Chapter 231: The Power of Chaos

The emergence of a new Spider Queen among the spider demons was undoubtedly an all-consuming matter of greatest importance. And the fact that she carried a bloodline distinctly different from the former Queen made the whole affair infinitely more exciting, hinting at the opening up of a completely new legacy path for their kind.

If a second Spider Queen were to arise within the Sacred Mountain, neither the Demon Monarch nor the Queen of the Night would be able to halt the spider demons' ascendance. They would supplant both the demonborn races and the vampires, and for the first time would reach the pinnacle of Eternal Night.

That was an affair which one did not need to use one’s head to realize must above all else remain hidden from the demonborn and other species.

Therefore, whether Lo Le chose to or not, he still had to shoulder a pile of treasured artifacts and set out, trying to stabilize the young Spider Queen. And as insignificant a thing as psychological scars? Overcoming those was nothing.

Immediately thereafter, Pedro petitioned for recall, and he also had sufficient justification — he needed recovery from injuries. Now the circumstances had become clear; until now, not even Pritt’s personal arrival at the Yunlu Plane was enough to foretell where Qianye could be located. In order to capture him, far more powerful forces had to be dispatched.

Therefore when Mnick heard this news, his strong opposition quieted — after all, Lo Le remained behind still. Yet, even so, Spider Demon felt uncomfortable under Pritt’s piercing gaze; yet in the face of the future Spider Matriarch, extraordinary pressure would simply have to be endured.

However Lo Le’s journey progressed anything but smoothly — for several days already the forest had swirled all around him, still never did that teenage girl ever appear again who previously raided him.

As for now, Qianye had long departed beyond the trees, and arrived at the mountainous center of Yunlu.

In a leap, he cleared one hundred meters as though flying just over the flat lands. Speed was beyond measure swift. Behind him came Zhuji, clinging close in pursuit. Springing forth like cannonballs from place to place, she displayed a power imposingly over the terrain, speed so extreme that she didn't fall at all behind Qianye. Though of course Qianye wasn’t pushing himself to the limit; even so, their speed already easily exceeded that of most powerful warriors.

Yet the youthful companion's body held an unlimited capacity of physical strength — as both dashed nonstop for half the day, no signs of fatigue appeared upon the small frame at all. Finally when Qianye glanced skyward, checking the time and positioning — just one short word, “enough” — and the pair simultaneously ceased their pace.

“Why had you run so far though?”

“Because many things would be coming next — beyond anything this one could possibly handle.”

“Doesn’t it seem they were rather weak, though?” she asked.

“More like their numbers are overwhelming,” Qianye answered smilingly.

Giving some moments further thought before slowly nodding thoughtfully, the youngster agreed, adding, “True indeed.”

Gathering wood for firelight, Qianye roasted a tremendous portion of wild predator flesh, feeding it completely to this small companion, watching as she dozed off into deep sleep, before only finally letting silence envelope them. At ease only then beneath the boundless dark sky, once more came thoughts of Night Gaze — of Ye Tong.

Ye Tong needed transformation; this much was certain. There was also another reason: her deliberate departure could serve to further disperse the pursuit forces the demonborn had previously deployed in their relentless hunt for Qianye.

“She’s fine. Everything is okay.” Qianye tried to reassure himself.

Even without reaching a princely transformation, at her present level she could escape from Lords, so long as none of the Demon Monarch’s forces intervened directly. Hardly anyone in her presence could capture her at all.

Yet however logical these reassurances were, they still failed fully to relieve his inner apprehension.

Centering himself again, Qianye silently immersed himself in deep cultivation.

In a moment, the primal power within a radius of several kilometers rippled in resonance; threadlike strands from the void, along with all kinds of useful or useless energies, responded collectively to his summons as he swallowed them all together into his inner chambers.

At this moment, Qianye drew power like a black abyss with bottomless hunger, absorbing whatever essence presented itself without ceasing.

Inside this man's inner realms, the Celestial Strategy Art, transformed through Zhang Buzhou’s own revisions, surged through him, creating titanic spirals across the expanse of the Void Realm and generating immense tractive force capable of continuously dragging original power from the void into the core of his body. Within this vortex, primal essence was shattered and refined continuously into the Primordial Dawn Flame.

