Monarch of Evernight - Chapter 846

Chapter 846: 846

A hillock in the wilderness burst into pieces, revealing a deep, hidden cave . Qianye walked out from the opening, his face pale and his eyes sunken . He was apparently in a state of extreme exhaustion, yet there was a contained vigor within him that made people palpitate .

Qianye squinted his eyes under the long-unseen daylight, taking a good while to adapt to the glare . Looking down at the vast wilderness, he let loose a burst of carefree laughter .

The past seven days had been greatly beneficial for him . The most important gain wasn’t his combat arts, but the fact that he had caught a glimpse of the realm beyond a divine champion . Qianye had come into contact with a fair number of divine champions—Zhao Xuanji and Zhao Weihuang, for instance, were both much stronger than the Wolf King . However, those weren’t life and death battles, so the level of comprehension was lacking .

Now, Qianye could see the world from a different perspective, with greater gradation and detailed colors . He could almost reach out and touch the many minute details . Wherever his perception stretched, all life in its wake would more or less respond to him .

Origin power was the foundation of this world . Every entity contained origin power of different attributes, the only difference was in their amount and form . What Qianye could sense now was the origin power hidden within all living things .

Being able to sense the origin power of the world was the first step toward controlling it . And it was this first step that had bottlenecked countless heroes and experts throughout history .

Qianye, at this moment, made progress in neither origin power nor blood energy, but from a different aspect, his control over power had entered an entirely new realm .

These seven days had allowed Qianye to realize why Nighteye was able to command such power despite being merely a count .

After exhaling many days of accumulated impurities, Qianye ran to the nearest town and ate a big meal . Fasting for seven days had placed great strain on his body . After finally finishing his meal, he asked about the nearby towns and cities before taking his leave .

Half a day later, an airship rose from a border town hundreds of kilometers away and headed for Tidehark City . That place was the heart of a vast territory and not far from the Wolf King’s main camp, the Totemic Castle . Qianye was in no rush to settle the score with Ji Rui as dealing a fierce blow to the Wolf King was his main priority .

These were the neutral lands where even a mutually beneficial deal had to be based on a foundation of equal strength . Qianye would never enjoy peaceful days in the future if he couldn’t beat the enemy up until he was hurting and afraid . The main reason Ji Rui had sold him out repeatedly was that he had to make a decision between Qianye and the other party, and he believed Qianye to be insufficient .

Killing mercenaries and disbanding Stormwind Fury only gained him fame among the middle and lower ranks . The true chips were held by characters at the divine champion-level, and Ji Rui knew this very well . He seemed fairly well-off from gleaning a bit of profit between these bigshots, but in truth, his status was as fragile as a castle built on sand .

He really had no choice in the matter if the Wolf King had come knocking on his door, saying he wanted to kill Qianye . That was the sorrowful fate of those without hard power .

Having stayed so long in the neutral lands, Qianye understood the path of survival as well as Ji Rui’s swaying-grass character . This kind of person could be left for future exploitation as he would obey anyone who was strong enough . Naturally, this kind of person would be the first to bite back if Qianye were to fall from power one day .

Right now, Qianye felt that it was time to make people at the level of the Wolf King feel some pain .

On the shore of the Eastern Sea, there was a boundless, gentle beach and the rugged area where Qianye had once lived, as well as tall, precipitous cliffs .

The Wolf King’s ancient Totemic Castle was built upon these cliffs, standing majestically over the Eastern Sea . The ancient Totemic Castle wasn’t far off from the core human cities—overseeing and protecting them at the same time .

The Totemic Castle was mainly staffed by werewolves, with the only humans there being manual laborers and cleaners . The most tiring jobs in the castle were left to them . Due to its high altitude, it wasn’t easy to travel to and from the place . Without an airship, it would take a human half a day’s time to hike up to the castle . The human workers there actually weren’t allowed to leave the fortress and looked more like slaves than staff .

At this moment, the curtain of the night was bearing down on the world, and the leaden clouds were almost touching the castle towers . The tides below the precipice were crashing into the cliff walls amidst thunderous rumbles, spraying seawater hundreds of meters into the air .

Even the Totemic Castle seemed fairly fragile compared to such a night and the majesty of heaven and earth .

The wind kicked up at night, and the echo of roaring tides reverberated throughout the world . The voice reprimanding servants inside the castle had to be raised quite a bit to be heard .

The dim lights inside the castle were only enough to illuminate certain corners and courtyards . Most of the area was still covered in stifling darkness since the dim yellow glow from the narrow windows wasn’t nearly enough to light up anything . On the contrary, they filled the spectator with a sense of cold dread .

Qianye was standing on one of the cliffsides . This place was as high as the main hall of the Totemic Castle and provided an unobstructed view of the castle grounds .

