didn’t fare much better than him.

After the pain passed, Yu Renyan put on his clothes and walked out of the bathroom. He called a rather attractive young woman over.

“Send an inquiry to headquarters and ask them what’s going on around Darkblood City,” he told her. “Ask why there are so many dark race bastards inside the city all of a sudden.”