Chapter 277: Book of Darkness: Inception

[Volume 4 - Perpetual Conflict]

Qianye cursed in a hoarse voice as he grabbed the sword at hand and pierced headlong into the nearby building. He then rapidly crossed the room and leapt out from the other window.

The two origin grenades exploded at the same time, turning the narrow alley into a zone of death. The explosion had just receded when Li Zhan shot through the smoke, appeared before the building Qianye had just entered, and, likewise, charged in.

But the moment he entered the room, he immediately felt as if he had fallen into a swamp. It was clearly solid ground beneath his feet but there was no foothold to be found. Every movement took great effort, and the waves of piercing pain being emitted through his skin became unbearable within moments.

Li Zhan was greatly startled. At this moment, he actually began to feel stifled as if his mouth and nose were blocked by something. He suddenly let out a loud roar and erupted with dazzling origin power. This seemingly shattered something around him, freeing him of his invisible bindings and allowing him to stumble out of the room.

He was yet to calm down from the fright as he stood on the street. From the street, the room indeed seemed empty without anything out of the ordinary. Li Zhan glanced down at his body and found that the skin on his arms was red with pearls of blood seeping out continuously. The metal fasteners on his armor had also begun to rust.

Li Zhan was certain that even his body would have dissolved had he stayed for a couple of seconds more within the room. Maybe even his skeleton wouldn't remain. The buildings in this city were becoming more and more dangerous. Previously, they only dragged people in like quicksand and wasn't that perilous for someone of his abilities to pass through briefly. Now, however, it was directly dissolving one's flesh.

His expression turned gloomy. He tightened his fist and went around the street corner to continue the long pursuit.

Qianye, who had passed through the room, didn't feel any obvious changes apart from a somewhat sticky force trying to drag him down as he leapt out of the window. But he had long since prepared for this and used extra force with every step. Thus, he successfully landed on the other street.

He didn't dare to stop over at all as he advanced rapidly through a number of foggy street blocks before reducing his speed to find a resting place.

But just at this moment, a vampire warrior each appeared from his left and right.

Goddammit! Qianye pounced forth while brandishing his blade.

The battle ended swiftly with the two vampires turning into corpses which peacefully sunk into the ground. Meanwhile, Qianye had sustained an extra wound and two more old ones had burst open.

Qianye sat leaning against the wall and gasped for air, each breath seemed as if he were breathing out flames. He rummaged around his pocket with great effort and found that there was no more medicine. There were, however, two origin grenades.

Just at this time, Li Zhan's figure appeared through the mist.

Qianye stood up in silence. He didn't run away this time and charged instead of fleeing. The devastating blade slashed toward Li Zhan's head without any fancy moves. The latter sneered and moved to block with a horizontal slash. At the same time, his left hand clawed toward Qianye's chest.

The two blades drew intense trails of radiance through the air. Qianye grunted as he suddenly sped up the sword and hacked down at the center of Li Zhan's blade with the force of hundreds of kilograms.

A loud clang rang out like the toll of an ancient bell. Qianye's sword recoiled back and fresh blood began to flow from his right hand. Li Zhan, on the other hand, sank down and staggered back continuously with blood flowing out of his nose and ears.

The force transmitted from Qianye's blade was too terrifying. Li Zhan had to lean against a tall wall in order to stabilize his backward momentum. He let out a furious roar as origin power radiance erupted from his back to form the vague image of a twisting python. But he turned pale and spat out a mouthful of blood just as his innate talent materialization was about to complete.

Li Zhan couldn't help but curse at this damned city.

He was, of course, also under the suppression of the spatial restrictions. But the energy utilization pattern of humans and vampires were different. The vampires could only depend on blood shackles to suppress their bloodline power. Thus, those vampire viscounts could only use their own strength to resist this spatial suppression. Li Zhan, on the other hand, had discovered that he could escape the restrictions as long as he didn't activate his origin power vortex and only drew upon the daybreak origin power within his nodes.

But even if Li Zhan didn't use his champion level abilities, his strength was at least equal to a third-rank viscount. He hadn't expected that he would actually be pushed back by a single slash in direct confrontation.

Li Zhan suppressed the boiling blood energy in his chest. He was just thinking about continuing his pursuit when a sudden and peculiar whistling sound was transmitted through the air. A sense of extreme foreboding rose in his heart as he watched the sword spinning toward him through the air. It was the other sword Qianye was holding just now.

The sword's momentum and sound were too odd as it flew almost erratically through the air. Li Zhan didn't want to receive this blow head-on and thus he moved out of the blade's range after looking around. But it was at this moment that two origin grenades rolled over toward him as if they had eyes.

"You madman!" Li Zhan cursed out loud. He only had enough time to curl up his body before he was flung away by the shockwaves from the explosion. He slammed squarely into a wall and was only able to stand up with great difficulty. He glanced over and saw only the thick mist. How could he even find Qianye's shadow?

"What insanity! He's truly a madman!"

At the distance just now, Qianye himself should also have been within the radius of the origin grenade's explosion. In truth, it was almost a half-suicidal course of action. Qianye would have inevitably paid a great price even though he was able to escape once again by using this method.