Yet following the transformation brought about by the Azure Monarch, no matter how much essence the Celestial Strategy Art drew in, everything flowed directly into the Black Grimoire. Within those ancient pages, further refinement was then triggered by the old Song Dynasty scrolls.

The raw essence purified by the Celestial Strategy Art lacked refinement — quantity was its sole advantage. But once it flowed into the Black Grimoire, a far purer and loftier refinement emerged. At the same time, the ancient Song pages accelerated the final condensation, until it ultimately took shape as Dawn’s Herald. And no matter how great the quantity, it was always drawn at once into the Black Grimoire’s embrace.

By the time Qianye used it, that power had changed once more into Primordial Chaos Force.

In recent days, Qianye had devoted much study to this Primordial Chaos Force. He discovered that it could divide into two branches, becoming either Dawn’s Herald or dark-gold blood energy, while also remaining in its own pure Chaos state. It could drive either humanity’s secret arts or the arcane techniques of the vampire race with equal ease. Its effects, however, varied according to the unique alchemical properties the force assumed.

A direct example was Qianye’s original domain, once called Deep Sea Pressure. When transformed by Dawn’s Herald into Dawn Radiance, it gained blazing heat and a withering lethality especially effective against creatures of darkness.

But now, when powered by Chaos Force, that intense heat vanished, and in exchange the force of gravity became vastly more formidable. Even a few mere strands had burdened Pedro to such a degree that he could not withstand the pressure and had been forced to flee at once.

Another power it granted lay in the suppression of other domains. Previously, although Dawn Radiance was powerful, it could at best dominate dukes. When fighting someone like Pedro, whose strength approached that of a Lord, it still had to contest him head-on at the level of domain power.

Not to mention those who had already approached Lordship — even those whose upper limit was merely duke still possessed highly refined primal strength, falling only a single step below Dawn’s Herald, a gap that could barely be overcome by superior rank alone.

However, the moment Primordial Chaos Force emerged, it crushed Pedro’s domain as effortlessly as a gale scatters fallen leaves, swallowing it completely without effort. In terms of domain power alone, Qianye at such times was no longer inferior even to the mightier Lords.

The Black Grimoire, though one entity with twin aspects, could accept both the radiance of dawn and dark blood energy, converting them all alike into stored Chaos Force.

When one was wholly absorbed in cultivation, one often lost all sense of time. As night slipped toward morning, Qianye finally ceased the circulation of the Celestial Strategy Art. At a thought, a thin strand of Primordial Chaos Force flowed out from the Black Grimoire into his body, traveling through every organ and every sinew, beginning once more the restoration and reinforcement of his entire corporeal frame.

At present, the very foundation of Qianye’s physicality had nearly completed the tempering of his bones. Each individual bone now emitted a faint warm dark-gold glow, its structure unlike gemstone, metal, or jade — something wholly strange. With the skeletal tempering nearing perfection, what followed was the strengthening of blood vitality; now his focus had turned to nourishing and enlarging his blood cores. After further refinement, he would stand on the threshold of a full transformation into a glorious duke. It was merely a matter of time.

At present, as Primordial Chaos Force coursed through him, everything changed. Flesh, blood, and bone alike gradually lost the faint golden aura they had once possessed. The gleaming golden particles within his flame-gold blood sank into dormancy, replaced in their stead by drifting strands of pale gray primal essence, flowing freely without restraint from bodily structure.

The transformation proceeded like a silent spring rain. The changes came gradually and imperceptibly, without the slightest sound.

Feeling the changes within himself, Qianye noted that blood transformed by Chaos Force had become so solid in stillness that, when inactive, it resembled gemstone or jade. Of course, when the blood cores were activated, the blood would once more circulate freely.

As with the blood, so too with the body itself — his muscles and bones had risen to a degree of density beyond estimation, their structural integrity strengthened still further, surpassing any level Qianye could define or even name.

More than that, even the internal organs, previously difficult to temper, had likewise transformed into far denser states. Most notably, each of his organs was becoming increasingly condensed; any single one of them now already weighed dozens of kilograms, sustained only by the support of Chaos Force, which concealed the otherwise terrifying gravitational load. And this process had only just begun.

