Chapter 580: Entering the Fores
t [V6C110 – Sorrow of a Silent Parting]
The man stared into Qianye’s blue eyes and felt as though he had been plunged into icy water. His faint yellow hair stood on end as he shot up from his seat.
He stared fixedly at Qianye and screamed, “What are you looking at?!”
Qianye sneered, “What are you shouting for?”
The sinister looking man was furious. “You’re courting death!”
Qianye’s hand was on East Peak, and his eyes were filled with an austere killing intent. He had scanned the enemy with his unrestrained True Sight and found that there was nothing to fear. The fellow was three ranks higher than himself, but his origin power wasn’t at all that consolidated.
Seeing that a conflict was about to break out, the Li family expert in charge of the airship stood up to smooth things over. “Everyone is about to become comrades on the same battlefield. A little bit of enmity shouldn’t be kept to mind in the face of a greater enemy!”
The sinister man thus found an opportunity to back down. He retracted his origin power and said with a snort, “I really don’t know how a little brigadier general can be so high and mighty.”
Qianye smiled faintly. “If you keep provoking me, you’ll find out how a brigadier general will kill you.”
The evil-looking man shot up once more, but the Li family expert pulled him back in a hurry. He then spoke privately with the man for a good while before finally managing to push him back to his seat.
At this moment, the airship shook momentarily as it took to the skies and flew toward the battlefield. The atmosphere inside the craft gradually became stifling. Qianye had no intention of fighting against imperial experts before the great war, so he turned away and sat down in an empty seat.
Beside Qianye was a woman seemingly in her thirties. She possessed fairly good looks, but the dense smell of blood around her served to remind everyone that she wasn’t one to be provoked.
Qianye glanced at her and asked, “Can you tell me who that idiot just now is?”
The lady looked deeply into his eyes and said, “If I’m not wrong, you should be Qianye, right? That fellow is called Du Li. I don’t know where he popped out from, but it looks like the Li family plans to have him lead a mechanized combat squad. Heh, heh, he’s truly an idiot to provoke you upon sight.”
It wasn’t just this lady’s gaze that had fallen on Qianye’s body. Many who heard his name turned toward him with subtle expressions.
Qianye was one of the fastest rising stars of the empire, however, his name back then was tied to the Swallow Cloud Zhao Clan. One could call them the Zhao clan’s twin stars instead of the empire’s. Now, however, he had appeared on the Li clan’s battleship, and judging from how the Li family steward had chosen to dissuade Du Li, it would seem they attached great importance to him.
“He’s a rank-thirteen expert, you know, almost a lieutenant general.” Qianye shrugged in a natural manner, almost as though he hadn’t noticed all the gazes on him.
“What’s so great about rank-thirteen? I heard there are true dark counts in your kill records.”
“Actually, it’s just a lowest-ranked count.”
Everyone nearby felt the urge to beat Qianye up after hearing him make light of the matter. Even for an imperial warrior of the same level, achieving such a record was something to be proud of.
In truth, most people who heard about this didn’t quite believe Qianye could kill a dark count on his own. But one of the sources of this news was the Li family—someone from the clan was reportedly present during the kill. And the tense relationship between the Li and Zhao clans served only to increase the reliability of this news.
On the other end of the cabin, Du Li and another warrior were conversing with the Li clan officer. The man’s expression transformed rapidly—apparently, he was being told of Qianye’s origins and past accomplishments. But he didn’t seem apprehensive at all, and neither did he seem to have any intention of apologizing. He only cast occasional cold glances at Qianye.
The high-speed airship flew for nearly two hours and finally arrived at the base at the borders of Misty Wood. This base was constructed through the joint efforts of the Li family and a number of high-ranking aristocratic families. There were three such bases in the Misty Wood, but this one was the largest of them all.
After the airship landed near the outskirts, Qianye exited first and observed the surroundings. What he saw was a temporary camp capable of accommodating ten thousand men. The soldiers who had arrived earlier were frantically setting up a new barracks that would hold yet another ten thousand soldiers.
Additionally, there was a giant transport parked on one side of the airship port and a dozen or so high-ranking warriors unloading a large metallic component from it. Qianye immediately recognized it as a key kinetic tower component. It would seem the Li family, with its great ambitions, was actually about to build a kinetic tower here. Apparently, they had considered this place as their own territory and wished to build a permanent base.
The Misty Wood was only a thousand meters away. There were hundreds of soldiers grouped into numerous patrol squads, shuttling in and out of the forest. There were even more soldiers building defensive positions behind them, while traces of battle were becoming evident toward the front.
