Monarch of Evernight Volume 5 – A Distance Within Reach - Chapter 414: The Shot of Inception

The odd beast pushed the tree trunk away with its head and immediately leapt back up, but it could no longer stand firm. Qianye grasped this opportunity to charge forth and deliver a fierce stab to the beast’s vitals in the neck.
These chaotic entities looked like known animals on the surface, but they had been warped and transformed in many areas. It was difficult to say which part was vital, but it made no difference before the vampiric blade since it could drain the creature of its essence blood no matter where it entered from. It happened to be their nemesis.
Scalding vitality once again poured in through the Scarlet Edge and almost half-filled Qianye’s body before it was refined within the Mystery chapter vortex into darkness origin power.
This calf-sized odd beast possessed as much blood as a dark baron. The comfortable warmth flowed upward from Qianye’s palm and swiftly coursed through his veins. In the blink of an eye, he had absorbed over half of the beast’s essence blood.
At this point, Qianye glanced up at the sky from whence came the flying tree trunk and saw the Nangong champion fighting an intense battle with the giant beast. Trees were being broken and toppled one after another amidst shocking explosions—countless branches were shooting out like arrows in every direction.
If not for the battle therein shedding light on the giant beast’s power, Qianye would have submitted to his urge to clean up all the mature chaotic beasts here before leaving. Their blood might be highly toxic to other people, but they were like walking storehouses of energy to Qianye who cultivated the Mystery chapter.
It was at this time that an odd beast whizzed over. Qianye reacted by lowering his body, allowing it to shoot overhead—the beast couldn’t control its momentum and crashed into a big tree. With a loud boom, that tree trunk, as thick as a mammoth’s leg, was broken through the middle and gradually fell down.
After evading a series of pounces, Qianye chose a weaker beast and pierced through it at lightning speed. In this manner, Qianye continued his fierce battle with odd beasts of various shapes and sizes, all the while paying attention to the situation on Nangong Jiancheng’s side.
In contrast to Qianye’s one-sided slaughter, Nangong Jiancheng was fighting a world-shaking battle. His aura actually rose little by little until it had broken through to the thirteenth rank—apparently, he had paid a steep price to activate a secret art at the juncture of life and death.
Rank thirteen was the widely-accepted watershed known to attract the attention of Sky Demon’s avatar, but there seemed to be no abnormal developments even after such a long battle. This forest was indeed odd.
Nangong Jiancheng’s movements were lightning fast. His figure had almost turned into a blur as he roamed continuously around the giant beast, leaving only beams of circular radiance. While dodging the beast, he rained down a frantic torrent of attacks upon its massive body.
The colossal beast had produced several tentacles from its body, each dozens of meters long and as thick as a bucket. These fleshy tentacles possessed inexhaustible power as they chased after Nangong Jiancheng and would leave a giant hole on the ground every time they smashed down. It would occasionally uproot trees and use them as weapons to swat at the champion.
Nangong Jiancheng suddenly stood still in the air and, retrieving the rifle from his back, fired off three continuous shots. The bullets landed on the giant beast’s neck and opened up a big hole therein. Immediately afterward, he produced two origin grenades and hurled them into the defect with incomparable accuracy, causing half of the colossal beast’s brain to vanish with an earth-shattering explosion.
Nangong Jiancheng had just breathed a sigh of relief when a meat tentacle whipped him several dozen meters away. There, he fell staggering to the ground and immediately spurted out a mouthful of fresh blood.
A frightening scene ensued. The flesh around the giant beast’s wounds started wriggling and growing back. A dense patch of countless tiny tentacles squirmed about as a new head grew out at a visible rate. It was just that the newly grown part was completely different from before. The giant beast had regenerated completely in the blink of an eye and proceeded to pounce toward Nangong Jiancheng.
Nangong Jiancheng was overwhelmed. He quickly switched to his sword and shot out several meters of sword radiance. At this point, he could no longer care about Sky Demon’s threat and was going all out. Every sword strike would leave large wounds on the beast’s massive body that were several meters long and almost one meter deep. But the beast also boasted extremely terrifying regenerative abilities; these injuries would heal and disappear in the blink of an eye.
Qianye drew in a breath of cold air as his heart was overcome with the urge to flee. Soon, another doubt surfaced in his mind. Nangong Jiancheng was clearly not the giant beast’s match. Why hadn’t he escaped? The man had communicated with the will of the Iron Curtain, and the Black Forest’s interference on his senses was fairly weak. Meanwhile, the lumbering beast was quite slow; it wasn’t impossible to escape.
Qianye was only bothering to deal with these little beasts in order to absorb essence blood and recover. He also felt that the giant beast wasn’t very fast and that he could flee quite easily if things had gone south.
However, Nangong Jiancheng was frantically attacking the giant beast like a fool and seemed to have no intention of running away.
Qianye felt something wasn’t quite right because, judging from how Nangong Jiancheng was going all out, it was only a matter of time before he fell in battle. He finally decided to listen to his own intuition and turned to run without trying to kill more beasts.
Those beasts could do nothing to stop Qianye since he was determined to run away. Presently, his body was full of rolling blood energy after having entered a state of blood boil. For a short period, his strength had even surpassed his peak state.
Qianye chose a direction opposite from the gigantic beast and began breaking through the encirclement. He evaded the chaotic entities as much as he could but simply crashed through the others with his body and sent them flying.
Qianye was by no means inferior to these odd beasts in terms of strength.
Qianye ran over a thousand meters in one sprint before slowing down his pace. He was just planning to glance back at the battle situation in the distance when the environs suddenly turned dark. It was unknown when his body had been engulfed by surging black mist, but it felt like a mountain peak was pressing down on him from above—he immediately found it difficult to advance and even walking had become tedious, to speak nothing of running.
