Chapter 32

But could it be that those old soldiers, the Red Scorpion captain who detonated his bomb, and Colonel Wei Lishi who brought himself into the Red Scorpions, all died in vain?

No! They must not disappear without a trace!

Qian Ye clenched his teeth.

To avenge these Red Scorpions, there were only two ways. One was to rise to the upper echelons of the Empire, gain more power than the masterminds behind the scenes, then reveal the truth and seek justice for the fallen Red Scorpion warriors. However, Qian Ye had now become a blood slave, with his life hanging by a thread, and it was impossible for him to return to human society.

But there was another path! That was to find a way to survive and gain powerful martial strength. When Qian Ye's strength reached a certain level, he could add those masterminds to his list of targets!

Qian Ye hid his important equipment, carried only a dagger, put on a civilian coat, and walked out of the mountainous area, preparing to find a human settlement to gather information and see if he could obtain some news from the outside world.

The preset return coordinates of the escape pod should have been the Red Scorpion headquarters, but they might have been affected when the mother ship was damaged, causing the star map to be corrupted. Now, he didn't know where it had landed. The surrounding undeveloped primitive scenery made it impossible to determine the exact location.

However, a day later, Qian Ye returned to this place. He had several gunshot wounds, and a large burn mark on his arm, which was the result of being hit by a silver bullet. The wound was still oozing yellow pus.

Qian Ye's face was full of confusion and gloom.

When he went to the city to gather information, he immediately smelled an unprecedentedly sweet scent of fresh blood upon seeing the crowd. The deep-seated thirst for blood within him flared up, and Qian Ye, unprepared, immediately exuded a strong aura of blood.

This was the Empire's border, where dark races often appeared, so the city defense forces were particularly vigilant. A passing patrol squad immediately detected the vampire aura on Qian Ye.

In an instant, almost everyone he saw became his enemy.

By the time Qian Ye escaped from the crowd, he was already covered in injuries. Although he managed to escape back to the mountains under the cover of night, Qian Ye knew he couldn't stay here any longer.

This was indeed the Red Scorpion headquarters, the location of the Huangquan Training Camp, Qin Lu, but for the current Qian Ye, it was definitely not good news.

Most of Qin Lu was under the control of the Empire, with only a few peripheral areas still in the hands of the dark races. If Qian Ye's blood slave identity was exposed, people wouldn't give him any chance to explain.

Qian Ye remembered that even when he was in the Red Scorpions, his first reaction upon seeing a blood slave was to shoot them directly, as his Red Scorpion captain had taught him. No one could afford the consequences of leniency.

This was the hatred accumulated over a thousand years of war between the two races, a matter of stance, not right or wrong.

Qian Ye leaned against a large tree and slowly slid down to sit, his mind blank. Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain on his side, as if being licked by flames.

Qian Ye jumped up, and a small object fell from his inner pocket, rolling to the ground, a glint of silver flashing. It was a silver bullet casing. He had long forgotten when he had put it in his pocket and carried it until now, and it only reminded him of its existence when it touched his skin through the torn clothing.

The small object was quite rough, with an industrially polished exterior that could pass for something decent, but the original force array inside had multiple defects, only achieving 50% energy compression efficiency. However, this silver bullet, upon touching his body, brought Qian Ye a burning pain, reminding him of his current situation.

Qian Ye's military boots suddenly stepped on it, and he forcefully turned his heel, driving it deep into the ground. Then he kicked the surrounding soil to cover the small hole, making it invisible.

Qian Ye stood quietly for a while, took one last look at the mountains and land, picked up his backpack, wrapped himself in a cloak, and quietly left the mountainous area.

At this time, in a province of the Empire's central continent, the continuous rainy weather had just ended. In the afternoon, a gap opened in the cloudy sky, and sunlight shone through.

The river surface shimmered, and the wind iron on the suspended platform by the water made a clinking sound. Its shape resembled a Bifang, a one-legged crane, which was the family emblem of the Song family of Gaoling, one of the four major valves of the Empire.

The buildings in this area were all made of wood and stone, with high platforms, pavilions, and eaves. The light reflected from the glazed tiles flowed, as if merging with the green water. Everything was filled with a nostalgic atmosphere of ancient times, distinctly different from the green stone and metal architecture of the Empire's major cities.

The upper echelons of the Empire favored a retro style, and their vast resources were sufficient to support the operation of these delicate and seemingly fragile facilities.

Inside the suspended platform was a spacious study with minimal furnishings, and a desk under a long window. Song Zining sat upright, facing a stack of processed documents, with only one unimportant imperial courier report left.

