Chapter 92: Encounter
Yam's face was deathly pale.
He staggered through the forest with a longsword in hand, his steps unsteady.
The intense dizziness from blood loss had already caused him to suffer several painful falls, his previously healed skin was now marred with fresh wounds, blood seeping out once more.
In truth, Yam was well aware that his body had reached its limit. What he needed most now was rest, not to be rushing through the forest.
Even so, he remained deeply worried about his father.
At that thought, Yam clenched the black longsword in his hand once again.
He had come to understand the power of Nirvana through its recent use.
To activate this power, two conditions had to be met.
First, he had to sacrifice more than half of his own blood to produce a resonance with the longsword.
Second, the sword had to store enough blood energy and bloodline power.
Blood energy referred to blood absorbed from various creatures, including but not limited to humans and animals, even Bloodline Users.
However, Bloodline Users could also provide bloodline power, and if the sword absorbed their blood energy, it would no longer be able to extract their bloodline power.
Only one of the two could be chosen.
But in return, the strength gained was immense.
Firstly, the user's bloodline power would be significantly enhanced.
The current limit of this Demonic Sword was to grant the user the physical strength of a Third-Tier Bloodline User.
According to Yam’s understanding, the sacrificed half of his blood underwent a fusion-like reaction with the blood energy stored in the sword, mediated by the bloodline power.
This then fed back into the sword bearer’s body, greatly stimulating the bloodline and allowing the user’s physical abilities to momentarily reach an extreme threshold and obtain power that did not originally belong to them.
However, because this power did not truly belong to the user and was only borrowed temporarily, it would naturally fade once the duration ended.
As a result, the sacrificed half of the blood that underwent the fusion would also completely vanish and evaporate.
The maximum duration the Demonic Sword could sustain this state was about six minutes.
Aside from granting physical strength equivalent to a Third-Tier Bloodline User, it did not grant any new or mutated bloodline abilities.
Therefore, although Yam had gained the strength of a Third-Tier Bloodline User, the only bloodline ability he could use remained Flame Stream. He had not acquired any new abilities.
However, Flame Stream itself had received a notable enhancement, which was the main reason Yam had been able to use Flame Stream Strike so fluidly and easily.
Right now, the Demonic Sword still held one stored use of Nirvana.
When he killed Nail, due to inexperience, he had absorbed Nail’s bloodline power.
But with the second Bloodline User he encountered, now more experienced, Yam had chosen to extract blood energy instead.
With these two combined, if he sacrificed another half of his own blood, he would be able to invoke Nirvana once more.
However, Yam knew very well that he no longer had the chance.
If he were to sacrifice more of his blood now, it would mean instant death. The activation of Nirvana required sacrificing half of one’s blood to gain the power, so if Yam made that choice, all the blood in his body would be drained. And if a person lost all their blood, how could they possibly survive?
That was precisely why the ability was named Nirvana, it offered a single chance to overturn the situation in a desperate moment, but only once in a short span of time.
Yam believed that if he could find his father and Ion’s injuries were not too severe or did not involve massive blood loss, then perhaps they might still have a chance to turn the tide. That was why Yam chose not to rest but instead endured the intense dizziness and pain, stumbling persistently through the forest.
Just as Yam stumbled out of a patch of woods, he was met head-on by several soldiers fleeing in panic.
Yam quickly scanned them. Though he didn’t recognize them personally, their attire was enough to confirm their identity: soldiers of the White Mountain Territory, specifically, the lord’s private soldiers.
“It’s me!” Yam called out. “Yam Soderbell! Have you seen the Lord and my father?”
“Baron Ster and Ion Soderbell!”
“Have you seen them?”
The soldiers, initially startled by Yam’s sudden appearance, were stunned at first but then quickly approached upon hearing his voice.
“Sir Yam! Sir Yam, why are you here?”
“I came to assess the situation. Young Master Giggs is leading reinforcements and will arrive at Mountain Ridge Village in the next couple of days,” Yam said urgently. “Have you seen my father? And the Lord?”
