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Novel: [Night Without Borders]
Chapter 46: [A Bountiful Harvest]
Author: [Chen Dong]
Translator: [Shadow Knight AK]
Editor: [Shadow Knight AK]
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Huang Jingjun was utterly despairing. Even his elder brother had been defeated, losing an arm.
Who could possibly save him now?
The young hunter standing before him, wielding a blood-stained longsword, was still the same person, but his perception of him had completely transformed.
Earlier, Huang Jingjun had tried to force Qin Ming to gather herbs in the Heavenly Light, dismissing him as naive and laughable—asking his brother questions even as death loomed.
Now, looking back, he realized that the faint sneer on his own lips and the jovial smile on his brother's face had been mirrored by Qin Ming's own silent amusement.
Hadn't the hunter been looking down on them all along?
The Three-Colored Flower was nearing maturity, its luminous mist swirling around it.
The intoxicating fragrance grew stronger, clearing the mind and invigorating the spirit.
Deeply drawn to the flower, Qin Ming turned to dig out the jade box buried beneath the rubble. He feared missing the optimal harvesting time, unsure if the spirit flower would wither quickly after blooming.
Huang Jingde clutched his severed arm with his left hand, his right side drenched in blood. His armor was soaked, and he staggered backward, leaving bloody footprints in his wake.
Seeing Qin Ming turn his back, Huang Jingde didn't attempt a sneak attack.
Instead, he cast a deep glance at his younger brother and prepared to flee. If he could survive, even as a cripple, it would be enough.
Although Qin Ming was eager to pluck the Three-Colored Flower, he wouldn't make such a basic mistake.
How could he allow a Third Awakening expert to escape right under his nose?
Without even turning his head, Qin Ming hurled the long-handled Black Gold Hammer with his left hand.
His strength was terrifying; a full-force swing could shatter city walls.
Huang Jingde screamed as a sharp crack echoed the moment he turned—the sound of bones breaking.
Through the excruciating pain, he felt his spine shatter, his body collapsing under its own weight.
The world spun wildly before he crashed to the ground with a sickening thud.
After retrieving the jade box, Qin Ming strode forward. The Three-Colored Flower was visibly blooming at an astonishing rate, its petals unfurling into a dazzling display of color and beauty.
Nothing mattered more now.
Qin Ming plunged into the swirling, iridescent mist of Heavenly Light, heading straight for the spiritually potent plant radiating its intoxicating fragrance.
It grew beside a fissure in the rocky terrain, standing only about a foot tall, yet its blossom was surprisingly large, nearly the size of a fist when fully unfurled.
Heavenly Light erupted from the fissure, causing Qin Ming to feel a tightness in his chest and a sense of unease.
Bathed in this radiant downpour, the spiritual flower shimmered like crystal, its petals fully unfurled in full bloom.
In the Heavenly Light, the flower's main body was silver, streaked with crimson, while its edges glowed a translucent blue.
Its petals resembled willow leaves, but were sharper, even angular at the tips.
Arranged in countless overlapping layers, they formed a dense, sword-like thicket—beautiful yet radiating a palpable sense of sharpness.
"It's ripe!" Qin Ming exclaimed.
He cleared away the loose rocks and carefully dug out the entire Three-Colored Flower by hand.
From its leaves to its roots, every part of the plant displayed the same tri-color pattern, brimming with potent life force.
With a snap, Qin Ming sealed the jade box and exhaled deeply, relieved to have successfully harvested this priceless spiritual flower.
"Today is truly a double blessing!" Qin Ming grinned, brimming with satisfaction.
After avenging himself against the Golden Rooster Ridge, he had unexpectedly acquired both the blue jade iron and this rare spiritual flower in quick succession.
Beside him, Huang Jingjun coughed up blood in fury.
'Those were our words!' he thought, his life force nearly exhausted, his end drawing near.
"Thank you both for your generous gifts," Qin Ming said sincerely. "I've toiled for days in the Great Mountain without reaping such a bountiful harvest."
