Blood Queen

The birth of Hyacinth's eighth Knight only made Wan Yue happy for a few minutes.

After letting Jiang Yan rest for two more days, Wan Yue brought a serious expression and pulled the two Jiang sisters back to her mountain home.

In the deep night before dawn, at a high-end villa estate in Longquan Mountain, Jiang Yan and Jiang Yao once again stood in the center of a secluded forest clearing.

Both Jiang Yan and Jiang Yao had changed into tight combat suits, each holding an ordinary dagger in both hands, waiting for Wan Yue's special intensive training.

Interestingly, both women had a small balloon tied to their right arms.

"Do you remember that night when we first met?"

Wan Yue smiled and pointed at both their heads with her hand, smiling mysteriously. "Against low-level Blood Clan below Attendant rank, I hardly need to lift a finger. I can just use pheromone stimulation to make their blood-boiling control collapse, even causing irreversible mental breakdown.

"Faced with absolute realm differences, they don't even qualify to fight higher Blood Clan. This is the literal meaning of why low-level Blood Clan are usually called cannon fodder."

Lightly stimulated by Wan Yue's words, awakening memories of that laughably overconfident episode, Jiang Yao's face immediately reddened.

"You've both experienced the internal and external hormone and blood-boiling control abilities of low-level Blood Clan. Extremely poor and unstable, easily losing control, and even more easily being interfered with or having their brain thoughts twisted by higher Blood Clan.

"A thousand years ago, European demon hunters tried to organize blood-infected members into a special force, but such a force was completely vulnerable against higher Blood Clan. Losses from pheromone stimulation interference causing blood-boiling loss of control and mutual slaughter far exceeded their achievements.

"A Baron's advantage over Blood Clan below Attendant rank is mainly reflected in the intensity of pheromone stimulation disruption, making them unable to perform or even lose blood-boiling control. Even Knights have their combat effectiveness greatly weakened under a Baron's pheromone interference suppression. This is especially evident in Apennine Blood Clan Barons."

Hearing this, Jiang Yan showed a thoughtful expression. Combined with her own personal experience, any Blood Clan with a higher realm than herself would create a suffocating panic under oppression when they released blood-boiling aura. This was probably the so-called suppression. Updates are released by novel✦fire.net

"Blood-boiling essentially sacrifices most pheromone control ability in exchange for stronger explosive power. The higher the blood-boiling stability, the smaller this sacrifice, the lower the blood energy protein consumption, and the longer the sustainable blood-boiling duration. The higher the blood-boiling threshold, the higher the explosive upper limit and the less affected by suppression.

Wan Yue pointed to the area roughly circled by glow sticks around them and smiled. "So you need to experience where your blood-boiling control limits are, thereby finding your shortcomings and suitable training directions. This kind of training is especially important for Siberian Blood Clan.

"Today is a mock battle. Whoever steps out of this circle must throw away one dagger. If you step out twice, sorry, you fight bare-handed. If you step out three times or your balloon gets burst by the opponent, you lose.

"Push your blood-boiling to the limit as much as possible. Also, you're allowed to directly attack any body part except the head and heart with daggers. These are ordinary daggers anyway - such injuries are just a day's worth of healing time for Knights.

"How many times have you bitten my wrist without me cutting myself first when you drink blood?”

After speaking, Wan Yue stepped out of the circle with an expression of watching a good show.

"Direct body attacks? Isn't that a bit too much..."

Jiang Yao looked somewhat uncomfortably at Jiang Yan beside her, muttering softly.

Seeing her reluctant appearance, Jiang Yan said without good humor, "This is Sister Wan giving us an ultimate confrontation test. Being serious is correct."

"What kind of broken rules are these... Ah!"

A flash of cold light sprang forward. Jiang Yao only felt a sharp pain in her arm and instinctively jumped back a section, only to discover Jiang Yan had already assumed a combat stance with a calm expression, her mouth carrying a trace of provocative smile.

"Fine, let's fight. Just don't blame me for being ruthless." Jiang Yao pouted and raised her weapons.

Surging blood-boiling aura instantly expanded in the forest clearing as both Jiang Yan and Jiang Yao's eyes were simultaneously covered in blood-red.

In intense blood-boiling, Jiang Yan had climbed to upper-tier Knight peak state, while Jiang Yao went directly to half-step Baron realm. There was still a small half-rank strength difference between them.

However, the more combat-experienced Jiang Yan could more cleverly neutralize Jiang Yao's numerous brutal charging attacks while interfering as much as possible with her subsequent tactical movements.

In Wan Yue's eyes, their speed had reached an astounding level. At Knight realm, such scenes were absolutely impossible to see. Even with her half-step Viscount realm, she could barely keep up with the dazzling frequency of Jiang Yan and Jiang Yao's exchanges.

Siberian Blood Clan's physical explosiveness and agile mobility were originally ranked mid-tier among the eight ancestral lineages. But now seeing these two girls fighting vigorously, Wan Yue had some doubts again, suddenly understanding why she had initially felt the impulse to strangle them in their cradles.