Qianye walked down the ramp and asked the awaiting officer, “Has the dark race appeared?”
“Yes, a small group rushed out just now and has been destroyed. But the group is made up of arachne, vampires, and werewolves.” The officer appeared worried.
It wasn’t just Qianye—all of the other independent experts had serious expressions on their faces. Regardless of the size of the dark race force, the simultaneous appearance of multiple races—especially the werewolves and vampires—meant that there was a powerful character or force leading them. That was the only way to suppress the tension between the races.
“Do you know their affiliation?” Qianye inquired.
“We don’t know yet, those dark race soldiers have no insignias on their bodies.”
Qianye nodded and glanced toward Misty Wood. “Give me a portion of water and rations. I’m going in right away.”
The officer was surprised. “Right now? Do you not need to rest?”
“No need.”
The officer’s orders were to fulfill the wishes of these independent experts as much as possible. He was also ordered not to interfere with their movements without explicit orders. As such, the man asked no more and immediately sent two nearby soldiers off to make the arrangements.
Qianye walked over to the barracks area, strolling through a temporary road while observing the nearby construction work.
The Li family camp was only starting to take shape. It was far from the majesty of the third imperial fleet’s base camp, but the basic arrangements were already visible. The camp didn’t just have an airship base but also facilities for repairs and maintenance. Additionally, there were four foundational structures for large anti-aircraft cannons.
Just from the construction of this base, one could tell that there were a fair number of talents in the Li family. Even Qianye couldn’t find any problems.
Right after Qianye passed through the barracks area, two soldiers ran over carrying a backpack half the size of a man. “These are the supplies you requested. There’s enough food, water, and supplies to last ten days.”
Qianye took the bag and shot a glance at the Misty Wood. “Have your men cover me.”
“Yes, general.”
A voice rang out from behind just as Qianye was going to pass through the battlefront and enter the Misty Wood. “Wait a minute.”
Qianye looked back and found that lady with whom he had chatted briefly on the airship.
She moved like the wind and arrived beside Qianye in a couple of steps. There, she glanced implicatively at Qianye’s Thunderbolt and said, “I’m Zhu Huan, a rank-eleven warrior specializing in melee combat. What do you say we work together? I feel that we can coordinate quite well.”
Qianye shook his head without even thinking. “No, I like operating alone.”
Zhu Huan said, “Perhaps you might need someone to watch your back.”
Her words had a hidden meaning to them. Qianye looked up in Du Li’s direction and said calmly, “I have eyes in the back of my head. Most of those who try to approach me from the back became corpses.”
Zhu Huan frowned. The lady had her own sense of pride and thus no longer insisted on working together. She only said “good luck” before turning to leave.
But Qianye pointed a finger at Du Li and said, “You, on the other hand, should be careful of that person. Your plan to work with me might have offended him.”
Zhu Huan sneered, “I’m not afraid of him.”
“His eyes are a bit strange,” Qianye reminded.
“Thank you.”
Qianye nodded and ended the conversation here. He then turned toward the Misty Wood and soon vanished into the dense mist. Du Li glanced in Qianye’s direction after the latter had disappeared, his eyes full of hatred and killing intent.
At this moment, there was only a rank-ten champion following him. With Qianye and Zhu Huan’s lead, the other experts all chose their own paths. This destroyed Du Li’s hopes of gathering everyone into a combat squad.
Returning to the Misty Wood, Qianye felt that the restrictions on his perceptions had weakened by quite a bit. Perhaps the disappearance of the void colossus’ will had lessened the suppression here.
Even so, his perception range was still limited to five hundred meters, and this was due to the various vampire-ability increases that came with his ascension to rank-two viscount. His True Sight had also received a corresponding upgrade.
But a five-hundred-meter range was quite enough amidst the complicated geography of the forest. There was almost no firing line that spanned five hundred meters anyway.
Qianye judged that a human expert of the same level would possess a perception range of ninety meters, and the dark races, around one hundred. Qianye still held a massive advantage in the Misty Wood.
He didn’t linger about near the border but charged directly into the depths of the forest. He ran non-stop for several kilometers and made sure no one was on his tracks before putting all his supplies into Andruil’s Mysterious Realm. Then, he rearranged his gear and brought himself to an optimal combat state.
Qianye soon activated Bloodline Concealment and gradually melded into the mist. He then made his way forward patiently.
Before long, he heard the sounds of breaking tree branches. This was abnormal within the Misty Wood. The forest was covered in purple substance, so walking on it made almost no sound. Moreover, those giant, hundred-meter trees had almost no branches on them. This sound could only have come from a person brushing past something while moving through the woods.