Monarch of Evernight - Chapter 591

Chapter 591

Chapter 591: A Difficult Opening [V6C121 – Sorrow of a Silent Parting]

“That’s not the type of fate I want . ” Zhang Boqian flicked the jade seal with a raise of his hand, causing it to fly up and land in Lin Xitang’s grasp .

“Boqian!”

“You’re in such a rush to consolidate power, as if you’re worrying there isn’t enough time . But even the war of national fate won’t last ten years . What exactly are you planning?”

Lin Xitang was startled .

Zhang Boqian didn’t wait for him to reply . “What you really want to control isn’t the imperial army but the void continent, right? But this time, I won’t let you have your way . ” With that, he left in large strides .

Lin Xitang remained in place . Finally, there was a slight shift in his expression .

Over half an hour later, Zhang Boqian was back in his room, reading through the latest reports . He walked over to the map of the floating continent and pondered for a long while . Both the military and Zhang clan’s military intelligence proved that the empire’s situation on the void continent wasn’t looking great .

The Evernight council had reacted swiftly after taking a number of major losses at Giant’s Repose and poured in large forces . Meanwhile, the empire would need to do a lot of adjustments before they could muster more reinforcements .

A personal guard entered after knocking and delivered a metal box that had been sealed shut . “News from the Black Market . ”

Zhang Boqian nodded in response and waited until the guard had left before tearing the box open . Inside was a translucent piece of circular crystal . Crystal media were commonly used by the dark races, but then again, forbidden life-prolonging arts were mostly from the Evernight faction .

Zhang Boqian instilled a wisp of void origin power into it . A drop of fresh blood slowly condensed upon the surface of the crystal and quickly transformed into a black flame—the blaze surprisingly contained the aura of the Sperger clan’s current lord . It was interesting how an unassuming reward he had instructed his men to post on the black market had actually received such a valuable response .

His brows trembled ever so slightly as he recalled the spiritual mending Habsburg had mentioned in the Eye of the Storm . It would seem he wasn’t speaking without prior thought . This vampire prince was probably not as low-key as he seemed on the surface . His antennae seemed to stretch quite far into human territory . What then were his intentions in revealing his strength?

The projection gradually vanished, and the crystal soon regained its lustrous clarity . Zhang Boqian pinched the crystal and instilled a drop of daybreak origin power into it . The crystal shattered to formed a prismatic bubble, and at the same time, a piece of hidden information shot out .

That was a consciousness from Prince Habsburg himself . “Lin Qianye is still alive . ”

The void continent, tens of thousands of kilometers away .  

Qianye had no idea that he had become the focus of attention for those near and far . Gazing at the map of the void landmass and studying the latest battle situations, he was overcome by the feeling that the empire’s situation wasn’t great .

Desert Valley was adjacent to the dark race’s Crimson Fjord . Now they were amassing a large force in order to push the Bai clan out of Desert Valley for good and link their two warzones together .

The two zones were also connected to the Misty Wood, but Qianye wasn’t willing to explore the Crimson Fjord without concrete information on enemy activity . It would be bad if he were to run into an Evernight expert .

Qianye’s gaze fell upon an area to the west of the Crimson Fjord . There was a giant lake there, named Blacklight Lake by the empire . The body of water stretched hundreds of kilometers and was practically an inland sea . The area around it was the Blacklight warzone .

This Blacklight warzone was the Zhang clan’s garrison . Locations closer to the Crimson Fjord were naturally more dangerous . As the number one clan of the empire, the Zhang clan’s boldness was extraordinary . They immediately picked Blacklight warzone and proceeded to monitor the Evernight faction’s activities from there .

Although the Crimson Fjord was currently occupied by the Evernight faction, it was also included in the distribution of imperial warzones . The place was personally headed by the Imperial Court, a testament to its determination to take down the place .

The empire’s initial plan to force the dark races into a single warzone appeared optimistic overall . But the quick fall of Desert Valley allowed Qianye to realize that the war might even be more arduous than he had imagined .

Qianye operated in the Misty Wood during the several days that followed, killing three dark race scouting parties . But even adding all of that was merely equal to two barons—it could be said that his harvest was quite poor .

Half a month passed by with nothing much to do . Qianye decided to head back to the Li clan base to report in . On the other hand, he could also withdraw his salary and supplies .

The Li clan base had completely transformed when he arrived . The entire camp was now surrounded by a ten-meter wall with cannon turrets erected every hundred or so meters . The two giant towers behind the camp surprised Qianye even more . The Li clan had actually constructed two kinetic towers of the city-grade .

Now, this was a steep investment . It also proved their determination to claim this territory for the clan .

Qianye proved his identity at the gates and entered .

