In a serene courtyard in the outskirts of the capital, a figure in blue clothing was engaged in swordplay. Her movements were carefree but precise, delivering lethal blows without the slightest of extra movement. It was just that her somewhat swollen body didn’t quite match her killing moves.

Empress Li’s voice rang out from the side, “Still practicing the sword in your condition?”

The sword wielder was Li Kuanglan. She returned the blade to its sheath after hearing those words and said, “I feel uncomfortable if I don’t move about a bit.”

Empress Li sat down on one of the stone chairs and ordered the maid to prepare tea and refreshments. “Come and try some, I made these myself. The ingredients are all quite rare.”

Rather indifferent, Li Kuanglan walked over in large strides and stuffed a piece in her mouth without even taking her seat. She was just about to swallow it in one go when her expression transformed into an interesting state.

Empress Li chuckled. “How does it taste?”

Li Kuanglan raised her head and swallowed hard. “That tasted so bad!”

Empress Li said, “This isn’t so bad, considering I’ve never cooked my entire life. The maids who tried them out said they taste good.”

Li Kuanglan said, “They’ll probably die if they eat these pastries. How can they even comment on the taste?”

Empress Li’s smile remained unchanged. “This is a new formula, so someone has to try out the effects before I can give it to you. This medicine is highly beneficial to you, but you can only eat it once. I had to grasp the best ratio for this rare opportunity, and of course, a few of them had to die trying the product. If they don’t die or die too slow, that means the medicine isn’t strong enough.”

At this point, Empress Li glanced at the maids nearby. “You may withdraw.”

The maids looked pale, yet none of them dared to even breathe hard. The Empress’ words sounded like an amnesty in their ears as they scattered off in all directions.

Empress Li glanced at Li Kuanglan’s abdomen. “How long?”

The latter said after a while, “Probably this month.”

“This kid’s talents are so great that it has become a bit of a headache. Nothing regular works on him. It’s lucky that I managed to find some secret medicines from the national treasury that will benefit both you and the child. Eat all of these pastries.”

Li Kuanglan picked up a piece and swallowed it after chewing briefly.

“You need to chew carefully for maximal medicinal effect,” Empress Li reminded.

Li Kuanglan’s expression turned rather unsightly, but she began chewing little by little before ingesting the food. Looking at the pastries remaining on the plate, her face couldn’t help but turn green.

Empress Li chuckled. “You can swallow them, I’m just kidding.”

Li Kuanglan couldn’t even spare the effort to argue with the Empress. She immediately picked up the plate and stuffed all of the pastries into her mouth, swallowing hard afterward.

“These pastries don’t taste all that great, but you have to eat it all for the child. You won’t dare offend me even if you have your doubts.”

Li Kuanglan snorted but made no reply.

“So, stop struggling. Everything I do is for you.”

Stroking her belly, Li Kuanglan said coldly, “I acquiesced to even something like this. What else do you want for me? Sleep with more men? Even if you do, it’ll have to be after I give birth.”

Empress Li paid no attention to her angry sarcasm. “There’s something you need to do right now.”

“I knew it. What is it?”

“Qianye has been pioneering new land on Fort Continent these days. Go meet him after you give birth, best let him see the child as well.”

Li Kuanglan raised her voice with an angry expression. “Impossible!”

Empress Li patted her hand. “You two already have a child, why are you afraid?”

Li Kuanglan fell into a rare state of panic. “No, this is not the same. He still doesn’t know about it, and I don’t want him to know about it, ever! What do I tell him when I see him?”

“The child needs a father.”

“In short, this is impossible!”

Empress Li wasn’t angry at all. “You know my style. I will not sit by and watch Qianye get drawn into the Evernight Faction. If you’re not willing, then don’t blame me for using extreme measures.”

“What are you planning!?”

“There’s no need for me to use these methods if you listen to me. As such, you don’t need to know them, do you?”

Li Kuanglan slowly calmed down. “You will destroy my martial path like this.”

“To the Empire, Qianye’s position is more important than your martial path.”

“Leave, I don’t want to see you or hear these things. At least, not until the child is born.”

“Then I shall return after he is born, but I’m not so sure if I can wait that long.”

Empress Li stood up and walked over to the gates, where she turned back and said, “No matter how rare of a talent Qianye is, he still cannot reach a level where he can go toe-to-toe with a heavenly monarch. Besides, his gift still isn’t at that level yet.”

After Empress Li left, Li Kuanglan suddenly grabbed her sword. The grasp was so forceful that even her joints had turned green, but ultimately, she loosened her hand with a sigh.

…

In the new world. Qianye slowly opened his eyes, within which countless runes could be seen pulsing in and out of existence. He hadn’t expected that an opportunity to breakthrough would arise the moment he re-entered the new world. Hence, he immediately went into isolated cultivation to refine essence blood and supplement his blood energy.

