Monarch of Evernight - Chapter 1019

Chapter 1019

Chapter 1019: The "Dead" People

Ji Tianqing waited for an entire ten minutes before kicking the man again, relieving him of his agony .

The man was drenched in sweat and utterly exhausted . He wanted to speak, but Ji Tianqing stopped him . “Wait, I’ll give you ten more minutes . Think carefully about what you have to say . ”

The man was apparently frightened, having picked up the threat in Ji Tianqing’s words .

Qianye asked, “What’s wrong with him?”

“Since they’re also from the empire, don’t you think it’s odd that they don’t even recognize you?” Ji Tianqing asked .

Qianye didn’t really feel that he was famous, but something was definitely fishy because Ji Tianqing sounded serious, and Li Kuanglan looked quite pensive as well .

The latter said, “Are they survivors from the last batch?”

“I’ve checked the survivors’ list but never saw them . ”

“If they’re not alive, maybe they’re one of those ‘dead’ people?”

Ji Tianqing nodded . “Quite likely . I want to hear what they experienced after their ‘death’ . ”

The man’s expression became increasingly ashen .

Ji Tianqing crouched down beside him . “Do you know what you should say now? Go ahead . ”

The man looked like he wanted to say something, but he was hesitant .

Ji Tianqing said calmly, “It’s almost sundown . Although the frigid night here is nothing compared to the inside, we still don’t want any trouble . I’ll throw you inside if you don’t speak, assuming you know what I’m talking about . ”

“You know about ‘inside’?” The man gasped .

“Of course, we just returned from the area with ten times the gravity . ”

The man’s eyes went wide in shock . “Impossible! No one can get there, those who go there never return!”

“You guys were trying to go to the core region for this, right?” A white fruit popped up in Ji Tianqing’s hand .

The man’s eyes almost dropped out of their sockets . “H-Holy fruit! Such a big one, too! You guys have really been to the holy region!”

“Holy region?” Ji Tianqing grasped the keyword .

The man eventually calmed down . “The holy region is how the higher-ups call the central realm . Since you guys have obtained a holy fruit, it means you’ve seen them… those people with multiple arms . ”

“Who are you?”

“Me? I’m probably listed as dead in the Empire . ” The man laughed wryly . He collected his thoughts and said, “My surname is Nangong and my given name is Tianyu . I’ve been in the Great Maelstrom… twenty-some years now . ”

Ji Tianqing and Li Kuanglan looked surprised . Twenty years wasn’t a short period of time . According to imperial records, people would feel all kinds of discomfort after five years inside the Great Maelstrom as the body becomes affected by the environment . The higher one’s cultivation, the more blunted these effects would be, but no genius could survive over ten years inside . Experts who don’t reappear after ten years would be recorded as lost and considered dead .

Nangong Tianyu being able to survive here for two decades was quite a miracle .

He continued, “I hail from a side branch of the Nangong family . I fought with my life on the line to get a quota for the Great Maelstrom, thinking it would be a fortunate turn in life . Who would’ve thought there would be so much dissent inside? I was sent on a mission to explore the deeper regions before I had acclimated to the environment . It was during that mission that my squad was ambushed and scattered . With several wild beasts on my tail, I could only run deeper and deeper inside . In the end, I accidentally arrived in the central region and fell into native captivity . ”

“Then?”

“Then? I don’t know whether it was fortunate or otherwise, I actually survived . They kept me alive and recruited me into a two-armed group to serve as patrol and as a mating instrument . Fortunately, my foundations were strong enough to survive the endless mating and hold out until my body started to transform . It’s hard to say whether or not I’m totally human . ”

Ji Tianqing pondered for a moment . “Take off your clothes and let us see the changes . ”

Nangong Tianyu had long since lost all will to resist . He undressed silently and stood before the three .

Having fought in numerous battles, neither Ji Tianqing nor Li Kuanglan cared about this bit of awkwardness . They channeled their secret arts to scan Nangong Tianyu’s body .

The man was on the slimmer side, but his skeleton was exceedingly sturdy and dense . He was twice as powerful as ordinary experts in terms of bone density . Ji Tianqing managed to stomp him into the ground, but none of his bones broke from the impact . His bones were surrounded by steely muscles—this type of body was far superior to that of Imperial experts, and more or less equal to the four-armed natives .