There was a storm brewing over the horizon . The whistling gusts carried pieces of gravel from down the mountain which, like flying blades, would cause anyone struck to bleed .

Qianye had been standing here for an entire two hours, observing the geography and distribution of manpower inside the castle . The faint glow of fire behind the main hall of the castle caught Qianye’s attention . The scale of this bonfire definitely wasn’t small if it could remaining burning in this weather and even illuminate the entire hall .

Werewolves were a race that revered their ancestors and traditions . Even to this day, many werewolves were against technology like airships and origin arrays . The totemic flame held an extremely important position in werewolf traditions . In the past, Qianye had come into a lot of contact with werewolves, so he immediately recognized this flame and understood that it was an important location .

Lowering his body, he jumped dozens of meters forward and landed on the other peak . The whistling gales, on contact, would split into two and flow around Qianye . He was like a swimming fish as he lithely navigated the tempest and pressed forward .

This was his gain from the past seven days . He could already draw upon the surroundings without deploying his domain or even spending much origin power .

Qianye weaved about as though he were in flight and arrived atop the sentry tower behind the castle .

This sentry tower was located in a corner facing the sea, with two steep cliffs on either side of it . Perhaps because he felt that no one would come up from this side, the seemingly-bored werewolf on duty only gazed out at the sea while yawning .

The Eastern Sea was vast, hazy, and dark . This werewolf could find nothing no matter how hard he looked .

Qianye was standing above him at the moment, but this werewolf was completely oblivious as he struggled against drowsiness .

Qianye was looking at the rear courtyard where there was a bulging hundred-meter rock in one corner, forming a natural barrier of sorts . Below it was a pit with a raging flame burning inside . Two werewolves happened to arrive at this point and carefully poured two trays of black stone into the fire .

The burning increased a fair bit after the stones entered the flame, and Qianye could smell a faint fragrance that immediately cleared his head . Apparently, the black stones were specially formulated items and not ordinary fuel .

There were colorful strips of cloth tied all over the mountainous rock, and a totem decorated with a blood-stained wolf head stood behind the fire .

This was a werewolf tribal totem, and the flames in front of it were a form of offering . This flame could not be extinguished, so long as the tribe existed . When moving, the sacrificial flame would be preserved and transplanted to its new resting place .

There was an old werewolf prostrating before the fire, his upper body bare and covered in red-green patterns . The wooden staff in his right hand was decorated with sinister-looking skulls and sharp fangs—it looked rather crude and primitive, but here in the neutral lands, it also seemed to exude an aura of power .

The werewolf elder was shrouded in a powerful aura, but his white hair and withered skin spoke of his waning years . Most dark race experts maintained their youthful appearances for the greater part of their life . An elderly appearance meant that he was almost one foot in the grave .

From his understanding of werewolves, Qianye concluded that this werewolf was likely the shaman of this tribe . Additionally, the totem’s location at the highest point of the castle proved that the Wolf King belonged to this tribe .

Eyes narrowed, Qianye entered the sentry tower with a single sidestep like a specter . There, he placed a hand on the watchman’s neck and broke it with just a bit of force .

The werewolf soldier didn’t even get the chance to grunt before collapsing . Qianye donned the dead man’s uniform, descended the tower, and made for the totem .

The werewolf shaman was still on the ground, chanting a mournful, ancient hymn—a ceremony for communicating with their ancestors . Reportedly, powerful shamans could really hear the voices of their ancestors and receive advice . They might even receive the protection of their ancestors at the critical juncture and gain a burst of fighting-power .

The shaman was performing an important ritual tonight and just the communication phase would go on for several hours . This ceremony was to borrow the power of the tribal ancestors to clear away the danger plaguing the Wolf King’s body .

The rear courtyard was watched over by dozens of werewolf guards, as well as occasional patrols circling the plaza . At this moment, a werewolf soldier was traversing the shadow under the walls as he made his way toward the praying shaman .

The ceremony had already gone on for several hours, which, for the innately irritable werewolves, was a form of torment . Hence, most of the werewolf soldiers there were starting to slack off . One had to know that this was the ancient Totemic Castle, a place no enemy had ever dared to infiltrate . So it wasn’t so surprising that the guards were lax .

Finally, someone discovered the abnormality . A werewolf knight stared at one of the soldiers and shouted, “Who are you? Why don’t I recognize you?”

This bluster only alerted some of the guards because the wind was howling too loudly .

Some of the werewolves looked up to see the suspicious werewolf standing at the foot of the wall . At this point, that person was only fifty meters away from the shaman .

Most of the werewolves hadn’t figured out what was going on . They were still trying to figure out who this guard was when Qianye whipped out the Twin Flowers and took aim at the shaman’s back!

“Stop!!!”

A violent roar echoed through the air above the Totemic Castle .