Huang Jingde, equally enraged, felt his pent-up fury threatening to burst from his chest.
He had envisioned a glorious future, poised to refine the Heavenly Light using the spiritual flower.
Now, all his hopes had been shattered.
Regardless of their imminent demise, Qin Ming approached each of them, delivering swift, clean finishing blows to send them on their way.
During his search, he unexpectedly found a candle on Huang Jingde's person.
After a moment's thought, he realized its purpose: to seal the seams of the jade box.
"Ingenious!" he marveled. "Even an mutated creatures with a keen sense of smell wouldn't be able to detect the contents now."
Finally, Qin Ming dragged the Huang brothers, the old man from Golden Rooster Ridge, and the two Golden Rooster Knights into a single pile.
Reluctantly, he laid down the long sword and silver spear.
These weapons were simply too conspicuous to carry out and use.
Chaos had erupted underground, with various mutated creatures swarming in.
Qin Ming arrived at an area filled with deafening roars, instantly attracting several ferocious mutant creatures.
Soon, the old man from Golden Rooster Ridge and the Huang Family brothers were reduced to "flesh and blood elixirs" for the mutant creatures.
Above ground, raptors circled, their silver wings spanning over ten meters.
These giant eagles, accompanied by other flying mutated creatures, monitored the entire Great Rift Valley.
In the underground world, even Cao Long, Mu Qing, and Wei Zhirou's faces paled as they huddled with their clan elders.
"We've already seen creatures that have undergone four or even five Mutations!"
"Let's stay underground. At least we're deep within the Great Rift Valley, not near the exits, so our position is relatively safe. The mutant creatures can't maintain a prolonged attack here. Once word gets out, Chi Xia City will send reinforcements."
Even Qin Ming was shaken by the chaos in the karst cave.
In this chaotic situation, it was no longer feasible to fish in troubled waters.
The scene was too bloody; some mutated creatures were brutally tearing people apart before devouring them.
While searching for a way out, he had already killed several mutant creatures.
He couldn't risk heading deeper into the Great Rift Valley. Relying on his memory, he advanced toward the area where the Mountain People had disappeared.
Qin Ming estimated that some veteran hunters might find a way out of the valley.
Having spent years roaming the Great Mountain, their survival skills and self-preservation instincts were honed to a razor's edge.
Their immediate, correct decisions upon entering the underground passages were a testament to their expertise.
A massive white bear with bloodshot eyes and a blood-soaked maw charged toward Qin Ming, its razor-sharp claws impaling two corpses.
"I can't take down this Giant Beast!" Qin Ming sensed immediate danger.
This creature was far more ferocious than any mutant creature he'd encountered, even those that had undergone Third Mutation.
He fled swiftly.
He'd had similar near-death experiences since childhood, having lived off the land in the Great Mountain since he was fourteen or fifteen.
Those early years had been a constant dance with death.
Back then, he'd faced ordinary wild beasts, with Lu Ze, Xu Yueping, and others watching his back.
Now, he was up against a Giant Beast that had undergone multiple Mutations.
Qin Ming hadn't faced such a bloody, terrifying scene in years. His only option was to keep running; stopping meant certain death.
Fortunately, the underground passages were a dense labyrinth, as intricate as a spiderweb, with some areas so narrow they barely allowed passage.
The white bear was blocked, its furious blows against the stone walls shaking the entire tunnel violently, sending rocks tumbling down.
The two corpses impaled on its claws were now mangled beyond recognition.
Qin Ming knew that Golden Rooster Ridge and the Three-Eyed Sect had suffered devastating losses.
The few survivors were already rushing toward the territory controlled by Huang Jingde's family.
The underground karst cave was stained with blood along many of its passages.
The roars of mutated creatures and the cries of humans echoed through the tunnels, a grim reminder that any encounter between the two sides would inevitably end with one side falling.