This base was built to accommodate five regular divisions, a total of 75,000 soldiers . It was more or less a small city . There were several areas in the base where the construction work was still ongoing . At a glance, however, the armories, defensive structures, vehicle plant, and airship port all seemed fairly lofty .

Qianye stopped beside a map erected near the main road and noticed that the entire base was well-organized and designed as a military fortress . He quietly memorized the locations of some open facilities before heading straight for the briefing tent at the side of the camp .

This was where the Li clan issued intelligence, missions, and rewards . Beside the briefing tent was the armory which had been stocked with mountains of resources . Most of the rewards could be withdrawn directly from this warehouse, but it went without saying that the most premium items weren’t stored here . Those would need to be shipped over from the main continent .

There were several large halls in front of the briefing tent, corresponding to different levels of experts . Qianye walked past the two tents for sub-champion level hunters and entered the third one .

This mission hall was much smaller than the other two, but the decoration was more lavish . There was a small bar at a corner of the tent, served by peerless beauties . The drinking men therein could hardly move their eyes away from those lightly swaying hips . From time to time, someone would stuff some coins into the ladies’ bosoms or grab them gently from behind .

Qianye only scanned the bar briefly before walking further into the hall . The place was separated into many small rooms which offered excellent privacy .

Qianye walked into one of the empty rooms . The decoration inside was simple and graceful . Behind the desk across from Qianye sat a female officer in the prime of her life, her customized uniform bringing out the best of her figure .

Her eyes lit up as Qianye entered . She stood up to lead Qianye to his seat and asked, “How can I be of service to you?”

Qianye placed his identity tablet on the table . “I’m Qianye, here to submit contributions and check for new intelligence . ”

The officer’s eyes grew even brighter after seeing a general’s golden sword insignia . She stood up and fished out a small booklet from the shelf behind her . She then leaned toward Qianye and said in a gentle voice, “This is the latest battle report, one of the highest level . You can read it here but you can’t take it away . ”

The words were spoken very slowly, and from Qianye’s angle, he could already see the entirety of her chest . Despite having seen many beauties, Qianye couldn’t help but secretly praise her fiery figure—only Nangong Xiaoniao might be able to surpass her .

Qianye only smiled faintly in the face of this obvious hint and picked up the intelligence booklet . In the past, he wouldn’t have minded a casual romance to wipe away the fatigue of a long battle . But now, Qianye only had Nighteye in his heart—that lady who was quietly waiting for him to return home .

The female officer wasn’t discouraged at the lack of response and simply sat back with a dignified attitude . Apparently, she was looking to take Qianye down by playing hot and cold .

Qianye seemed completely oblivious to the female officer’s fighting spirit as he scanned the report . His expression turned serious after flipping through a few pages .

The battle in the void had been growing in cruelty and intensity as the Evernight Council dispatched their fleets continuously . Connecting all of the battle reports together, one could see that the imperial fleet had somehow lost their initiative and had been forced to consolidate their troops for a showdown against the Evernight main fleet .

Such battles had broken out dozens of times during this half-month period and both sides had suffered losses . The empire was holding the overall advantage, but the shocking death toll proved that it was a close victory at best .

At this moment, the empire’s primary airship fleet was already struggling to handle the enemy assaults . They simply couldn’t spare the forces to deal with enemy landing parties . That was also the reason why the two landing squads that had appeared in Desert Valley were completely intact .

It was just that the imperial airship fleet’s loss of control in the void had caused the ground battles to become incomparably difficult .

The Bai clan suffered the brunt of the impact . They hadn’t even gained a stable foothold when they were uprooted by overwhelming enemy forces . The damage wasn’t limited to the fortress in which Qianye had fought—the other forward base in the warzone didn’t last long, either . Presently, the Bai clan had completely withdrawn from the Desert Valley .

The neighboring Blacklight Lake didn’t have it easy, either . Three landing squads had arrived there in the recent period . Add to that the tens of thousands of soldiers dispatched from Crimson Fjord, the enemy forces in Blacklight Warzone now numbered fifty thousand .

The Zhang clan was powerful, but even they had already suffered tens of thousands in casualty since the beginning of these arduous battles . As expected of the empire’s number one clan, they were able to hold out fearlessly in the face of an enemy force several times stronger .

However, the Evernight Council had mobilized a force far exceeding everyone’s expectations—even the Zhang clan might lose Blacklight Warzone if a fundamental reversal didn’t come soon .

Qianye’s expression grew even more serious as he flipped on . The overall report was that the empire was being suppressed in half of the territories they had initially occupied, and the Evernight side’s reinforcements were showing no signs of stopping . At this point, the scale of dark race forces on the void continent was fairly close to the empire’s .

Even Qianye knew that the empire would need at least a month of mobilization and logistic preparation in order to provide more reinforcements—and that was on the premise that there were soldiers left to send without affecting mainland defense .