A screen of light had arisen not too far in front of him and separated the world into two—outside was the Black Forest, and inside was another realm. Qianye felt the pressure increase as he approached the screen.
“A domain!” Qianye was stunned. He had never expected the giant beast to actually have a domain and such a big one at that!
The domain’s function was fairly specific—that was to add weight and block passage by means of the light screen. It was precisely because it only had a single function that the domain was all the more powerful. Qianye felt as though he had fallen into a swamp, and every step took twice the effort compared to the last. It would be quite difficult to even reach the light screen, let alone break it and escape.
He now understood why Nangong Jiancheng didn’t run away. Apparently, he had already tried but had failed to escape the giant beast’s hunting domain. He could only remain and go all out.
A miserable, drawn-out cry was heard from afar; it was Nangong Jiancheng’s voice. This Nangong family expert was finally no match for the enemy and had met his end in the colossal beast’s mouth.
Soon afterward, the earth shook as the giant beast moved its enormous body with great effort and lumbered toward Qianye. However, the light screen in front was completely still—this meant that the hunting domain didn’t move along with it. Qianye took a couple of steps back and felt the pressure lessen significantly. It was already negligible by the time he was over a hundred meters from the light screen.
Qianye silently grasped the Scarlet Edge in hand and waited in place for the giant beast to arrive. At the same time, he was analyzing its weak points.
He could contend with the beast at the center of the domain since Qianye had the speed advantage. However, the beast possessed a massive build and every step would take it over ten meters in distance. Add to that the ten-meter long tentacles, its zone of control was fairly wide. Moreover, the damage he could produce from a distance while roaming would be limited. Meanwhile, the beast boasted extremely terrifying regenerative capabilities and was almost impossible to kill since it could restore itself in the blink of an eye.
Qianye, at this moment, was only three parts recovered from his injuries. He was only able to exert near-normal strength because of the blood boil following his absorption of large amounts of essence blood.
At this moment, the giant beast that had appeared before Qianye was already different from when it first appeared. It was like a mountain of flesh covered in meaty tentacles and eyes of various sizes growing on his limbs. Nangong Jiancheng had left countless wounds on the monster who had then regenerated rapidly and without order, eventually resulting in the form in front of Qianye.
This was the most headache-inducing thing about a chaotic entity. There was simply no telling where its vitals were. This made dealing with massive bodies prohibitively more difficult.
The giant beast’s movements were indeed sluggish, and it took several minutes before it managed to heave itself over to Qianye. It then lowered its body and extended a number of bucket-sized tentacles with several eyes and nostrils on them. It observed Qianye before sniffing him hard as though checking if this food would be tasty.
An idea emerged in Qianye’s mind. He retracted his aura with his Bloodline Concealment ability and stood perfectly still. The chaotic entity’s standard of measurement was the exuberance of one’s vitality and the intensity of his origin power. At this moment, Qianye had pulled back his aura and appeared to be a piece of dead meat in the monster’s eyes, not much stronger than a rock.
However, the monster still opened its mouth after a moment of hesitation. It stretched out a tongue that was tens of meters long and lined with sharp teeth in order to sweep Qianye in. It would seem that the beast was determined to add a dish to its table no matter how tasteless it was.
Qianye let out a sigh as he realized he could no longer get past by a fluke. Out of ammunition and food, the only card he had left to play was—the Wings of Inception!
The moment this notion emerged in Qianye’s heart, the pair of tiny wings unfurled, and that mature golden feather erupted with brilliant light.
Qianye had no idea how to activate the Wings of Inception, but the golden radiance slowly crept into his surging vessels and shrouded his internal world with its characteristic hue. He seemed to have reached an instinctive enlightenment as he closed his hands together with the index and middle fingers extended toward the giant beast like a gun.
The colossal beast’s numerous mouths let loose a thunderous roar as though they had sensed danger. All its fleshy tentacles sprung to life and smashed down upon Qianye. At the same time, several openings of various shapes and sizes opened up on its body, from which torrents of incomparably odorous fluids rained down upon Qianye. Unexpectedly, the giant beast was going all out.
However, a pair of radiant wings unfurled behind Qianye whose body was now overflowing with golden brilliance. A thin beam of light shot out from his fingertips and pierced through the chaotic giant colossus in the blink of an eye. It continued shooting toward the distant firmament and finally disappeared to god knows where.
The heaven and earth suddenly turned still.
This shot, fired at this very moment with Qianye’s own body as the gun, was, in fact, the first true shot from the Wings of Inception!
The radiant wings started to disperse after the shot was fired and left Qianye’s entire being on the verge of collapse. He had no strength left to stand, and his weak knees could no longer keep him from falling to the ground.
Qianye felt dizzy and only wished he could fall asleep. However, he forced himself to raise his head and stared fixedly at the giant beast. His heart couldn’t help but sink as he observed the small, fist-sized hole with his swaying vision. With the monster’s regenerative capabilities, that small hole would very soon be restored to its former smoothness despite piercing all the way through.
The beast stood frozen as though nothing had happened, and even its raised tentacles remained petrified in the air—it was as though time had stagnated therein. Only the many eyes on its body were turning about continuously, revealing extremely terrifying gazes.
The little hole on its body didn’t recover. Instead, the wound edges became as smooth as a mirror as it transformed into a substance akin to colored glass crystals. It then cracked and shattered into countless pieces which fluttered about in the air before vanishing into nothingness.
Soon afterward, the beast’s flesh and blood started turning to ash. The wound on its body was expanding rapidly, growing from the size of a fist to that of a bucket, then into a large hole several meters in radius. Moreover, its destroyed flesh failed to grow back out—it would seem the giant beast’s terrifying regenerative abilities had been rendered ineffective.
This was the true might of the Wings of Inception.