Chapter 2

In the land of Eternal Night, most of the time is shrouded in twilight, especially during the Dark Season when the orbit of the upper continent blocks the sunlight, leaving only a few hours of daylight.

Tonight, the twin star Alpha has entered a near-Earth orbit, making it a rare night with a moon.

A huge, round moon almost took up half the sky, as if it would crash down at any moment. Even ordinary people without special abilities could clearly see the vast basins and majestic mountains on the moon's surface.

However, the people who were still awake were filled with fear and unease.

The moon was a deep crimson, and the moonlight fell like a thin veil from the sky to the earth, spreading like a living thing over the rugged terrain. It dyed large areas of gray-black shadows a deep red, like huge scars and wounds, with occasional flashes of cold metal light.

From the distance, long howls of wolves and roars of unknown beasts echoed, filled with a sense of savagery.

In the legends of the Eternal Night, the crimson moon was an omen of ill fortune, extremely rare, but once it appeared, it meant chaos and suffering. Whenever the moon was drenched in blood, the great lords of the dark world would open the gates of calamity, spreading madness and disaster across the land.

The legends were not baseless, for under the crimson moonlight, all creatures became uncontrollably more aggressive and bloodthirsty, and more prone to fighting.

Under the crimson night sky, a small black dot suddenly appeared. It flew from the heavens, slowly crossing the sky, growing larger and larger. It turned out to be a floating airship thousands of meters long!

It was already in a very dilapidated state, with the huge gas bag patched up, and the metal parts rusted and peeling, making people worry if it might suddenly break apart.

As if to confirm people's fears, the airship suddenly shook violently, and quite a few parts, including a large metal component over ten meters long, fell off.

The metal component hit the ground with a loud boom.

The airship struggled, its copper pipes on the outer wall trembling, and large clouds of steam spewing from the mechanical cabin at the rear. The eight sets of propellers at the rear of the airship made a harsh creaking sound, spinning wildly to barely stabilize the airship.

Dozens of thick ropes hung messily from the bottom of the airship, suspending a huge cargo hold equally rusted. Through the unsecured doors, one could see that it was filled with garbage.

The old and rusted airship, like a dying giant beast, struggled through the last stretch of its journey and finally reached its destination. Below, at a distance of several hundred meters, was a vast airship graveyard!

At this moment, tens of thousands of people were pouring out of their hiding places. They had long forgotten their fear of the crimson moon, waving enthusiastically at the airship and shouting in excitement!

Even on this land almost forgotten by the empire, they were the lowest of the low, struggling for survival every day.

This was the burial ground of the once-mighty giants. Airships from the upper continent usually carried a lot of garbage, and over time, it turned into a vast landfill. The people living in the airship graveyard relied on the garbage thrown down from the upper continent for survival.

If the airships carrying garbage did not arrive for a long time, many people would starve to death. For them, the garbage from the upper continent was their only hope.

And tomorrow... tomorrow was a word too luxurious for them; no one would think about it.

The airship, having aligned with its coordinates, let out a painful groan as its propellers stopped one by one. The massive airship suddenly shook violently, bouncing up and down in the air by several dozen meters, then the outer wall on the left front split, and a small airship separated from it.

The small airship looked much cleaner. It circled the landfill once, then turned and ascended, gradually flying away into the sky.

The airship in the sky lost its power, began to vibrate, and suddenly tilted, slowly falling to the ground!

It fell faster and faster, finally crashing to the ground with a loud boom, disintegrating. Countless pieces of garbage, waste, and metal parts flew in all directions, raining down on the airship graveyard.

The狂欢 began!

The inhabitants howled and rushed to the site of the airship's crash, some even running on all fours like beasts.

Occasionally, large metal parts fell from the sky, and many people who were directly under them could not dodge in time and were crushed into pulp. However, their companions around them ignored the danger and continued to rush forward, desperate to reach the place where they could fight for the garbage first.

Among the people were men, women, the elderly, and children. But age and gender were meaningless here; each group was distinguished by their physical strength and size, which was the only standard for dividing territory in the graveyard.

Those who could rush to the wreckage of the airship were the strongest men in the entire graveyard, followed by weaker men and strong women, then weaker women, and the outermost circle was the elderly and children.

Thus, the people formed concentric circles around the fallen airship, with invisible but unbreachable boundaries between each layer.

At the outermost edge of the concentric circles was the activity area for the children. Hundreds of children were constantly searching through the piles of garbage, looking for the almost non-existent food.

Among them was a small, thin boy, also searching hard.

He was about seven or eight years old, his face so dirty that his true appearance was unrecognizable. The clothes he wore were originally an adult's shirt, which, when wrapped around him, looked like a long robe. The shirt was already in tatters, barely held together by strips of cloth.