Qianye didn’t find it too surprising, but the other two were secretly surprised . As people familiar with the Imperial nobility, they knew they had never heard of someone called Nangong Tianyu . This meant that he was just an ordinary expert back then, at least nowhere near a genius by Ji Tianqing’s standards . He was probably at the bottom of the list among those entering the Great Maelstrom .

His current physical prowess, however, would place him among the top tier geniuses .

It was when Nangong Tianyu turned around that his true difference from ordinary humans was revealed . There was a row of finger-sized bone spikes poking out along his back and spine . The appendages were of an ashen hue and as hard as steel . This type of natural defense was common in wild beasts, but it was quite extraordinary to see in humans .

Additionally, there were also a number of bone spurs on his elbows and ankles .

Qianye arrived beside him and patted him lightly on the shoulders . The reverberations produced therein allowed him to understand most of Nangong Tianyu’s internal structure .

There were small bone spurs growing out from most of the man’s bones . They didn’t quite poke out of the skin, but they would cause hidden damage to an external attacker . What surprised Qianye most was his innards .

Nangong Tianyu’s heart was exceptionally large, almost taking up most of his chest, but his lungs were much smaller than ordinary people . The other organs were all piled up in a chaotic mess inside his body cavity . His blood vessels weaved together tortuously like a dense network of spiderwebs . The man should be considered quite fortunate that this confused growth hadn’t killed him yet .

Qianye explained the internal state of Nangong Tianyu’s body to the two girls before heading over to inspect the other man’s corpse . This body was also in a similar state, but the distribution and position of internal organs were somewhat different . This went to show that he had also been affected by the Great Maelstrom .

Ji Tianqing asked more detailed questions, which Nangong Tianyu replied honestly .

It turned out that he had joined the ranks of the two-armed people after being captured . After surviving the initial phase, he eventually became one of them . As his body started to change, he started to adapt to the world and began edging toward the central region .

Twenty years had gone by since then . Nangong Tianyu had learned a bit of the native language and knew a fair bit of shocking inside information .

Among the natives, being four-armed wasn’t an inherited trait . Both two-armed and four-armed people could give birth to a four-armed descendant . It was just that the two-armed people had a somewhat smaller chance of doing so . The natives had a clear hierarchy to them, with the two arms serving as slaves and cannon-fodder, while the four-arms served as warriors and officers, the main fighting power of the tribe .

The surprising thing was that the natives followed a matriarchal structure . The four-armed women were the rulers of the stone castles and not the male warriors . The four-armed women were the biggest producers of four-armed offspring, and the one who gave birth to the most four-armed males would be the queen of the stone castle . Because of their ability to produce white mist, no creature could resist their whims and everyone in sight could become a tool for reproduction .

Nangong Tianyu was also one of those mating tools . It was just that his eventual transformation and original combat abilities made him stronger than the other two-armed people . Hence, he was promoted to a special rank between the two-arms and four-arms . He was told that he might grow an extra pair of arms if he were to drink the white-fruit wine regularly .

The two-armed people were of complicated origins . There was no shortage of people like Nangong Tianyu among them, and it wasn’t just humans—many other Evernight races had also fallen into native captivity . Nangong Tianyu and the other two companions were all from the same stone keep .

Qianye’s group hadn’t seen people like them in the high-gravity region because they simply couldn’t survive there . Without the holy fruit, even the natives would have difficulty getting through the nights .

While Ji Tianqing was continuing her interrogation, that woman from before appeared from the forest . This time, there was a demonkin and an arachne with her .

The woman pointed at Qianye . “It’s them! They stole my treasure . ”

The demonkin and arachne glanced at the Silk Lotus, but they didn’t quite know what it was used for . “What is that thing?” 

The woman looked somewhat distracted . “Whatever it is, it’s definitely a good treasure . ”

The demonkin pondered while sizing up the three from head to toe . Treasures weren’t useful for everyone—some of them might be supreme assets for the humans but trash for the dark races . Qianye and the others looked quite difficult to deal with, and it probably wasn’t too wise to get into a big fight for something so unsure .

The woman seemed more anxious now . “Your Excellency, if you take them down… I… I’ll give myself to you . I’ll also introduce you to the holy race . ”

“Holy race?” The demonkin was moved .

“They have spatial gear on them!” The woman steeled her heart and blurted out the biggest secret .