Duke Meistan’s figure appeared hundreds of meters in the air. He paused there for a while before crashing to the ground like a meteor.

His last moments were filled with utmost astonishment as his vitality dispersed rapidly. He glanced at Qianye with all the strength he had left, “You… you…”

Qianye watched the duke until there were no signs of life left in him before raising his head. Countless sanguine threads shot out in all directions, reaping the lives of the duke’s followers within a hundred meters radius. His figure then flickered away and vanished over the horizon.

In the depths of the void, there was a giant airship shrouded perpetually in pale flames. The Eternal Flame, in his flame form, was hovering in the control room as he listened to the military reports.

The first part of this report was about the happenings on Serafis Continent, where the situation was deteriorating rapidly. Five marquis and two duke families had suffered severe damage; a number of smaller families were also implicated, but count families and below weren’t included in the emergency report.

Halfway through the presentation, the Eternal Flame picked up the count with a stream of fire and dragged him up front. “Duke Meistan has fallen?!”

How could that count withstand the monarch’s flames? His demonic energy dropped sharply until he was on the verge of death.

The Eternal Flame snorted deeply and tossed the man down.

Another count hurried into the room at this point. He trembled upon witnessing this scene, but he had no choice but to brace himself. “Your Majesty, the latest intelligence has come in.”

“Speak.”

Having seen the Eternal Flame’s wrath just now, the count turned rather pale. He knew that he was not a bearer of good news. “Lutheran Island was attacked. Old Duke Meistan was killed in the void, but most of his descendants managed to survive.”

The Eternal Flame’s blaze flickered unstably. “More details.”

The count went through the complete report rapidly. It turned out that Grand Duke Meistan joined the battle after Lutheran Island was attacked. He never returned from his fight in the void, but it would seem that the attacker was wounded as well because he didn’t continue attacking the island. Hence, the Meistan descendants managed to survive.

The Eternal Flame snorted. “Those descendants are all trash, what’s the use of keeping them alive?”

The count said hurriedly, “At least the Meistan bloodline remains.”

The Eternal Flame’s fury receded a bit. “True. As long as his blood descendants remain, even if they’re useless, they can still strengthen themselves bit by bit. After all, the Meistan bloodline is the Aegis Wellspring—it must not die off.”

This count had been following the Eternal Flame for so long that he knew of the race’s top secrets. “Your Majesty, if the assailant really is Qianye, is it just a coincidence that he picked Serafis or does he know certain secrets? Why else would he pinpoint the Meistans so accurately?”

The Eternal Flame said, “Even if he did get his hands on some family registers, he won’t be able to figure it out. The power of bloodlines is a mysterious subject, even the Demon King can’t claim to be proficient in it. There are over eight hundred bloodlines in our race, making for countless combinations. Even the vampire prophets wouldn’t have been able to touch Meistan’s Aegis Wellspring. Qianye has just turned into a vampire recently, right? I never heard anything about him knowing divination.”

“That’s indeed the case. I might’ve been overthinking things.”

“Very well, you may withdraw.”

After the subordinate had left, the Eternal Flame still couldn’t get rid of the doubts in his heart. It was then that he suddenly recalled the Book of Darkness that the Demon King so desired.

Frowning, his gaze landed on the large screen that occupied an entire wall. This was a map of the entire Evernight World, dotted with a dense array of light specks representing the movements of different army corps.

Even without looking, the Eternal Flame knew that the demonkin race, as well as the council as a whole, had reached their limits in military power. There was simply no leeway.

The two major factions were in a rare state of ceasefire at the moment, but a holy war had once again stirred up within the Evernight side. To the upper echelons, an all-out war could break out anytime.

If that was the case for Evernight, the same was likely true of the Empire as well. Each side was eyeing the other like a proverbial tiger watching its prey, just like how a great dark monarch like him was tied down watching Blacksun Valley. The problem with Qianye was that cannon fodder and ordinary elites could do almost nothing against him.

The Eternal Flame had never doubted the Demon King’s decision, but at this point, he couldn’t help but wonder what the supreme was thinking. What would the king do? Or would he simply do nothing?

…

Qianye was standing in the air, gazing at a distant castle. The long banner hanging from the castle depicted thorned branches and crossed swords—the emblem of the Heizo family, a count-rank family.

In the entire Serafis Continent, the Heizo family was the least eye-catching. Among the families qualified to build a castle here, they were ranked right at the bottom. A report of their destruction would only be bundled into “other families” by the time it reached the Eternal Flame.

In the Book of Darkness, however, the Heizo family was related to many others. The Meistans, especially, gave them a lot of protection and support. This meant that the Meistan family’s bloodline required the Heizos to reach its full potential.

“The Aegis Wellspring will vanish after I destroy the Heizo clan,” Qianye said to himself.