The process went fairly smooth since he had broken through to the vice-duke rank back at Whitetown. Later on, Prince Greensun had used a peerless method to strike him back down to the marquis realm. It was only natural that he would break through after sufficient accumulation.

Although he was just a vice duke, there was a great difference between the duke and marquis realms. Qianye's bones were being remodeled by the blood energy, adding specs of dark golden color to them. The reformed areas were extremely firm, much more so than high-density alloys. He even suspected that his skeleton would slowly become top-grade material for making weapons.

What he didn’t quite expect was that he could still communicate with the River of Blood in the new world. Although he didn’t experience a bloodline resonance like before, it still brought him great benefits. Not only did it bring him large amounts of pure dark golden blood energy, but he also obtained numerous ancient inheritances and knowledge.

Qianye stretched out his hands, and a pair of dark golden gloves appeared to his will. He moved his fingers about and found that the gloves felt quite real. If they weren’t condensed from his own blood energy, he would easily have mistaken them for a pair of armored-gloves.

He performed a grabbing motion through the air and a giant, blood-colored sword appeared in his grasp. A casual swing of this weapon slashed the steel table in front of him into two.

These sanguine armaments were gifts from the River of Blood. As long as there was enough blood energy, he would be able to summon all kinds of unique weapons. Neither the Whitebone Duke nor Storm Duke had used such a technique before. This was perhaps a skill unique to vampires, a boon from the River of Blood to the ancient vampires.

Sensing something, Qianye walked out of the room and onto the terrace. From here, he could oversee the entire base and the door was right behind him.

Within the base, close to a hundred thousand werewolves were kneeling in prayer at a shaman’s lead. That familiar energy once again fell into Qianye’s body, optimizing his bloodline at its core.

Qianye had asked the great shaman before and understood that this was one of their oldest holy rites. It was used to express their devotion to the ancestors or some supreme being.

It sounded as though this kind of ceremony did little except for appearances, but Qianye could feel a very real yet mysterious power both times. This energy was different from origin power, and he couldn’t quite tell what it was or where it was from. Qianye had never read about it anywhere, either.

He asked the great shaman several times but could only give up since the old wolf couldn’t tell him much.

For some reason, the werewolves of the entire base were engaging in the rite once again.

The holy ceremony couldn’t be disturbed, so Qianye could only wait while enjoying the baptism. After the prayer was over, Qianye summoned one of the shamans and asked about what was going on.

The shaman said, “When you were cultivating just now, all of us shamans sensed the darkness origins calling out to you. We had to stop and pray in the face of such a divine sign.”

Qianye nodded and soon sent the shaman away.

These primitive shamans were indeed sharp with their senses, but unfortunately, what Qianye had stirred just now was the River of Blood and not the darkness origins.

The river was indeed similar to the darkness origins to a certain extent. It was possible that most people would simply perceive it as a stronger source of power in the darkness system, but to an expert at Qianye’s level, the River of Blood was the River of Blood. It was fundamentally different from the darkness origins.

Of course, Qianye wasn’t about to explain the difference to these werewolves.

After some rest, Qianye set out for the forward base outside of the forest with three holy trees. From there, he would explore deeper into the new world. The forward base had already been completed, and it was big enough to accommodate a permanent garrison of fifty thousand troops. Qianye also paid a steep price to raise a kinetic tower here—it would serve as the energy source for the base’s ten cannon turrets!

Such firepower could be considered crazy!

Not long after he had set out, Qianye came upon a forest that stretched across an entire valley. He didn’t enter recklessly since he could already sense great danger at its borders. Equipped with ample experience attacking forests, Qianye already understood their general layout. Normally, the bigger the forest, the more holy trees there were at the center, and the stronger the six-armed commander.

Judging from the size, this forest had to have at least four holy trees inside and the six-armed giant within was probably at the duke-rank. After a while of observation, Qianye approached the forest, caught a lone beast, and drenched himself in its blood.

The initial results of the Empire’s study had revealed that these creatures possessed a highly developed sense of smell. Bloodline Concealment could only hide his aura and not change his scent, but he could trick the creatures for a while by using their blood. It was enough if he could buy just a bit of time.

After entering the forest, the first thing Qianye did was to move perpendicularly for a while. He then used the fluctuation from the holy trees to calculate where the heart of the forest was and began moving toward it.

The deeper he went, the more beasts he encountered. Qianye carefully avoided the patrol squads, but as he closed in on the center of the forest, the creatures became so dense that they covered the entire field of vision. This meant that there was no more room for evasion.

Seeing that it was no longer possible to go deeper in, Qianye simply unleashed his origin flames. The entire forest boiled over in the blink of an eye. There were so many of them that Qianye felt his scalp go numb!