Monarch of Evernight

The Wolf King’s body froze, and the forward momentum remained. He dug into the ground with his claws, forming deep trenches therein until he came to a stop a hundred meters away.

Qianye left without so much as a backward glance and vanished into the rugged landscape.

The Wolf King possessed powerful vitality. Qianye knew that the divine champion was nowhere close to death despite having taken two Shots of Inception. Even if he were heavily injured, his final retaliatory attack was certain to be ferocious—Qianye had no intention of waiting for it.

Even if the Wolf King were to recover from the two consecutive attacks, the damage would surely affect his future prospects. This was a grave loss for the Wolf King and ample reason for him to loathe Qianye.

He made a sudden movement, eliciting a series of crackling sounds as his stiff body began to operate. Eventually, he plucked himself out from the mud.

The Wolf King took gradual but firm steps in Qianye’s direction, moving faster and faster with each step. In just a few breaths, he had managed to break into a sprint.

The divine champion was sure that Qianye would be completely exhausted after the two consecutive earth-shattering attacks. He probably wouldn’t get far even if he had fled.

Soon, he reached full speed and Qianye’s indistinct figure appeared up front. The Wolf King unleashed a howl that spread out hundreds of meters. His speed increased sharply—almost as though he were in flight—as he turned into a bolt of blue lightning that went after Qianye.

But just as he was at his full speed, a small figure popped up from a nearby earth-mound!

The Wolf King felt a chill run through his heart, but he had already built up the momentum and there was no domain in place. He forced himself to turn back, but all he saw was a flowing white dress and the flicker of an abnormally large cleaver.

The cleaver tore through the Wolf King’s origin defenses with ease and slashed into his waist. Additionally, the blade went straight for his spinal joints with great accuracy.

The Wolf King could truly smell the stench of death at this point. He roared hysterically and struck back with his right hand, releasing the lightning he had been accumulating at the young girl.

The girl jumped over ten meters back. She wasn’t out of the lightning range yet, but she stabbed the blood-stained cleaver in the ground and used the force to take a step back.

The dozen or so balls of blue lightning turned toward the cleaver like moths drawn to a flame, turning it into a blade of lightning. The girl was more or less affected since she was standing nearby, and her face turned a bit pale.

At this moment, she surprisingly rushed over to draw the lightning-suffused cleaver and pounced toward the Wolf King.

The latter was astonished! He knew the might of his lightning. Even he wouldn’t dare to take an all-out blow now that he was wounded.

The Wolf King dodged the cleaver with a sidestep, but the girl charged at the divine champion and tapped at the wound on his waist. Her attack was extremely malicious and executed at the perfect moment. Caught completely off-guard, the Wolf King could only activate his defensive origin power and perform a rather forced kick.

The girl’s attack was unexpectedly weak, but she managed to snatch a pouch from the Wolf King’s waist. However, the king’s claws swiped at her and left four bloody gashes on her leg.

The Wolf King reached out in hopes of recapturing his pouch. However, he suddenly sensed Qianye charging at him at full speed, and the distance between them was less than a hundred meters!

The Wolf King painfully abandoned the pouch and turned to flee. The injury the girl had given him was just a flesh wound, but it triggered the suppressed damage from the Shots of Inception. He knew it wouldn’t be wise to remain here and suffer a pincer attack from Qianye and the girl.

Neither Qianye nor the young girl chased after the escaping Wolf King. On the contrary, they adopted a faint confrontational stance.

Qianye hadn’t met Bai Kongzhao for a long while, but the girl was just as frail and perplexed as before.

She was still clad in a simple white dress without any decorative items or things a young girl would usually have. Bai Kongzhao’s right hand was charred black from using the lightning-suffused cleaver to attack the Wolf King. The left side of her dress was tattered to reveal her white leg, as well as the shockingly deep, bloody gashes.

There was fresh blood flowing out from the wound, dying most of her leg a scarlet red.

Bai Kongzhao watched Qianye quietly, almost as though she couldn’t feel the pain.

The latter felt a headache brewing and had no idea what to say to her. It was just that his experience was screaming at him not to be fooled by her puzzled appearance. The fate of those who pitied or underestimated her had always been quite miserable.

“I’ve already let you off once, why did you come to the neutral lands and why did you interfere in this battle?”

Qianye’s main objective was to find out her intentions. In whichever battlefield the young girl appeared, the danger-level of that place would rise exponentially. Had she come here alone? Or was she supported by the Bai clan? It would be an entirely different story if she was supported by a major power.

“For this.” The young girl waved the pouch in her hand. This was something she had risked her life to snatch from the Wolf King. Judging from the latter’s expression, it looked like he attached great importance to this item. He was planning to snatch it back even at the risk of worsening his injuries.