Jiang Yan's spinning backhand slash nearly burst the small balloon on Jiang Yao's arm, forcing her opponent to turn and block. But this unavoidable defensive flaw allowed a dagger to land on Jiang Yao's shoulder, instantly penetrating halfway.

Taking advantage of Jiang Yao's less than half-second stress-induced rigidity from bodily injury, Jiang Yan pressed close with a collision, sending Jiang Yao's body flying out of the circle. If this were actual combat, Jiang Yao wouldn't have just one knife wound, but instead have her body riddled with holes from silver dagger cuts.

"Sister! You're being serious!"

Jiang Yao angrily touched her shoulder wound and threw down her left dagger. Her body compressed and the blood color in her eyes deepened.

Blood energy protein stored in bone marrow rapidly decomposed and burned. Surging energy filled her entire body. Jiang Yao's waist snapped, scattering a burst of dried leaves on the ground as she instantly closed in on Jiang Yan, delivering a knee strike to the latter's body.

Jiang Yan made a blocking motion but was still sent flying by the violent impact force, directly flying out of the circle and breaking a bowl-thick sapling in half before barely stopping.

After moving her back and waist and spitting out bloody saliva, Jiang Yan finally showed a satisfied smile. She threw down her right dagger and her body seemed injected with high pressure, her pupils revealing an overloaded, sinister blood color.

The back-and-forth high-intensity blood-boiling battle continued for nearly thirty minutes. Wan Yue, watching from the side, had to secretly praise these two monster girls and became even more certain of her suspicions.

These two little devils really were monsters, already possessing physical explosiveness and speed mobility capable of competing with Barons at the Knight stage. The former allowed Altai Blood Clan to fight above their weight in extreme situations, while the latter was the greatest asset that made Caucasus Blood Clan look down on other Blood Clan.

Not only that, they also possessed Rhine Blood Clan's high blood-boiling stability and Iberian Blood Clan's high blood-boiling threshold, supporting ultra-long blood-boiling combat endurance. That's right, they simply couldn't be viewed by existing Blood Clan realm standards and lineage classifications...

A muffled, painful groan came as Jiang Yan, still slightly inferior in strength, flew out of the circle again. The panting Jiang Yao was now injured in multiple places, blood slowly flowing along the surface of her tight combat suit.

Jiang Yan was also seriously injured, her left arm bloody with blood pooling into lines and constantly dripping from her fingertips.

This battle seemed to ignite the hidden wildness in Jiang Yan's heart. The black-haired girl took another deep breath, wiped her bloody hand across her face, then threw away her last dagger and slowly lowered her center of gravity.

Jiang Yan's eyes had turned so red no other color was visible. Her blood temperature rose again, obviously exceeding the blood-boiling threshold. Tsunami-like pheromones surged and scattered as her left forearm began to aberrate, fingers elongating into vicious bone claws.

"Sister... Sister Wan? My sister she..."

Jiang Yao fearfully retreated two steps and turned to look at Wan Yue outside the circle.

"Continue!"

Wan Yue shouted lightly without changing expression, even lighting a cigarette, her face becoming increasingly grave. In a certain instant just now, she seemed to sense Jiang Yan emanating some kind of aura that only Barons possessed.

In Jiang Yan's vision, the world slowly turned black and white, with only Jiang Yao's blood-boiling body presenting a blood-red graceful silhouette.

In Jiang Yan's perception, Jiang Yao seemed to become freshly grilled meat, emanating steaming blood and flesh fragrance.

The unique dark fragrance of rare blood types spread through the forest clearing, enchantingly sweet. Jiang Yan's eyes no longer held any other colors, only bloodthirsty frenzy and endless greedy killing intent.

"Sister! Stop fighting! I surrender!"

Probably sensing that Jiang Yan was nearing loss of control after her blood-boiling broke through the threshold, a frightened Jiang Yao quickly lowered her blood-boiling intensity and planned to surrender directly.

Those surging waves of spreading pheromones were now filled with indescribable brutality and predatory aura. Jiang Yao felt she no longer faced the familiar Jiang Yan but something more like a Black Blood Clan member gone mad from severe blood thirst.

Jiang Yan had fallen into a strange state of mental confusion.

"Idiot, why are you giving up resistance? Do you want to die!?"

Seeing Jiang Yao actually actively lower her blood-boiling at this dangerous moment, an ominous sense of crisis flashed through Wan Yue's mind.

Unfortunately, Wan Yue's alarmed cry was still half a second too late. Jiang Yan's body shot up like a cannonball, directly charging toward the dazed Jiang Yao. Her left hand's bloody aberrated bone claw carried a bloody killing aura, instantly piercing into Jiang Yao's lower right chest.

At the critical moment, Jiang Yao's body still bounced backward, but the severe injury to her liver below the right chest still made her involuntarily drop her dagger and clutch the wound tightly, sweat beading on her forehead from pain.

Crouching on the ground, Jiang Yan didn't continue advancing but instead showed a cruel, mysterious smile at the corner of her mouth, like a beast about to feed.

Wan Yue suddenly detected a familiar fluctuation in the forest composed of both internal and external hormones, the characteristic aura transmission of Siberian Barons activating blood explosion, like complex information decoding that finally obtained the activation code.