He used his hands to dig through the cold garbage, his small hands full of cuts, many of which were festering. But he seemed to feel no pain, desperately digging through the large pile of unrecognizable garbage.

He had not eaten for three days, and if he could not find something to eat today, he would not survive until the next airship arrived.

But no matter how hard the boy tried, he found nothing.

This area had already been searched countless times by others and was then left for the children under ten years old. These children were the weakest in the landfill. When the stronger people could not find food, their hungry eyes would... turn to the elderly and children.

This was the abandoned land, the airship graveyard. Here, as long as people were alive, they were no different from beasts. Even the strongest beasts lived with more dignity than they did!

The desire to survive made the boy unwilling to give up. He continued to search through the garbage, and many of his wounds reopened from the effort, seeping blood. But he was oblivious to the pain.

Another rain of garbage fell from the sky, and a larger garbage bag landed next to the boy.

The outer shell of the garbage bag was broken, and a grease-stained paper package rolled out, immediately capturing the boy's full attention. There were oil stains on the paper!

He suddenly pounced on it with the agility of a wild cat, clutching the grease-stained paper package tightly. Without even checking what was inside, he tucked it into his shirt, looked around warily, and then carefully crawled to the outer edge.

Among the children, there was also competition, theft, and even murder! The cruelty was no less than in the adult world.

The boy was very thin and weak, and if the stronger children discovered that he had found something to eat and was trying to hide it, the lightest punishment would be a severe beating.

Fortunately, the boy avoided the sight of all the stronger children and successfully escaped the area. He seemed to have an innate sharpness, always managing to avoid the more terrifying older children.

After moving away from the airship wreckage, the boy ran as fast as he could, eventually reaching another garbage pile and hiding in an empty metal drum.

This was his little nest, a place to shelter from the rain. In the boy's mind, this small space of just over a square meter was a paradise.

He carefully took out the grease-stained paper package, held his breath, and with a reverent expression, slowly opened it.

Inside the paper package was a bread roll! A bread roll that had only been bitten once!

The boy recognized it as bread at first glance. He had never seen such a complete piece of food on the landfill, but he could not remember where or when he had learned about bread.

In reality, it was just a common round bread roll, the kind that even the lowest of the low in the upper continent might bite once and then throw away, like the one in the boy's hand. But in the landfill, it could be worth several lives.

When he got closer, he could smell the faint aroma of grains, and all the pain from his wounds seemed to vanish. He held the bread roll carefully, hardly believing he had found such a treasure.

Was this a dream?

A drop of blood seeped from a wound on his hand and rolled onto the bread. The boy cried out, frantically wiping his hand on his clothes to remove all the blood and sweat. He looked at the bread with a pained expression, as if his sacred object had been desecrated.

At that moment, his stomach growled, and his hunger expressed itself with a painful cramp. He tore off the part of the bread that was stained with blood, gathered all his courage, and prepared to put it in his mouth.

But his hand suddenly stopped in mid-air.

Outside the metal drum, a little girl had appeared.

She was about four or five years old, her face dirty with black and gray streaks, completely obscuring her natural skin color. However, her clear features hinted at the beauty she would become in the future. Her bright, beautiful eyes were fixed on the bread in the boy's hand, unable to look away.

The boy sat up abruptly, his left hand secretly grabbing a metal rod with one end sharpened. This was the most instinctive reaction of people living in the landfill; when someone sees the food in another's hand, it often leads to a fight to the death.

The little girl did not run away; her eyes were glued to the bread, not moving an inch.

The boy slowly put down the metal rod, hesitated for a long time, and finally decided to tear the bread in half and offer half to the little girl.

The boy's movements were slow, his hands trembling, and his forehead was covered in sweat. His stomach and all his wounds were protesting with intense pain.

But the bread was in the little girl's hand.

The little girl seemed to disbelieve her eyes. She clutched the bread tightly, rubbed her eyes, and confirmed that she was not dreaming.

She suddenly stuffed the bread into her mouth, and the half that was larger than her fist disappeared in a few seconds, perhaps not even three!

After eating the bread, she licked the crumbs off her hands, then raised her eyes and looked at the boy's face for the first time, examining him carefully before running away.

The boy did not know what he was feeling or why he had done this. He could only sit down dejectedly. Perhaps it was the purity in the little girl's eyes that touched something deep within him?

But what was this strange emotion? The boy leaned against the side of the drum, carefully tearing off a small piece of bread the size of a fingernail, putting it in his mouth, and not swallowing it immediately, just savoring the fragrance of the grains with his tongue.

At that moment, a young girl's voice suddenly came from outside his little nest: "He has something good to eat! You promised to share half with me!"

The boy's heart sank to the bottom. He saw several older children standing outside.

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