Qianye’s gaze landed on the four Secret Sword Emissaries. “Interesting.”

That emissary from just now had exploded with extreme force, almost comparable to an attack from a grand duke. Moreover, the direction of that explosion was fairly targeted. He had managed to direct most of the impact onto Qianye with that mouthful of demonic energy.

And the effects were not limited to that alone! The man had used this explosion to alert his comrades and send an unknown message into the void. Qianye guessed that the message would contain the man’s last scene before committing suicide.

Qianye came to understand what kind of existence the Secret Sword Emissaries were. This was a suicide squad that cared nothing about survival or the methods they used, so much so that they would even utilize self-detonation to kill the enemy. Such a method would definitely be able to injure experts many levels above them.

The four experts surrounding Qianye weren’t all demonkin; there was even a vampire among them. “You’re a vampire, are you going to try and kill me?”

That Secret Sword Emissary’s face was hidden beneath a hood, but his eyes were cold and emotionless. “The moment we became Secret Sword Emissaries, we’ve given our entire lives to the Evernight Council.”

“I see.” Qianye paid him no more attention.

A demonkin said, “Sire Qianye, please return with us to meet the Demon King.”

“Do you think it’s possible?” Qianye sneered.

That Secret Sword Emissary sighed. “Then there’s nothing left to say. Sire, this place will be where you fall.”

“With just the four of you?”

“We might not be enough, but more of us will arrive soon. Besides, four emissaries are enough to kill a grand duke.”

Qianye laughed coldly as he formed a fist with one hand. This simple movement actually caused the air around his palm to explode.

The Secret Sword Emissary’s brows jumped. “T-This strength! No, don’t let him attack…”

However, Qianye was already in front of him before he had even finished speaking.

The leader’s demonic energy surged rapidly, but he blacked out before he could detonate or even spit out the demonic energy. The mountainous pressure crushed him thoroughly soon afterward.

The two Secret Sword Emissaries were just halfway through their attack when they saw their leader blasted apart. Shocked, they each spat out a mouthful of demonic energy before an azure flash filled their vision and their bodies were split into two.

Only the vampire behind Qianye managed to self-detonate. The raging flood of origin power slammed ruthlessly onto the latter. That emissary never saw that the attack he had launched with his life had only left some shallow wounds on the target.

Qianye took a deep breath and circulated his origin power. Soon, the wound on his back had vanished completely.

Qianye had flung the little girl away when the Secret Sword Emissaries appeared. The combat had progressed so quickly that she only managed to return just now.

“What do we do now?” she asked while searching the corpse parts for spoils.

Qianye picked up the little money-grubber and pointed in a direction. “Charge with me?”

“Are we fighting?!” The little girl was excited. She put on Basil’s golden helmet and equipped herself with the shield.

“Protect yourself well.” Qianye’s figure flickered into the distance before he had even finished speaking.

“Wait for me!” Little Zhuji jumped up and followed suit.

After the duo vanished from the forest, space began to warp as eight Secret Sword Emissaries appeared. Moreover, the space in the area was still fluctuating constantly—it would seem more of them were rushing over.

What greeted them was the scene of an empty battlefield, with the corpses of three emissaries lying on the ground. Three corpses wasn’t an apt description since the one facing Qianye head-on had been pulverized into a sanguine mist, leaving only his legs behind.

“He can’t have gone far, search!” the leader shouted.

It was at this moment that a series of earth-shattering explosions rang out from the distant forest and swathes of ancient trees toppled over from the impact. The Secret Sword Emissaries at the scene immediately blurred out and appeared at the new battleground.

They had just stepped out of the void when layer after layer of sword radiance descended upon them.

The emissaries had no time to contemplate why Qianye could still retaliate after suffering from several self-detonations. All they could do now was give it their all to block the incoming attack.

The world became hazy after the sword radiance receded. Wisps of grey energy drifted about in the air, latching onto the emissaries who were preparing to counterattack. Their movements immediately became sluggish, as though several tons of weight had been added to their bodies.

Only at this point did Qianye’s figure become clear. He activated his chaos domain once more, producing even more grey energy to assail the emissaries. With each additional wisp of grey energy, the Secret Sword Emissaries would stagger and slow down.

Countless threads of blood energy shot out from Qianye’s body and pierced through the bodies of half a dozen emissaries! By the time the sanguine threads were drawn back, only a withered husk was left of these experts. All of their essence blood had been plundered.

The remainder managed to survive Life Plunder, but they were more or less in a miserable state. Many of them chose to self-detonate decisively while they still had the opportunity. Four torrents of origin power blasted Qianye’s body in an instant.

As the dust and smoke scattered, five more Secret Sword Emissaries appeared. They glanced at the battlefield in a surprised daze.

Qianye was bathed in blood with numerous injuries all over his body. He had taken eight suicidal blasts from the emissaries, so there was no way to avoid some damage.