Qin Ming pressed forward through a narrow passage.
Emerging into another area, he immediately witnessed the gruesome death of an elder from the Three-Eyed Sect.
The old man had been impaled through the chest by the massive, curved horns of a golden giant bull.
This elder, a Third Awakener cultivator, had met a particularly tragic end.
A notorious wanderer with a terrible sense of direction, he had wandered in circles, unable to escape this area.
Had he possessed even a shred of navigational skill, he would have long since reached the Huang Family's territory.
Now, he was utterly disoriented.
The golden giant bull's massive horns were already adorned with five corpses.
With a violent shake of its massive head, it flung the bodies against the stone walls with thunderous crashes, leaving trails of blood splattered across the rock.
Beneath its hooves lay more crushed corpses, reduced to pulpy masses by the beast's enormous hooves.
The bull's silken fur was nearly completely stained crimson with blood.
Spotting Qin Ming, it immediately exhaled flames from its nostrils and charged forward.
Seeing the creature's savage ferocity, Qin Ming knew he stood no chance.
He turned and retreated back into the narrow passage.
Now, hurling threats and curses at this terrifying mutant creatures was utterly futile.
Qin Ming could only pray that the beast would leave quickly.
This feeling of having his life hanging by a thread, completely beyond his control, was unbearable.
Qin Ming desperately yearned to grow stronger again.
In this place, if even a smaller, more mutated creature appeared, he would surely meet his end.
"Bang!"
The golden bull's horns, sharper and more terrifying than any gleaming sword, shattered the stone wall into fragments.
Massive chunks of rock crashed down, raising clouds of dust.
The flames spewing from its mouth scorched the rock wall crimson, radiating waves of intense heat.
"No wonder even the elders of the Third Awakener couldn't withstand it and met their gruesome ends in these tunnels," Qin Ming thought, his heart pounding as he retreated deeper into the passage.
A full quarter of an hour passed before the golden bull finally departed, unwilling to leave the Two-Legged Beast unslain.
Qin Ming waited a while longer until the outside grew quieter.
He cautiously ventured out, encountering some mutant creatures, but none as dangerous as before.
Eventually, he squeezed through a narrow crevice barely wide enough for a person to pass.
Beyond it, the path widened slightly, marking the final territory reached by the Mountain People.
Qin Ming stumbled forward, the absolute darkness broken only by the faint glow of his sunstone.
Even with this light, navigating the treacherous terrain took him over an hour before he finally emerged from the subterranean fissures, escaping the Great Rift Valley and finding himself in a dense forest.
Qin Ming couldn't help but admire the experienced old hunters. If he had been tasked with finding this escape route, he would never have discovered it so quickly.
He felt a pang of irony.
The Mountain People, who had initially been in the most precarious situation as miners, were ultimately the ones who escaped alive.
Of course, this was partly because they had begun their self-rescue efforts as soon as they entered the underground tunnels.
If they had been hunted down like the Golden Rooster Ridge and Three-Eyed Sect members, they would never have had the time to search for an escape route.
Qin Ming exhaled deeply, relieved to have finally escaped.
The Great Mountain was eerily quiet.
During his journey, he had barely encountered any living creatures.
He slowed his pace, reasoning that most of the dangerous mutant creatures in the mountains had likely migrated to the Great Rift Valley.
As he pondered this, he suddenly stopped.
"If I remember correctly, the lairs of the White Bear and the Golden Bull are both less than ten miles from here. They're among the most formidable creatures in the outer regions of the Great Mountain."
Acting decisively, Qin Ming turned and sprinted in a specific direction.
During his encounters with the two Giant Beasts, he had narrowly avoided being killed.
Though he ultimately escaped unscathed, the ordeal had been terrifying. If he hadn't discovered that narrow passage, he would either have been torn apart by the bear's claws or impaled on the bull's horns.
Qin Ming resolved to raid their lairs while the beasts were away.
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END OF CHAPTER
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