The register of each demonkin family wasn’t a simple document. After absorbing the essence blood of relevant individuals, the Book of Darkness would produce even more complicated family trees.

Qianye discovered that the demonkin emblems weren’t simple, either. Every depiction held an associated meaning. Under most circumstances, the Book of Darkness could derive their bloodline after seeing it.

Qianye had a feeling that the bloodlines within the Book of Darkness had already touched upon the demonkin race’s greatest secrets.

Qianye leapt into the sky and flew into the Heizo family castle. He was back in the air within moments and was flickering away from the burning castle below.

He was lost in thought along the journey.

Before Duke Meistan fell, he offered up his family registry in exchange for the lives of his descendants. He also exposed many of the race’s secrets. The Meistan clan might not be the strongest among the many bloodlines, but its status was important nonetheless.

Their clan was famed for their origin power shields, an aspect in which even the major clans couldn’t compare. This was the most important power for the physically weak demonkin.

The Meistan Bloodline didn’t have any other special characteristics, hence, they were compatible with most other lineages. For thousands of years, many demonkin families had been forming marital connections with the Meistan in order to strengthen their barriers and subsequently, their overall fighting power.

A combination with the Meistan bloodline would produce different types of effects for different families. That was why they were known as the Aegis Wellspring among the upper echelon and enjoyed a status comparable to the three strongest bloodlines.

The razing of the Heizo family meant that the last of the Meistan family line had been cut off. To bring it back, the Meistan descendants would have to strengthen their bloodlines generation by generation. With the current techniques available, this process might take hundreds to thousands of years.

Qianye felt rather satisfied as he glanced back at the burning castle. His figure flickered once again and quickly disappeared.

The giant building that was the demonkin race had thousands of pillars propping it up, and Qianye had just cut one of them off.

Qianye was hundreds of kilometers away by nightfall. He set up a small camp, lit a fire, and was resting quietly. In truth, he no longer needed a fire to stave off the cold, nor did he have to fear insects and snakes. Setting up camp was simply because of reminiscence.

Poking aimlessly at the firewood, Qianye sank his thoughts deep into the Book of Darkness and observed the expanding collection of pedigrees.

Only the demonkin could construct such a system in the Book of Darkness—the vampires, werewolves, and arachne couldn’t do the same. With the help of this familial system, the demonkin would slowly grow stronger over the years. Comparatively, the other three races were still focusing on the purity of bloodlines, and the werewolves were hoping to return to their ancestral era.

According to the derived results from the Book of Darkness, even the Dark Abyss, Jeruson, and Masefield clans didn’t have perfect bloodlines. They still had to rely on lineages like the Meistan to bolster their weaknesses. This meant that the lowest end of this system would produce the most perfect demonkin.

Tracing the purity of these three clans to their source, one would only arrive at the point where they had awakened their first ancestor’s bloodline. The defects were still there.

At this point, Qianye was beginning to understand the special characteristics of the demonkin race and why they could occupy the top spot among the dark races. The vampires were slowly declining despite the blessing of the River of Blood, and half their ancient clans had been destroyed by the demonkin.

The unique strength they still possessed was the Queen of the Night.

Qianye tossed the branch he was holding into the fire and sat down cross-legged. He then focused his attention and began circulating the Profound Combatant Formula. At this point, he could use just about any type of origin power absorbed by the formula.

Wisps of void origin power seeped out of the void. The attractive force gradually expanded until there was a terrifying vortex in the sky.

In the distance, a group of demonkin experts was guarding a person as they traveled through the mountains.

The young man was staring at the shifting lights from a strange apparatus and guiding the group’s movements.

An expert looked up at the distant sky. “Your Highness Anwen, something’s wrong with the origin power environment here.”

Anwen put on a pair of glasses and glanced at the surroundings. Countless numbers appeared on the spectacles. “The flow of origin power is indeed abnormal. The void origin power seems to be converging in that direction.”

The experts were excited. “Is the point over there?”

Anwen frowned. “Not exactly, but let’s go and take a look.”

One of the experts said, “Your Majesty, why don’t we go ahead and take a look? Just in case there’s danger…”

Another person said, “What danger can there be on Serafis Continent?”

“Who can say for sure? Don’t forget, Qianye has reportedly killed several families here.”

“You believe those rumors?” An expert with some background sneered. “His Majesty has even sent Prophet Predica to hunt down Qianye. There’s no way he won’t know if Qianye has run over here. And the council’s forces should’ve arrived by now, right? It would be more believable if a human heavenly monarch were here but not Qianye.”

The experts found this reasonable. Anwen said all of a sudden, “Eh? This flow of origin power is very interesting, I must go personally. As for safety, I have you guys, don’t I?”