Monarch of Evernight

Volume 3 – The Place Where My Heart Feels At Peace, Chapter 101: Fierce Battle (Part 2)

The bald and burly man couldn’t believe his eyes. Qianye had already arrived, drawn his Radiant Edge and slashed down before the former’s muscle-filled brain could react!

Qianye felt his hand grow lighter as the mixture of blood energy and origin power rushed into the complex patterns on the dagger. A faint sanguineous glow emerged from the blade, rendering the cold sharp edge almost ethereal.

The burly man glanced carelessly at the small pitiful blade coming towards him. The Radiant Edge, with its fine and exquisite vampire designs, was a mere dagger in his eyes. Besides, a human wielding such a weapon meant that he didn’t have anything better to use. Dense origin power radiance erupted from his body as he swung a heavily armored arm toward the blade to block it.

However, the faint blade light cut right through his arm and continued onwards as if there was no obstruction whatsoever. The burly man’s upper body suddenly felt lighter as half his arm flew off into the distance. At that point, Qianye switched his stance—the slash turned into a stab and pierced deep into the man’s abdomen!

Everything happened so quickly that the burly man almost didn’t feel anything. He came to a sudden realization as if something had exploded in his mind—that blade was so sharp that he didn’t feel pain from losing his arm!

The man let out a blood-curdling roar as he came to realize the fact that he had suffered two strikes in quick succession. Apart from the weapon’s extreme sharpness, there was also a great gap in strength between them. He moved to smash Qianye with his intact left arm since survival was already quite unlikely!

The oppressive strike whistled through the air with the momentum of a falling mountain!

Qianye raised his hand dexterously to repel the incoming attack. His foot sank as the ground underneath was split apart, but his seemingly frail body was incomparably sturdy—the hand blocking the blow didn’t even waver in the slightest.

Qianye’s origin power erupted from the Radiant Edge and swiftly shattered the opponent's internal organs. He then retreated calmly. The burly man’s eyes bulged out as he stared fixedly at the figure before his eyes. He failed to utter even an unwilling growl as his large body slowly toppled over.

The 15th division’s assault battalion commander had fallen in battle!

Morale fell to an all-time low among the expeditionary army soldiers who had witnessed this scene. The village’s resistance, on the other hand, greatly intensified. Qianye jumped down from the wall and began to wander through the village, killing only fighters along the way. None of them, whether they were rank one or rank four, could stand against Qianye’s Radiant Edge.

Sniper shots rumbled continuously over the battlefield. Qianye had assigned a total of five snipers but the timbre of Wu Shiqing’s large caliber sniper rifle was especially prominent. His firing frequency was rather stable—basically one shot every 10 seconds, with not a single shot missing its target. This young man was already becoming quite calm and steady after overcoming the initial confusion.

Wu Shiqing didn’t change his sniping position at all. His vision and firing range was able to cover the whole village from atop the bell tower at its center. However, that also made the bell tower a priority target. The expeditionary army continuously charged toward his position, but 10-odd corpses already lay dead within and around the bell tower. Among them, the few lieutenants had all died to origin gunfire—the sister, Wu Shiying’s deep origin power capacity was finally proving itself on the battlefield.

Qianye sensed something moments after killing a lieutenant and his support team. He immediately turned around and saw that a lieutenant colonel had already climbed atop the village wall. He had deployed a gigantic sniper rifle under the protection of dozens of soldiers, its black muzzle aimed towards the bell tower.

It was an Eagleshot—the sniper weapon in the lieutenant colonel’s hand was actually an Eagleshot!

The Radiant Edge in Qianye’s hand slashed out amidst numerous hazy ripples as he swept past the nearby expeditionary army soldiers. Ignoring the several collapsing enemies, he scuttled onto a small slope with a few leaps. He retrieved the Eagleshot from his back and aimed it toward that lieutenant colonel.

Those capable of using an Eagleshot were brave veterans who had experienced hundreds of battles—the lieutenant colonel sensed extreme danger at almost the same time—he turned around in alarm to see Qianye and his Eagleshot hundreds of meters away.

The most unbelievable part was that the other party was aiming the weapon in a standing position.

The Eagleshot’s extraordinary firepower and range meant that not all snipers were capable of wielding it. Its costs included greater origin power consumption, recoil, and strict requirements in control. One would only be courting death by firing from a standing position unless he was at least rank eight—the recoil would swallow the reckless gunman.

The lieutenant colonel refused to believe that the other party would fire under such circumstances. He could definitely finish off the sniper on the bell tower first before evading the attack from behind. However, the intuition he had fostered from his many years in the battlefield and his cautious nature convinced him to abandon this notion. The lieutenant colonel jumped up and moved swiftly behind two of his supporting soldiers.

He then heard the unique sound of the Eagleshot! The sound was like rolling thunder before a summer rain.

This person really dared to shoot while standing? The lieutenant colonel was shocked. He didn’t have time to be pleased with his foresight, nor did he have the time to look down upon the gunman whose arm was probably crippled. He only saw the two expeditionary army soldiers in front of him being torn to shreds as a sparkling origin bullet pierced their body with unimpaired momentum and struck him squarely in the chest!

Within moments, the lieutenant colonel’s body was flung backwards and fell slowly to the ground after losing all consciousness. Neither the defensive power from his military uniform nor his origin power was of any use. While mid-air, he saw that the young man was still standing nonchalantly at his previous position—the latter even raised the Eagleshot and fired two more times!