From Song Zining's calm and gentle expression, it was impossible to tell that his expected visitor was already five minutes late. In his schedule, each task was timed in fifteen-minute intervals, a habit he had retained from his time at the Huangquan Training Camp.

Song Zining glanced at the courier report and finally opened it out of boredom, something he would never waste time on before.

A name caught his eye: Lin Qianye.

Song Zining paused for a few seconds, flipped back to the first page, and the paper made a light rustling sound. In an inconspicuous corner was a brief news item: the Red Scorpion Corps mission failed, with one-third of the Red Scorpion-level warriors lost. Inside were the names of the fallen, and Lin Qianye's name was prominently listed.

At this moment, the door was knocked, and a servant outside softly announced the visitor's name.

Song Zining quietly closed the courier report, placed it on the stack of processed documents, then stood up and greeted the visiting noblewoman with a perfectly polite smile.

At the headquarters of the Fallen Angel, Wei Potian was sprawled on his dorm bed, sound asleep. The intensive training over the past seven days had exhausted him. But the hard work was worth it, as he successfully stood out among the new recruits and earned the right to represent the Fallen Angel in the military competition.

As for the second letter he sent before the closed training, it quietly lay in the return box at the Red Scorpion headquarters. This letter, now without a recipient, would be sent out with the next batch of official documents, traveling across three continents before being returned to the sender.

A day later, in a remote corner of Qin Lu, a team of Imperial soldiers found the crashed airship and the place where Qian Ye had awakened.

The leading officer had sharp eyes and a weathered face, filled with determination. He carefully examined the scene and said after an hour, "He is still rational, not a blood slave, but a newborn vampire. However, we have lost his trail."

"A newborn vampire, not a big deal, right?" another officer said.

"Indeed. Report this, and our mission is over. That airship belongs to the military, and I don't want to get involved in military affairs."

The other officers also agreed. The Imperial military was a vast war machine with numerous factions and complex relationships. The local defense forces and regular legions were entirely separate systems. Many regular legions often preferred to use local defense forces as cannon fodder during battles, so their relationship was not exactly harmonious.

A crashed escape pod and a fleeing newborn vampire were insignificant in the vast Empire, and no one was willing to spend time on this matter. Thus, in the unspoken默契, this small incident disappeared in the vast bureaucratic system of the Empire.

Several days later, in the border area between the Empire and the dark races, a solitary figure appeared. He looked ahead, and on the distant horizon, a small town came into view, with an old but massive floating airship parked by the town.

This person was Qian Ye, and he immediately recognized that the airship was capable of intercontinental travel.

It seemed he had found the right place.

This town was not marked on any map, and there was no information about it in any official records of the Empire. However, it existed in reality. This was a gray area, the boundary between the Eternal Night and Dawn.

In this town, dark races and humans could coexist, provided they had money and the strength to protect themselves.

Qian Ye walked briskly toward the town, and at the entrance, a large, fat man blocked his way.

"Kid, what brings you here?"

Qian Ye glanced at the fat man. This gatekeeper was actually at the third level!

Qian Ye was taken aback and reassessed the place, then said, "I'm looking for Gray Feather."

"Gray Feather? He's our boss! What do you want with him?" The fat man became slightly more serious.

"I need a ticket."

"Where to?"

"The Eternal Night continent."

"Ah ha!" The fat man exclaimed, "Those who want to go there are all crazy! Did you do something really bad? Well, you don't have to answer my question; I'm just curious. Boss Gray Feather said to be polite to those who want to go to the Eternal Night continent. But, who would be willing to pay such an expensive ticket to sneak into that cursed place?"

The fat man rambled on, moving his massive body to walk into the town. Qian Ye followed behind him, silently entering the town.

Half a day later, the large and old floating airship struggled to take off, taking a full day to leave the land and enter the void. Qian Ye sat by the porthole, looking through the murky glass at the gradually receding Empire.

A few days later, a new continent appeared in the porthole.

This was the Eternal Night continent, where Qian Ye had grown up.

The Eternal Night, this abandoned land, was home to beings completely forgotten by fate.

Qian Ye chose it as his place of residence, where he would continue to struggle against fate, perhaps suppressing the erosion of the dark blood, or perhaps being ultimately consumed by it. Regardless of the outcome, the Eternal Night continent would be the stage for his final act.

The Eternal Night continent was indeed a cursed place, but now only there could accommodate a blood slave with his sanity intact.

The world below the floating airship was still a gray, gloomy place, just like Qian Ye's current mood. He could no longer choose Dawn, but he didn't want to fall into the Eternal Night. He could only rest and crawl in the gray area between the Eternal Night and Dawn, waiting for fate's judgment.

End of Volume 1

Next Volume: Flowers Bloom on the Other Shore

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