The strongest in this group slowly removed his mask. “I’m number three.”

“So where’s one and two? Tell them to come out.”

“They’re… probably dead already.”

Qianye raised his brows. “Is that so? Too bad, I thought you guys were all the same.”

Number three didn’t know what to say. The Secret Sword Emissaries could sense one another—as one of the three most powerful commanding officers, he naturally understood how many of his comrades had already fallen. What pained him was that less than half of them had managed to self-detonate.

Number three glared at Qianye, saying, “You’re actually… that powerful. So many of my comrades never even managed to commit suicide.”

“You shouldn’t have come looking for me.”

Number three said, “Indeed, you’re exactly the type of enemy we don’t want to meet, but our sacrifice is not in vain. You will fall here today!”

He grew increasingly excited as he went on. Qianye felt a bit speechless as he pointed at the remaining Secret Sword Emissaries. “You guys have no more men, do you? If not, your numbers will vanish from the Evernight Council from now on.”

The essence blood Qianye had absorbed with Life Plunder had been absorbed by the Book of Darkness and converted to chaos origin power. This outflow of origin power healed his physical injuries at a visible rate. His figure became blurry, ready to use Spatial Flash any moment.

Qianye had already learned what these madmen were capable of. Until his chaos domain was at a higher level, he would have to flee if a second group were to appear. He also wasn’t too sure if he could lose these emissaries even with Spatial Flash.

Even at his current strength, Qianye wasn’t willing to get blasted again.

Seeing Qianye’s rapid recovery, number three could hardly suppress his shock. At the same time, he complained hatefully, “Our intelligence is inaccurate! Your actual fighting power is far beyond an ordinary grand duke. We shouldn’t have been deployed for this battle.”

“You should tell that to the Demon King.”

Number three’s expression stiffened up before he could reply. He looked down at his chest, where a black feather had just entered. All signs of life vanished from his body—his expression was full of clear dissatisfaction, but he couldn’t say anything.

Qianye said slowly, “I don’t want to take another explosion from a marquis. So, rest well.”

The other four Secret Sword Emissaries didn’t move at all as number three fell down, all of them looking at Qianye as though he were a dead man.

Qianye frowned ever so slightly. There were only four of them left, so he wouldn’t die even if they were to self-detonate at the same time.

It was at this moment that the void raged and churned. A massive figure slowly emerged from the void, accompanied by boundless might. He was three times taller than Qianye and several times bigger in girth.

He bent down and said with a voice that shook the entire mountain range, “It’s sufficient honor to be able to die in my hands.”

Qianye realized that these so-called Secret Sword Emissaries were actually living tracking devices, unaffected by the interference of prophecy and divination. They could communicate, track, and transport one another. Only one group needed to discover the target before the entire unit could form a capture net. This meant that the Book of Darkness’ interference power was no longer useful. And at the end of this contracting net... was a great dark monarch.

These people were trained specifically by the Evernight Council to deal with special characters. It was pretty generous of them to use this team for tracking Qianye down.

Unfortunately, this capable secret team was easily dispatched by Qianye and his chaos domain. These Secret Sword Emissaries would never have imagined such an outcome, but did the Demon King foresee it?

Qianye discarded that bit of hidden uneasiness in his heart as he faced Noxus. This was the first time he was facing the arachne warlord’s combat form.

Noxus was holding a weapon in each of his four arms, namely a hand cannon, a shield, an axe, and a spear.

Even against a great dark monarch, Qianye remained just as calm. “You guys won’t have anything left to track me with after this battle.”

“There won’t be a need after this battle!” Noxus roared as dark red origin flames flickered on his body. His aura rose sharply, and his expression grew stern.

He was clearly more irritable after entering a combat state, sending a bucket-sized origin bullet blasting toward Qianye!

Qianye made no effort to evade the blast, taking it head-on with crossed arms.

His stance remained the same during the explosion, but he was blasted several dozen meters back, his feet drawing deep lines in the soil. Qianye’s arm-armor was blasted into pieces, revealing his muscular forearms.

Noxus narrowed his eyes. A full-powered blast from his cannon only managed to inflict a flesh wound! When did vampires become so strong?

He flung the hand cannon away with a snort and sped up with his spear raised. He arrived in front of Qianye all of a sudden and thrust at the target’s chest!

Noxus’ figure appeared in Qianye’s eyes at this point. The Eye of Control only managed to slow down the arachne warlord by a fraction of a second, but Qianye’s figure was already growing blurry.

It was at this moment that a figure dashed over at lightning speed and stopped in front of Qianye. It was actually Zhuji!

Shocked out of his wits, Qianye reached out to grab the little girl. He was fast, but Noxus wasn’t slow, either. The spear was going straight for Zhuji’s chest!

Noxus’ expression changed drastically at the moment of imminent peril. He raised his spear upward at the last moment, the inertia dragging his massive body over Qianye and Zhuji until he was hundreds of meters away.