The dark red origin bullets whistled through the air. Within the lieutenant colonel’s enlarging pupils, this young man’s figure slid backwards several meters as if he was gliding across a lake surface. He then nonchalantly hung the Eagleshot on his back and moved onto another battle.

How did this happen!?

A ball of dark red flames was ignited in the air as the lieutenant colonel’s body burst into pieces and eventually scattered onto the ash-blackened ground. His heart was filled with hatred toward his superiors and intel department the moment before his death. A rank five warrior with an Eagleshot? Not even rank eight veterans would necessarily be able to fire while standing.

Qianye’s vision swept through the entire battlefield once more but was disappointed to find that no other lieutenant colonels had appeared. Now that the Eagleshot has been fired, they probably wouldn’t dare to show up anymore and would likely order the soldiers forward to exhaust Qianye’s origin power.

The battle in the village had become white-hot. Tides of expeditionary army soldiers were pushing forward and people were killing each other at every corner. Wu Shiqing could no longer snipe and was now fighting alongside his sister. They stationed themselves near the stairs and were relying on the advantageous terrain to keep the charging soldiers pinned down. Otherwise, these two exhausted rank one fighters would be surrounded and killed within moments.

Casualties had begun to appear among the Far East Heavy Industries guardsmen and many among Qianye’s seedlings were also dead or injured. These briefly trained and poorly equipped young men and women were, after all, not a match for these old veterans. It would take more than just passion and courage to overcome these battle-hardened wolves.

Qianye suddenly discovered that his combat strategy wasn’t quite right. He had been wandering around the battlefield and had killed dozens of fighters—his battles were nothing short of stunning. But while it was true that the enemy combat strength had begun to decline due to the heavy casualties among junior officers, both sides were in no condition to take notice of the subtle shift in power. The village defenses would have probably collapsed by the time Qianye’s victories began to impact the battle significantly.

Qianye produced his only origin power grenade, activated it and tossed it out! The grenade flew over a hundred meters and exploded right above a group of assembling expeditionary army soldiers. The devastating origin power storm and terrifying shockwave immediately took the lives of that entire group. This gigantic explosion drowned out all the other sounds throughout the battlefield!

The lieutenant colonel who was observing the battle from afar was drenched in cold sweat. He had never expected the enemy to actually have a vampire origin power grenade! If the lieutenants were to hastily join the battle and encounter such a weapon, they would be gravely injured even if they survived. Now, it seemed that this frightening weapon had been used up against a few dozen worthless soldiers and a few fighters.

But what was the other party trying to achieve with such a puzzling method?

The residual shockwaves from the explosion raged amidst the inferno. Qianye dashed right through the flames and pounced at the major leading the battalion on the other side of the plaza. This major hadn’t even recovered from the shock of the vampire origin grenade when he saw Qianye arrive before him.

The major wasn’t alone—there were over a dozen guards surrounding him. Qianye was still rushing toward him through the rain of bullets but suddenly changed his stance at one point, leaping into the air instead!

The major’s line of sight followed Qianye upwards and found two pistols aimed directly at him. Following which, two illusory flowers bloomed in the air. The major’s origin power defenses were shattered by the tremendous force as blood spurted out of his face and chest.

Qianye dissolved the recoil from the twin flowers with a twist of his body and landed back on the ground.

The wide plaza became deathly silent. There was but a single enemy, and yet all the lucky survivors of the expeditionary army felt apprehensive. First, the whole squad fell under the vampire grenade, and then the assailant had rushed through a shower of bullets with incomparable momentum to kill their battalion commander. How could these ordinary soldiers not be afraid?

Qianye returned the Twin Flowers to their holsters and kicked a specialized assault-unit hatchet into the air. The alloy hatchet duly landed in his right hand while his left hand retrieved the Radiant Edge. With a hatchet in the right and a blade in the left, he strode toward the expeditionary army soldiers in front of him.

His every step caused the remaining soldiers to edge back until they had exited the block. No one actually dared to charge at him! The heavy metal axe that could slash open an arachne’s armor in the hands of a lieutenant seemed as light as a feather in Qianye’s hands. They had no doubt that whoever charged in first would be cut into two.

Reinforcements continuously arrived from the distance, gathering into a hundred strong group within moments. However, their advantage in numbers couldn’t grant these soldiers any increased confidence—the soldiers who had lost their commander were continuously forced back by Qianye. Each of his solemn footsteps resounded within their hearts and smashed apart the fragile thing called courage.

A captain who had hurried over after receiving news of the situation rushed out of the crowd while shouting out commands. However, Qianye’s hatchet had already swept past his neck before he could even swing his. A head flew high into the air, accompanied by a fountain of fresh blood which sprayed onto the faces and bodies of the nearby soldiers.

The expeditionary army’s morale finally collapsed. The disorderly crowd of soldiers collided with their own battlefront as they turned to run. The village wasn’t very big, and as such, a partial collapse soon affected the battle as a whole. The experienced Far East Heavy Industries guardsmen immediately mounted a counteroffensive. Under their command, the young men and women all rushed out of the fort and attacked the enemy from every corner.

The desolate sound of a bugle finally resounded from the expeditionary army. That was the signal for retreat—an indication that the assault had failed.