Chapter 585: Pincer
[V6C115 – Sorrow of a Silent Parting] With Qianye’s auric flame blood rising drastically at such a close distance, even his Bloodline Concealment couldn’t completely suppress his overflowing aura. Russel was, after all, a mighty count. It was only natural that he would sense something fishy.
Qianye quickly caught his breath and pulled back as though he were gliding on water. He had flashed away several dozen meters in a couple of steps.
Russel’s eyes flickered with a sharp sanguineous glint as he gave chase. He sneered upon seeing Qianye enter yet another ruined building and proceeded to charge straight over, poised to destroy the rubble just like before.
A ghost-like figure flew in through the window just as Qianye turned to move behind a broken wall—the two almost collided.
He was truly shocked because he hadn’t sensed the other party’s aura at all, so much so that he subconsciously wanted to ignore the shadow that had just flitted past. This caused his speed to slow down by a small margin. The girl in front of him clearly hadn’t sensed Qianye, either. His auric flame blood had already calmed down at this moment and Bloodline Concealment had once again covered up his untoward aura.
Qianye’s expression changed slightly as a clear countenance was reflected in his eyes.
Bai Kongzhao hadn’t expected to meet Qianye here, either. Her movements actually slowed down a bit, and her face was overcome with astonishment. Even her mouth couldn’t close tight due to the surprise.
Before Qianye could decide whether or not to finish her off in passing, a tyrannical momentum pressed down and sent debris flying in every direction. Nothing could be seen clearly in the dust. The force from Russel’s charge had destroyed the half-broken building even before his arrival.
Bai Kongzhao’s figure became hidden in the dust, but Qianye saw her look toward Russel with eyes full of hunger just before vanishing. It was the look of a traveler seeing hot food after walking through the desert for many days.
“Is she looking to ambush me or that fellow?” A thought emerged in Qianye’s mind.
With that mountainous force bearing down upon him, Qianye had no choice but to erase all distracting thoughts and face Russel once more. This time, he no longer fought head-on against the latter. His sword strikes were like the wind as he hacked repeatedly at the large shield, shifting rapidly between light and heavy blows. At the same time, he was also retreating.
Russel began feeling incomparably awkward before long—his giant shield couldn’t exert any force, and there was nowhere to utilize his great strength. All he could do was press forward with the attack and give Qianye no gap to escape.
Russel charged straight through all the obstacles along the way. Right in front was a pile of debris. The building there had collapsed thoroughly, and there wasn’t even a broken wall left behind, only half a pillar.
Qianye leaped upward just as Russel’s giant shield arrived. However, his body suddenly became as light as a feather and drifted a dozen meters away along with the surging origin tides.
Russel was once again overcome by the discomfort of having his force misdirected. But he was already starting to adapt—the movements with which he retracted his shield were growing stable, and his gait was almost unaffected. He proceeded to deliver a kick and shattered the broken pillar into many fragments.
However, he discovered something wrong after performing the kick. Looking down, he found an opening on his alloy combat boots with fresh blood flowing out of it. The wound was so deep that even white bones were visible.
Russel strode forward out of habit, but a heart-wrenching pain welled up from his foot at this point. He let out a painful howl as his right leg went limp, and he fell on one knee.
But Russel possessed ample combat experience. He didn’t relax his guard even under such an abrupt situation and immediately felt something wrong. He raised the giant shield in front of him and swung his greatsword toward his back.
Bai Kongzhao crouched down just as Russel’s greatsword swung past her spine and slashed off half of her long, dancing hair. The air was suddenly filled with countless strands of hair.
But the sword in the girl’s hand continued forward at a peculiar angle and drilled into the gap between Russel’s armor, leaving a moderately-sized wound on his back.
Bai Kongzhao then used both her hands and legs to retreat like a crawling bug, the tip of the sword was now stained with blood. The wound on Russel’s foot was also her handiwork.
The vampire turned back and stared fixedly at Bai Kongzhao with flames spewing out of his eyes. A dazzling sanguineous light welled out from his eyes and stabbed at Bai Kongzhao’s pupils.
Marionette! This used to be a deviant art used by high-ranking vampires to control experts from their vassal families. Even if it couldn’t completely take control of another’s mind, it would still inflict unbearable pain and terror. However, after the War of Daybreak, this kind of art gradually disappeared and became an innate skill for a small number of high-ranking vampires.
Bai Kongzhao’s face only revealed a brief flash of surprise after being struck squarely by Marionette. Afterward, she ran away even faster and soon vanished into the rubble. She was actually unaffected by the skill!
Russel was startled for a brief moment. This innate skill was one of his aces for dealing with the Daybreak faction. He wouldn’t have used it on a rank ten human if he wasn’t on guard against her fighting techniques. But it had actually failed?
During the moment of his distraction, the giant shield in his hand trembled violently and almost flew out of his grasp. Fortunately, he reacted fast and quickly brought it back under control.
Qianye was already attacking from the front. East Peak swung about in a full arc and smashed fiercely onto the shield.
This time, the sound of impact was exceptionally deep, and the destructive power was just as terrifying. All debris in a ten-meter radius flew into the air and broke down into powder.
Qianye’s strike this time was delivered horizontally. Russel’s ankle had just been injured, so he couldn’t quite take the brunt of this blow and was pushed back several meters.