Meanwhile, Qianye had already run to a different street and was breathing heavily while supporting himself on an anchor-shaped sculpture. In truth, his condition was much better than Li Zhan had imagined it to be. His powerful vampire constitution had withstood a large portion of the explosive force.

Suddenly, Qianye heard something moving behind him like the sound of shifting sand. He turned around and saw, in the distance, a giant door decorated with carved patterns.

The door creaked open and a vampire warrior walked out from within.

Qianye's pupils constricted as he took a step forward, raised his sword, and slashed down at lightning speed.

The vampire warrior seemed slow to react and his manner was somewhat sluggish, but the sword he raised horizontally still managed to obstruct Qianye's attack.

The sword in Qianye's hand, however, was incomparably heavy and glowing with faint silver origin arrays due to the activation of its Devastation properties. The slash directly cut the vampire warrior and his sword into two.

The two halves of the vampire fell slowly to the ground, but there wasn't any blood within its body sections and was, instead, filled with sandy granules. The corpse transformed into a pile of sand before Qianye's eyes, rustled to the ground, and disappeared into the street surface in a matter of moments.

Qianye was astonished and soon recalled that the voice had told him to kill off the outsiders and guards. So, was this a guardian?

It shouldn't be very difficult if they were only at the level of rank seven or eight like this one. However, it was unknown just how many of them there were.

There was something glittering where the fine grains of sand had disappeared. Qianye picked it up and discovered a fingernail-sized piece of crystal. He flipped it about and, finding nothing special about it, put it away into his pocket. This was the first time the city had left something after devouring its victim.

Qianye was just planning to leave when the uncomfortable screech of flowing sand was heard once again. He turned around and saw a guardian climb out from a french window in the distance. Qianye moved forth in large strides, beheading the guardian as his hand rose and his blade fell. He obtained yet another piece of crystal.

Qianye's pupils constricted after picking up the crystal because three more guardians appeared within his field of vision! Additionally, sounds of movement were heard from the buildings lining the street. Needless to say, there were more guardians appearing within them.

Qianye couldn't help but inhale a breath of cold air. However, he charged forth with his blade gripped tightly. Any guardian who approached him was either slashed apart or beheaded in a single move.

There was no "give up" in his life dictionary. He had even gotten through the danger of being infected by dark blood back then. This trial before him was just a battle—a true warrior wouldn't give up until the very end.

This ordinary-looking street stretched so far that one couldn't see the end, and the wave of guardians seemed unending no matter how many were killed. Qianye could no longer remember clearly just how many slashes he had already executed and only knew that the number of crystals in his pocket was increasing. He didn't even need to bend down to pick them up; his pocket would grow slightly heavier with each guardian he killed.

After an unknown length of time, Qianye suddenly halted his steps. The endless street before him finally changed as a lofty building suddenly appeared.

It was hundreds of meters tall and was supported by twelve pillars at the front, each of them several meters in diameter. A person would feel as insignificant as an ant before this majestic building.

The Wings of Inception shook once again as it sensed the Eye of Truth within.

Qianye crossed through the threshold and arrived before a hall so big that it almost felt stifling.

The walls and roof were filled with murals of exquisite artistry, most of them depicting stories of their genesis. They showed how the heroes of each dark race had battled countless giant primordial beasts and even alien creatures. There were also some murals which portrayed a number of great battles between the dark races.

Some of the giant beasts depicted in the murals had never even been heard of, and the dark races' battle prowess had been embellished brilliantly. One could see their boundless might with a single glance. These murals would definitely fetch an exorbitant price if one were to find a way to copy these paintings and bring them back because they were able to fill in the large gap in history before the thousand-year war.

Unfortunately, it wasn't the time to be thinking of such things. Qianye retracted his gaze and moved forward.

In the depths of the great hall was a row of thirteen coffins. From their layout, it seemed the area was a resting place for certain ancient vampires.

There was an altar before the coffins with various rare treasures scattered on and around it. In their midst were piles of eerie white bones likely belonging to creatures of different races. The abundant riches along with the openly displayed remains gave one an odd sensation.

There was a scripture stand that stood erect before the altar, and currently lying upon it was a large black book with a bleeding red eye on its cover.

The reaction from the Wings of Inception was so close that it almost seemed within reach—it was precisely this mysterious ancient volume.

Qianye hesitated for a moment before placing his hand on the black cover. He felt a brief pain from his palm as his fresh blood immediately stained the cover and was then absorbed into the book.

Countless strands of almost tangible black radiance erupted from the book. It almost seemed as if tentacles had reached out and entangled Qianye.

At this point, Qianye lost all control over his body and even his perception had disappeared.

The next moment, he found himself floating within an empty space with the black book hovering in front of him. The pages on this thick and heavy tome began to turn on its own, and with each page flipped, the content would emerge within Qianye's consciousness.

He had no idea how much time had passed when the last page was finally turned. Qianye gradually opened his eyes.

He now knew what this book was.

It was one of the dark races' lost ancient tomes, the Book of Darkness: Genesis.

This was the darkness of genesis, the source of all darkness origin power.