“Lord Ion is still behind us, but we didn’t see the Lord,” several soldiers immediately replied, voices overlapping.
Suppressing the headache brought on by the chaotic noise, Yam listened carefully and quickly grasped the situation.
Baron Ster had stayed behind to delay the advance of the Blood Knight, Molly Karco.
After his father and Knight Roda successfully broke through, Knight Roda had led the men downhill, intending to regroup within the White Mountain Territory.
His father, Ion, had remained at the rear to block any pursuit, and should be approaching from behind now.
Yam immediately instructed the soldiers to deliver news of the reinforcements’ imminent arrival to Roda, telling them to retreat first to Mountain Ridge Village, and then continue toward White Mountain City from there.
He then took a deep breath and ran past the soldiers, aiming to reunite with his father Ion as quickly as possible.
But this time, Yam had not gone far before he encountered Ion rushing toward him.
“Yam!” Ion was momentarily stunned upon seeing him. “Why are you here!?”
“Father!” Yam ran forward and thrust the longsword into Ion’s hand, the anxiety about losing the Demonic Sword instantly fading. “There’s no time, just listen to me!”
Seeing that Yam had brought the Demonic Sword, Ion was first shocked, and though he had wanted to speak, he forced himself to remain silent after hearing Yam’s urgent tone.
At that moment, Yam began to speak in a low voice.
“The Demonic Sword has a special ability called Nirvana. It allows your strength to instantly reach Third-Tier, but the price is…”
Holding nothing back, Yam explained the ability of Nirvana in full detail while fleeing alongside Ion, including all precautions and mechanisms.
“And also, I killed Hans.”
When he said this, Yam’s expression was remarkably calm.
“Hans Kasein.”
“You killed who!?” Ion’s tone rose sharply.
“Hans Kasein, second son of Marquis Visen. Both he and the Marquis’s eldest son were born before the Marquis reached the Sixth-Tier and gained his bloodline. His talent was lacking, he’s still only at the Third-Tier.”
“When I accidentally activated Nirvana, I immediately sensed that there was another enemy lurking besides Nail from the Western Wind Territory. After swiftly killing Nail, I pretended to leave but circled back, and sure enough, the hidden enemy revealed himself. I didn’t know who he was at the time.”
“So you just killed him?”
“Yes.” Yam nodded. “I had no choice. This Demonic Sword is the greatest secret of our family. He saw me using Nirvana… Maybe he wouldn’t understand it, but Marquis Visen certainly would. So I couldn’t spare him.”
Ion took a deep breath and quickly calmed himself. “Did you manage to extract any other information?”
“No.” Yam shook his head. “He unintentionally revealed a secret. Marquis Visen seems to believe we are descendants of the Bourbon Family… The same count family that once ruled Red Eagle Territory and was wiped out a hundred years ago.”
Ion’s pupils shrank suddenly. Clearly, this information was equally shocking to him. “When did this happen?”
“I suspect it was during my duel with Andre,” Yam said gravely. “I found no bloodline records for the Flame Demon Hound, so I’ve always disguised it as a Flame Hound. But maybe the reason there are no external records isn’t because they never existed, but because only families with sufficiently ancient bloodlines still preserve them.”
Hearing this, Ion immediately understood his son’s implication: someone was deliberately erasing records related to the Flame Demon Hound and even the Bourbon Family.
“Anything else?”
“There wasn’t time to ask more.” Yam shook his head again.
Nirvana only lasted six minutes. If he delayed beyond its duration, Yam would have ended up captured and interrogated by Hans instead.
Moreover, he had also been concerned about Ion’s condition at the time, so he could only extract a small piece of intelligence.
At the very least, it provided them a lead.
Perhaps they could investigate further based on that clue in the future and find out what was really going on.
Father and son supported each other as they fled quickly down the mountain.
But soon, they came to a halt.
Yam saw that the bodies of the soldiers he had spoken with earlier were now torn to shreds, as if by a wild beast, and scattered all around.
And there, blocking their path, stood a figure almost entirely drenched in blood.
The Blood Knight, Molly Karco.