A light flashed in Qianye’s eyes upon seeing that he had swept the latter back. He quickly charged forth and crashed right into the vampire count’s shield.
This time, the attack was effective beyond expectation. Russel’s posture wasn’t quite right and his center of gravity, unstable. In an instant, he was sent staggering backward by the barbaric impact. Russel had just taken two steps back when he suddenly recalled something and cried out in alarm! Without wasting even a moment to think, he moved the giant shield behind him to block the vitals therein.
As expected, the large shield was just in place when it began shaking in Russel’s hands amidst a series of dense rapping sounds. It was unknown how many attacks he had suffered at that moment.
Qianye took several steps backward at the end of his attack momentum before managing to dissolve the violent impact. When he had regained his footing, East Peak was pointing toward the ground, and the patterns were lighting up one by one, poised to launch the next killer attack.
On the other side, Bai Kongzhao rushed forward, kicked at the shield with both feet, and flipped away. She landed a dozen or so meters away, staring at Russel—who was curled up behind his shield—like a tasty delicacy.
Atop the tower, Bai Longjia had been paying attention to this battle all along. He waved his right hand and shouted, “Fire!”
Several gunshots rang out at almost the same time as the order. High-caliber sniper rounds traversed the battlefield and exploded on Russel’s body. His heavy armor could hardly defend against these armor-piercing sniper rounds, which duly opened up several large holes on his body.
Russel’s bloody energy churned and raged as a hazy bronze hue appeared on the giant shield. He was still quite calm despite the ambush. He rapidly moved away while remaining on guard against Qianye and Bai Kongzhao. At the same time, his eyes flitted across the battlefield and noticed that a number of Bai clan warriors were closing in.
A feeling of danger welled up in Russel’s heart. Roaring, he smashed the ground with his fist and sent numerous sanguineous waves rippling outward. Dozens of fierce beasts of varying shapes and sizes took form from the blood energy and pounced toward the nearby Bai clan warriors.
A blood leopard with long hair on its back flashed past a Bai clan soldier at great speeds. Swaying unsteadily, the latter dropped his gun and grabbed his throat with every ounce of his strength, desperate to stop the gushing fresh blood. His eyes were full of shock, up until he gradually collapsed. Meanwhile, the leopard had already darted toward another soldier and bitten the back of his neck.
The tens of beasts formed of blood energy rampaged everywhere. In the blink of an eye, they had taken the greater part of the surrounding soldiers’ lives. Russel’s domain appeared fairly well-developed and suited for large scale battlefields.
Qianye, who had been waiting for an opportunity all along, made his move after seeing Russel release his domain. A beam of silent sword energy shot toward Russel.
Nirvanic Rend!
Qianye had been practicing the Nirvanic Rend for many days. His present attack didn’t contain a shred of worldly, aura and even the sword energy itself was barely discernible. However, the origin power consumed was almost one and a half times that of the past. One could imagine how powerful this attack was.
Russel was currently operating his domain while evading sniper fire. At this moment, he suddenly felt the approach of mortal peril, but he had no time to move his shield. All he could do was shrink back on one knee and cover the vital areas on his head with his arms. Powerful blood energy erupted over his body as his domain became almost tangible. It was as though a blood pond several meters in diameter had appeared here.
Without any warning, the blood energy domain was split into two. Several blood beasts didn’t have the time to evade and were similarly sliced into two, turning back into blood energy which merged into the domain.
Russel slowly lowered his arms. He heard a light clang as his armguard split into two and fell to the ground. There was now a cut on each of his arms, as thin as red threads and hardly visible to the naked eye. But Russel’s current movement caused the injury to burst open and reveal a terrifying bone-deep cut.
This sword-strike had only cut through half of the bones in Russel’s arms. Qianye was greatly surprised that it couldn’t even cut down the arms entirely, but he thought of something upon seeing the metallic glint on Russel’s bones.
The domain was also slashed open with a single strike. It recovered almost instantly, but the blood energy was now much thinner, and several of the beasts had vanished entirely. Deploying a domain on the battlefield had its pros and cons. The bad thing was that one’s origin power would be quickly depleted if the domain was targeted by enemy experts.
Russel’s blood beast domain wasn’t of a low level, and he had never expected Qianye to slash it open in one strike—this had led to his grave injuries.
Following Bai Longjia’s orders, several Bai clan experts arrived and attacked Russel at the same time.
Although this transfer had rapidly increased the pressure on other defensive lines, Bai Longjia had already realized that this Russel was no ordinary character. Against such an overwhelming enemy force, the fall of this stronghold was only a matter of time. Killing this blood count would allow them to recoup some of the losses.
In the sky, ripples finally appeared in the vampire elder’s seemingly dead eyes. “Have Russel return. That little fellow might take action if this goes on.”
At this moment, a dark room appeared in the image in front of him. There were explosions and flashes visible outside the window while dust and mortar dropped down constantly from the roof.
There was a simple wooden chair at the center of the room, and upon it sat a woman in white clothes. Her eyes were lowered as though the raging battles outside had nothing to do with her.
This woman was Bai Aotu.
In the image, the light in her hands was growing brighter and brighter. Apparently, she was already gathering energy and couldn’t wait to attack.