Such transformations brought the state of his internal organs close to that of a Lord of Eternal Night. True eternal lords no longer distinguished between inner and outer body; every part of them was uniform, with no weakness left anywhere.

Take Sasha, for example, who had shrugged off Qianye’s primal spear attacks as though they were nothing, even forcibly restraining the spear’s power within her body.

Once one reached such a state, even the most ancient bloodline secret arts passed down through the vampire race no longer offered any additional benefit.

In his current training, Qianye now focused exclusively on the Celestial Strategy Art as his foundational method. The vast Yunlu was sparsely inhabited, while wild primal energies roamed freely through the land. Fortunately, Qianye possessed the Black Grimoire, which functioned like an insatiable devourer, drinking everything indiscriminately. So long as it entered the Grimoire’s grasp, it would ultimately be transformed automatically into raw material fit for further refinement.

Precisely because of this, the Celestial Strategy Art’s brutal capacity for devouring essence had become the method best suited to Qianye’s cultivation. Its speed exceeded that of other arts by ten thousandfold — and this was no exaggeration. As for the burden caused by the Celestial Strategy Art, Qianye’s body, reconstructed through Primordial Chaos Force, could now bear it with absolutely no strain at all.

Having cultivated to such a state, Qianye gradually came to an insight: no doubt the ancient progenitors like the Grand Ancestor, or later martial forefathers who further developed the strategy arts, must also have possessed auxiliary methods of equally supreme caliber to aid in refining raw primal force into purified essence, methods surely able to rival the might of the ancient Song texts. It was only because Qianye already held the Black Grimoire in his hands that he had been spared the labor of those middle-stage purification steps, allowing his progress to surge ahead like thunder splitting the heavens.

Previously, Qianye had calculated that it would require at least one or two full lunar cycles merely to cross the gateway into duke transformation, with another equal span needed to strengthen his blood cores and stabilize the process. But now the entire matter had been compressed into a single month.

Compared to this, the traditional methods on the Eternal Night side, which relied entirely on refining blood essence, suddenly appeared slower by whole orders of magnitude. Fortunately, the dual nature of the Black Grimoire allowed Qianye to choose his cultivation direction from either the daylight path or the Eternal Night path; in the end, both would still result in the formation of Primordial Chaos Force.

Though Qianye was currently fleeing without respite while cultivating continuously, his strength still advanced with steady steps.

As his thoughts again and again turned to Ye Tong, to the bloodline houses, and to the endless pursuit sent by the demonborn faction, waves of violent killing intent rose and rooted themselves deep within him.

Without a word, he suddenly seized the Azure Blood Sword and slashed down across his hand. It felt like cutting through tough hide; only after moving the blade sideways twice did it finally break the flesh, leaving merely a shallow, narrow line of blood, from which a single crimson bead welled up.

The droplet of blood that emerged from his body immediately gathered itself into a compact sphere, becoming perfectly round and smooth in an instant.

Tilting his hand slightly, he let the drop fall onto the ground, where it struck the hard granite surface directly and at once smashed out a shallow pit, half embedding itself into the stone.

That single droplet of blood was denser than molten steel or mercury alike.

Rubbing gently over the surface of his hand, his fingers found his skin soft and smooth as silk. Without actually testing it against the Azure Blood Sword, who would ever believe such astonishing defense could exist beneath so tender a surface?

In truth, his skin and flesh now offered better protection than the armor he currently wore. And the Azure Blood Sword had once been the weapon borne by Howard, the Dark Apostle. Its sharpness needed no further discussion; it far surpassed even East Peak, itself already a legendary blade.

If even this famed steel had difficulty cutting his skin, then his physique had clearly already entered an astonishing realm of strength. And this transformation by Primordial Chaos Force was still far from complete; once he had fully transformed within and without, even ancient vampire constitutions would pale in comparison.

Upon such a bedrock of power, almost no secret art in existence would remain beyond his reach, and he could wield any battle technique with complete abandon — though such power was best displayed on the battlefield.

In the past, when facing experts of the demonborn, he had already favored the brutal style of trading blow for blow in close combat.

But if his transformation continued to progress in this fashion, then when the experts of the Night Council finally arrived, he would surely present them with a surprise far beyond anything they expected.