Chapter 240: Wings of Inception (2/2)

As he ran through the night, Qianye sensed an unusual and almost drowning-like sensation which seemed to press down and diffuse throughout the surrounding air. The feeling affected his heart with every breath, making him very uncomfortable. It vaguely seemed as if great danger was closing in.

Qianye raised his speed and, at the same time, became more cautious. His night vision and perceptive abilities were all activated as he paid rapt attention to surrounding movements.

Qianye gazed into the distance after climbing up a peak which offered him a wide field of vision. Suddenly, his expression shifted—there was a black tide slowly moving at the edge of the horizon.

From his abundant combat experience, Qianye was able to tell that this wasn’t a tide at all but a rapidly moving army. It seemed the previous wind-borne aura had come from the dark race army!

Judging from its scale, this should be an army numbering in the tens of thousands. Even the strength of 10,000 cannon-fodder couldn’t be underestimated. Besides, Qianye also noticed a number of black specks floating above the dark race unit. Those were the champion level dark race experts monitoring the troops from the air.

Such large number of experts signified the great strength of this army.

Qianye observed for a while before he suddenly turned his head. A similar dark race army had appeared over the horizon in another direction. Additionally, their strength wasn’t inferior to the current one.

Qianye rapidly recalled the surrounding map in astonishment—this wasn’t a predetermined battlefield. There must be some other reason for dark race armies of such scale to be converging upon it. The strength of these armies wasn’t inferior at all to those deployed at the predetermined battlefields. The empire would inevitably react immediately. It was quite likely that this area would turn into a great battlefield.

At this time, Qianye had no choice but to avoid this place despite his wishes to serve the empire to some extent. Neither side would be able to distinguish his allegiance once the battle began. Their first reaction would be to kill him immediately.

He now had two options. One was to turn back to Shadowhill County, and the other was to continue toward Weiyang City. He gazed at the lines of movement of the two opposing armies and, after a while, decided to take the risk. He would take the opportunity to pass right through them before their rendezvous.

With that, Qianye leapt off the peak and ran under topographical cover for almost half a day at a speed slightly faster than that of long distance running. Finally, he successfully passed through the region between the two dark race armies as the sun began to rise. He was forced to kill off two keen scouts along the way.

What awaited in front, after passing through the danger zone, was a hilly region. However, Qianye had only walked for another half a day before finding yet another dark race army. Although the numbers in this unit were smaller, their soldiers were all elites compared to the other two armies.

Two powerful consciousnesses swept toward Qianye just as he showed his head even though they were separated by a distance of over 10 kilometers. Qianye fell flat on the ground with great astonishment and lay without moving a single inch. He circulated bloodline concealment and withdrew his aura.

The two fluctuations swept past the hill but ended up empty-handed. Even the vegetation here was sparse with the occasional harmless creature passing by.

Qianye didn’t dare move—things absolutely wouldn’t be so easy now that he had attracted the other party’s attention. As expected, the two consciousnesses swept through the region once again one after the other.

This time, Qianye immediately leapt up and fled along the mountain ridge as soon as the two consciousnesses passed him. A number of vampires appeared on the mountain ridge soon after he left. They had come to investigate once more but found nothing out of the ordinary. Qianye left almost no traces of himself, not even his own scent.

Meanwhile, the dark race armies continued moving along their designated lines. This group of high-ranking vampires split up to check the surroundings for a short while then left to catch up with their unit.

Qianye continued on, encountering several roaming dark race sentries along the way. He discovered even more dark race armies lying across his path toward Weiyang City. In order to skirt pass enemy scouts, Qianye was forced to change his route further and further away from his target.

It wouldn’t do if this went on. Even though Qianye had no idea what was going on in the outside world, he knew that the empire wouldn’t let these dark race armies rendezvous successfully. Therefore, a battle could break out any moment here. There were dark race scouts everywhere, and their experts were increasing in number. It was already too risky for him to escape toward the surrounding areas. If he was unlucky, he might run straight into the intercepting imperial army units.

Qianye momentarily pondered before making a prompt decision—he turned back toward the complex mountainous area, found a cave extending deep into the ground, and sealed himself inside. He fumbled into the deepest parts and started cultivating. He was prepared to pass this period of turmoil here.

Battle broke out at dawn the next morning. Qianye could still sense the sounds of origin power collisions and the shockwaves from explosions despite being hidden deep underground. Sometimes, the earth shook violently as if the whole cave and mountain peak was about to collapse.

From this, it was obvious how intense the battle outside was.

Such experts and armies had gathered here to engage in a life and death battle. But why? Qianye sometimes couldn’t help but wonder about the reason. He naturally didn’t know that the true reason for this war was for Dark Monarch Andruil’s Wings of Inception.

Merely, after a certain completion of his 40th Combatant Formula tide, he discovered that the dark golden blood energy previously entrenched lazily within the rune had swum out.

It remained unaffected within the sea of daybreak origin power and only continued to move around his heart in a leisurely manner as if it was out for a stroll. Oddly, a small pair of wings had grown out of one end. It seemed as if this blood energy, previously impossible to differentiate between head and tail, had suddenly grown a head.

[1] There was a slight inconsistency here between this sentence and the next one. I modified them slightly so that it makes more sense.

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