The girl opened the pouch in front of Qianye and poured the contents onto the ground. The bag was fairly small, containing some black crystals, emblems, and other miscellaneous items. The only things of interest among them were two palm-sized boxes.

The girl opened them up to reveal sparkling crystals with a lingering mist swimming inside of them. They looked incredibly resplendent and mystical. Qianye was overcome by a familiar sensation the moment he set eyes on those crystals, and the origin power in his body began to stir with the desire to devour them.

Origin crystal—there were actually two origin crystals here!

Origin crystals were of great allure to experts below the divine champion realm, and to those who had no hope of ever reaching that level. Implanting an origin crystal was equal to gaining a divine-champion level ability. From a certain perspective, it could be considered an artificial pseudo-divine-champion.

No wonder the Wolf King treated the pouch with such care. This was an important object that had to be kept on him at all times.

It was a mystery how Bai Kongzhao knew there was such a treasure on the Wolf King. As far as he could remember, there were several mysterious aspects about this young girl. It was almost as though she was acting on instinct—and one that was outrageously powerful.

There were too many unsolvable mysteries on her, so it wasn’t that great of a surprise that she would know about the Wolf King’s treasure.

Before Qianye had figured out what to do, the young girl had split the miscellaneous items on the ground into two portions and passed them to him, along with an origin crystal.

Qianye frowned, unable to comprehend her intentions.

The girl picked up the remaining half and left. She wasn’t moving very fast. Blood was still flowing down her leg, and her entire backside was left open to Qianye.

There was a certain radiance flickering on his fingertips as he moved his right hand. He still had one last Shot of Inception, an attack the young girl wouldn’t be able to evade. Her constitution wouldn’t be able to handle the shot even at its peak, to speak nothing of her current frail state.

He only needed to raise his hand and use his finger as a gun to kill Bai Kongzhao, ridding himself of this trouble.

The girl walked especially slow since her left leg couldn’t bear any weight. The bleeding had slowed down but didn’t seem like it would heal any time soon. Injuries caused by werewolves would leave traces of their origin power, interfering with the healing process. Some people would die of bleeding if they were unable to clear away the remnant origin power.

At this speed, the girl would take at least ten minutes to walk out of the Shot of Inception’s range. There was enough time to make a hundred decisions, so Qianye was in no rush to come to a conclusion. He wanted to give this matter more thought.

But what was he supposed to think about?

Ten minutes suddenly passed by as he was thinking about what he needed to contemplate. The girl’s figure was now far away and fading out over the horizon.

He woke up from his reverie at this point and, shaking his head, dispersed the glow on his fingers. Qianye’s situation was fairly perilous just now, and he only had enough power left for a Shot of Inception or a Spatial Flash—if he used one, he wouldn’t be able to use the other. The Wolf King was able to endure two shots of inception, so who was to say he wouldn’t be able to take a third?

Bai Kongzhao’s ambush had, to a certain extent, resolved Qianye’s danger. Naturally, she would’ve died in the Wolf King’s hands if Qianye hadn’t sensed the battle and charged back. Did she risk all that just for two origin crystals?

Thinking back on it, it was indeed her style. When they were young, she was willing to play fair or foul just for some food. Now that she was more powerful, she was hunting for treasures like void colossus essence and origin crystals instead of food. For these things, she was willing to put herself and anyone else in danger.

Regardless, Qianye knew that he wouldn’t be able to pull the trigger this time.

Next time, next time for sure he wouldn’t lower his guard. The best way was to attack on sight and permanently free himself of this misfortune.

Having made a decision, Qianye left this area of the wilderness. It wasn’t safe here since there was always a small chance that the Wolf King would return.

Besides, Qianye needed a quiet place to slowly digest his gains. He had not only fought head-on against a divine champion and twice succeeded in dealing a blow, but also managed to escape. This kind of experience was incomparably precious. His combat arts would surely improve once he had digested this experience.

This was the very first time he had faced a divine champion head-on.

Half a day later, Qianye had set up a temporary abode in a deserted cave. He sat down cross-legged and completed one cycle of the Song Clan Ancient Scroll, refining a wisp of origin power in the process. At the same time, he brought his body and mind into a state of concentration. Only then did he start to recall and contemplate the fight against the Wolf King.

Qianye remained there for an entire seven days, at times meditating, and at times performing punches and kicks. Every now and then, he would unleash his domain for a brief moment. At first, unleashing the domain was easy, but retracting it was difficult. Later on, he gradually managed to control the power at will. When he was truly exhausted, he would take a break by cultivating the Song Clan Ancient Scroll.

Seven days thus passed by in a flash.