Chapter 909: Decline
Song Zining was just about to leave when Qianye dragged him back. “Make things clear before you go.”
Song Zining removed Qianye’s hand, saying, “I can’t make things clear. In any case, there’s no way to escape when the time comes. It’ll be up to you whether or not you want to save me.”
“What trouble did you stir up again?”
“What can I stir up? I wouldn’t have done this if it wasn’t for your sacred mountain dreams.”
Qianye was stoppered up.
Song Zining patted his shoulders. “Just cultivate in peace. The stronger you are, the more you can help me.”
Qianye pointed at the door helplessly, knowing that he couldn’t get anything more out of Song Zining. Song Zining seemed to remember something after taking half a step out of the door. “Kaunglan asked me to tell you that she’ll study Mortal Enlightenment for a couple of days, and then teach you once she’s figured things out.”
Qianye frowned. “What am I going to do with that?”
“You’ll know once you get used to divination. But I haven’t seen it, so I’m not sure what its uses are, either.”
Qianye calmed himself down after Song Zining’s departure and continued polishing his origin power with the Glory Chapter. This was a long, arduous task that couldn’t be rushed. It was apparent that Song Zining had no intention of explaining things clearly, so it was better to simply not ask.
Several days went by in a flash. Qianye passed the time in continuous cultivation, almost forgetting to keep track of the clock. Only when the stored origin power in his body was completely refined did he slowly stop his cultivation art and start stretching his body. After a long period of continuous battles, he felt that his cultivation session was exceptionally bright and comfortable.
Qianye was somewhat dazed as he walked out into the resplendent sunlight. Only afterward did he notice that the recent days had been exceptionally peaceful. The city-wide alarm didn’t even go off once. It would seem Eunuch Liu was right—no one from the nearby major powers would risk their life to enter Southern Blue after his “greetings”.
Qianye scanned the area with his perception and found that neither Song Zining nor Li Kuanglan was in their respective residences. No one knew where they had gone, either. Since he had already cultivated enough, he decided to walk out of Dark Flame headquarters and take a stroll around.
Southern Blue had transformed drastically at this point. Despite the heavy casualties, Dark Flame had already completed its support and compensation process for the deceased. Every mercenary corps had a certain budget set aside for this purpose, and Ji Tianqing had naturally robbed them of this cache during the aggregation process. Hence, the severe losses didn’t actually bankrupt the mercenary corps.
The construction sites had recovered their basic workflow by this time, and many of the buildings had been completed. Those still in progress were also quite close to wrapping up. Unlike Dark Flame’s facilities, the new stores and workshops of the trading companies had just begun the building process. The entire city looked like a giant construction site with dust and ruckus everywhere.
To Ji Rui, this kind of scenery was the most beautiful painting, the most pleasant of music. Each construction site had already put a large number of gold coins into his coffers. In the future, they would further turn into wellsprings of fortune once completed, squirting out a steady stream of riches for him.
Qianye also sensed the flourishing state of the city and couldn’t help but admire the city lord’s ability. What he didn’t know was that his fierce assault on Tidehark had restrained almost all of the city’s mobile manpower, as well as that of Totemic Castle’s. That was the main reason why Southern Blue had remained peaceful.
Without the support of a regular army corps, ordinary mercenary groups simply weren’t a match for Ji Rui’s elite troops. Song Zining had routed the Wolf King’s main force recently, and although Dark Flame suffered grave losses in the process, Southern Blue itself wasn’t affected by the flames of war.
Qianye found Song Zining on the drill grounds. The seventh young master was busy training new troops and instructing the men to distribute uniforms. The noisy field was populated by hundreds of people who, judging from their clothing, consisted of soldiers from several small mercenary corps. There was no telling whether they were attracted by Dark Flame’s reputation or forced here by Ji Tianqing.
At this point, Qianye suddenly remembered that he hadn’t seen Ji Tianqing for many days.
Nonetheless, this aide had always been mysterious, and no one could grasp her movements. Qianye remembered her briefly but stopped himself from thinking too much. Seeing that there was nothing major going on around the city, Qianye returned to his residence and continued refining his blood energy reserves. Toeing the line between life and death greatly benefitted his daybreak origin power cultivation. He could vaguely sense the fifth origin vortex, so his future breakthrough was only to be expected. With his daybreak power foundation laid down, his Evernight powers could finally progress a bit.
While Southern Blue was becoming more prosperous with each passing day, the atmosphere in Totemic Castle was shrouded in haze.
The Wolf King was seated on his throne, frowning with a gloomy expression. One could see signs of wear on his countenance, a stark contrast to the overbearing harshness of the past. The werewolf generals below also expressed less respect and fear compared to the past.