Due to the bone claw penetration just now, Jiang Yan had already brought her blood into Jiang Yao's body.

"This is bad!"

Before Wan Yue could rush to stop Jiang Yan, with a bang, she saw Jiang Yao's liver area below the right chest suddenly explode in a burst of blood mist!

The explosion composed of flesh and blood had no smoke or flames but directly penetrated from Jiang Yao's front to her back, one large hole and one small hole.

Shattered combat suit, pulverized flesh, several ribs, and large amounts of liver tissue fragments sprayed out. Nearly one-fifth of her chest and abdominal tissue had vanished without a trace, and the surrounding ground was a complete mess.

Having undergone this bloody self-explosion, Jiang Yao screamed and fell backward, rolling twice before losing consciousness, her pupils slowly dilating, barely alive.

After completing this cruel attack, Jiang Yan's eyes also began to lose focus, cooling down slowly as if all heat had been drained, with only the ferocity frozen on her face.

Wan Yue had already flashed to Jiang Yan's side and knocked out the latter's already overextended body with a heavy strike, causing her to collapse limply to the ground.

It was blood explosion! Crazy, truly crazy!

Wan Yue's mind was in complete chaos. Without caring about Jiang Yan's condition, she quickly moved to Jiang Yao's side, picked up the girl's body, and pulled out several syringes, injecting them one by one.

The tenacious vitality of Blood Clan Knights was demonstrated at this moment. Although Jiang Yao had suffered unbearable severe injuries, she still managed to stop the bleeding under the effects of several medications.

Looking at the horrific blood explosion scene, Wan Yue sighed and slowly took out her phone.

"Zhao Peng, come to my Longquan Mountain home immediately, bring Xiao Dong... remember to bring all the blood substitutes, I have surgical equipment here, better bring several more people...

"...Yes, carefully examine the entire scene. No matter whose it is, don't miss any flesh and blood tissue. Burn everything clean!"

After hanging up, Wan Yue smiled bitterly as she held the blood-covered Jiang Yao in her arms and ran toward her villa down the mountain.

It was already past five in the morning when Zhao Peng and others, who had rushed over, finally cleaned up all traces in the forest clearing and carried the severely injured and unconscious Jiang Yao to the car, preparing to take her back to Golden River Club for treatment and recuperation.

In the spacious commercial vehicle, Jiang Yan sat by the stretcher, silently caressing Jiang Yao's pale face and hair, intense regret and terror repeatedly washing through her mind.

What exactly happened to me? That terrifying state of mental confusion appeared again... Why do I fall into mental loss of control every time I fight to a certain point, then inexplicably develop sensory thoughts I can't understand myself? Why do I have the blood explosion ability that only Barons can master... Am I being controlled by something?

Outside the car window were the last lights of night before dawn. The commercial vehicle drove at the most stable speed possible. The unconscious Jiang Yao already had countless IV lines attached to her body, with thick gauze wrapping almost half her torso.

Under Xiao Dong's skillful surgical operation, Jiang Yao's exploded chest and abdomen had ribs reattached, damaged muscle tissue and the remaining half liver underwent secondary surgical treatment to ensure no more internal bleeding, then the entire chest and abdomen were completely bandaged.

What followed would be suspended animation hibernation of unknown duration to recover from injuries.

In a villa estate in Longquan Mountain, under a desk lamp in the study, Wan Yue was writing and drawing on a piece of paper.

"So far, Jiang Yan and Jiang Yao have displayed characteristics of five Blood Clan lineages: Siberian, Caucasus, Iberian, Altai, and Apennine. But more terrifyingly, they've both triggered Baron-level and above abilities while not at Baron realm.

"Jiang Yan has had two loss of control states, respectively achieving blood poison and blood explosion operations, while Jiang Yao only subconsciously triggered blood ember once during that desperate night when ambushed by four Black Blood Clan.

"From this perspective, Jiang Yan is like a pressure cooker with the valve opened but no safety management mechanism. Jiang Yao is more like a growth monster with the acceleration key pressed–though she doesn't have Jiang Yan's type of mental loss of control explosive phenomena, her actual abilities haven't kept up.

"That big flesh mass from the Tang family in D City. Its blood infection of Jiang Yan and Jiang Yao obviously changed the traditional rules following ancestral lineage classifications. The flesh mass itself was a hodgepodge possessing multiple Blood Clan ancestral lineages and was necessarily artificially cultivated. Is this really what the Goebbels family was brewing before World War I?

"What will they ultimately become? What exactly is the difference between them, finished product and semi-finished product?"

The information on several sheets grew more and more, and Wan Yue grabbed them all and crumpled them into a tight ball, then took out a lighter to burn them and threw them on the ground.

Watching the white paper ball finally turn into black ash, Wan Yue lit a cigarette with a snap, took several deep drags, then opened the desk drawer and carefully took out a strange old-style mechanical keypad phone.

Gripping the phone's keyboard protective sliding cover, repeatedly opening and closing it, cigarettes burned one after another.

Finally, Wan Yue sighed and put the phone away again.