Tidehark City Lord Luo Bingfeng had exerted tyrannical pressure upon the Wolf King just recently, demanding that the latter hand over Song Zining. He was offered compensation afterward, and Song Zian’s downpayment was also a sizable earning. Yet, despite the good profits from the business as a whole, the Wolf King’s prestige had suffered gravely and irreversibly.
Before this, the Wolf King was viewed as the number one expert below Zhang Buzhou because he had managed to challenge him. The Wolf King had also expanded his influence constantly, forcing everyone in his wake to yield. Apart from Luo Bingfeng, even other divine champions wouldn’t dare attract the Wolf King’s spearhead, much less fight with him.
Luo Bingfeng used to be famous, but he had been in seclusion for so many years that his name had started to fade out. Additionally, he had entrenched himself in Tidehark, not taking a single step outside, so there was also no chance for him to clash head-on with the Wolf King. The people took this as a sign that he was yielding to the latter.
Who would’ve thought that Tidehark’s first confrontation with the Wolf King would be so overbearing? They left no room at all for negotiation. What surprised people was that the Wolf King was the one to concede. Luo Bingfeng had indeed taken advantage of the werewolf’s heavy injuries, but from how he had no worries about future retaliation, one could see that the Tidehark city lord’s power wasn’t below the Wolf King.
Many of the people who had suffered the Wolf King’s suppression over the years started seeing hope.
The Wolf King knew all this, and so did the werewolf generals below him. As such, the atmosphere in the conference hall wasn’t just stifling but also somewhat strange. Breaking through to the divine champion realm was both easy and hard for the werewolves. The use of ancestral power made their ascensions much easier, affording almost all talented warriors a chance at breakthrough. Their bottleneck wasn’t in talent but in the abundance of ancestral power.
To the werewolves who relied on ancestral power at every turn, there was never enough of this energy to go around. This was why great shamans—who could communicate with the forebears and distribute ancestral power—enjoyed an important position within the tribe, sometimes even greater than the chief. The shaman himself was usually the number one expert of the tribe, or at least within the top three.
It was precisely because of how rare ancestral power was that the other generals were dissatisfied with the Wolf King’s method of expending ancestral power to force-heal himself. The increased consumption meant that everyone’s shares would dwindle, and along with it their hopes of advancement. If it wasn’t for the Wolf King’s superior combat strength and past notoriety, these werewolf generals would’ve dragged him off the great chief’s throne.
The Wolf King also understood that there were undercurrents surging beneath the seemingly calm surface. After a long period of silence, he looked up at the officers and said in a deep voice, “I heard the crawlers have been active in my domain, was there such a thing?”
The werewolf generals looked at one another, but no one replied.
Becoming somewhat impatient, the Wolf King pointed at one of the generals. “Windwalker, you tell me.”
The werewolf general didn’t look as powerful as the other werewolves, but the muscles on his chiseled body were like interweaving steel wires, full of explosive power. He took a step forward, saying, “Great Chief, there have indeed been such rumors. Reportedly, one of their emissaries has arrived in our lands. I’ve already captured some suspects, but the interrogation is still underway. From what we know, the crawlers are operating around the borders, and these people had merely heard their preaching, nothing more.”
The Wolf King’s expression eased up a bit. “Well done, continue with the capture. Seize all suspicious individuals and release them only after making things clear. I will not allow crawlers to appear on my lands.”
Windwalker bowed. “As you wish, Great Chief.”
The Wolf King’s eyes narrowed with killing intent. Windwalker’s reply was perfect, but the angle of his bow wasn’t as deep as in the past. In his exceptionally sensitive state, the Wolf King realized from this minute detail that the general no longer respected him as much.
He didn’t flip out on the spot and merely pressed this matter to the bottom of his heart. He asked a different general, “Any news from the Spider Emperor?”
The general replied, “Great Chief, the messenger has just returned, but he bears no good news. The Spider Emperor has been suffering a fair bit of trouble in his territory and says he has no manpower to rent.”
The Wolf King frowned unhappily. “He has so many squads under his command and could even field warbeasts during the war against Su Dingqian. What kind of trouble is keeping him from dispatching this small number of troops?”
“From what the messenger has found out, a mysterious lady had been targeting the Spider Emperor for some reason and intercepting trade caravans throughout his territory. The emperor sent out numerous squads to surround her, but none of the soldiers returned. His entire domain is on the edge from the grave losses, so it’s unlikely that he’ll be in the mood to help us.”
Hearing all of this, the Wolf King remembered that young girl with the great cleaver and was badly shaken.