Chapter 38

The sheriff was responsible for one end, while Qianye and the one-eyed man took charge of the other. The three of them took a deep breath, exerted all their strength, and lifted the one-ton gate, pushing it towards the city tower.

The one-eyed man, though he had not activated his Origin Node, had been practicing and was not far from activating his first Origin Node. His talent was strength enhancement. Qianye, on the other hand, steadily displayed the strength of a Level 1 Warrior, no more and no less.

A Level 1 Warrior at seventeen might elicit envy, but a Level 2 Warrior at seventeen was a different story. How could someone qualified to join the Imperial Special Forces end up running a small bar in such a desolate place?

By eight in the morning, the three were exhausted. However, the repair of the city gate was only halfway done. To reassemble the boiler that had fallen apart on one side, they needed to order parts from a big city.

The new parts would take at least a week to arrive. The bald sheriff, though worried, could only endure another week of anxiety.

At this time, the sky over the Upper Continent was already bright. However, during the Dark Season on the Eternal Night Continent, the orbits of several Upper Continents intersected directly above the Eternal Night Continent, blocking the sunlight.

On the Eternal Night Continent, the sky was only bright from ten in the morning to three in the afternoon; the rest of the time was night.

In the night sky, the crimson moon still hung there. According to the legends of the Eternal Night Continent, whenever the crimson moon appeared, disaster would follow. When the blood moon hung in the sky, the power of the dark races would increase, and the wild beasts would become more ferocious and aggressive.

Seeing the blood moon in the sky, Qianye suddenly felt a surge of blood rushing through his body, his senses becoming extremely acute, especially his sense of smell, which was enhanced a thousandfold. He could almost smell the scent of everyone in the town. The hot smell of blood almost drove him mad!

Qianye bid farewell to the sheriff and quickly returned to the bar, tightly shutting the door. He then fell to the ground, howling like a wild beast, rolling around.

The thirst for blood was an almost unbearable torment, a pain and emptiness more intense than the withdrawal from 'Euphoria.' If it weren't for the willpower Qianye had cultivated while practicing the War Sutra, comparable to that of a Red Scorpion War King, he would have long been conquered by the bloodlust and become a true blood slave.

Qianye lay on the cold ground, biting a towel to keep from screaming. He grabbed a steel bar welded into the wall with one hand and pounded the ground with the other!

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Muffled sounds echoed from the bar, causing the entire Manjushage to tremble slightly. At this time, the bar had no customers, and the sounds reverberated through the empty hall.

A few scavengers happened to be passing by the bar. Hearing the strange muffled sounds, they all changed their routes, moving away from Manjushage as if a demon were locked inside the bar.

After a full hour, Qianye struggled to his feet. He staggered to the cabinet, took out a blood bag, and carefully squeezed a few drops of blood into his mouth, then immediately sealed the bag and returned it to its place with great willpower.

A few drops of blood made Qianye break out in a cold sweat, leaning against the wall and panting heavily.

Now, he needed a few drops of blood to suppress his bloodlust. Initially, Qianye could endure the bloodlust without any help. But three months ago, he needed to lick a drop of blood to suppress it. Now, he needed almost a spoonful of blood to deceive his body and suppress the bloodlust.

Animal blood was gradually losing its effect, while the allure of human blood was increasing exponentially. At this rate, Qianye estimated he could last at most another year. Although his resistance over these days was already a miracle, the future was still dark and bleak.

Qianye's gaze fell on the cabinet again, but this time he looked not at the blood bag, but at the military knife under it. It was a standard multi-purpose military knife of the Red Scorpions, with a badly damaged silver plating. Qianye kept it there for the day he could no longer suppress his bloodlust, to use it to end his life.

Next to the blood bag was a black silk bag.

Qianye smiled bitterly. He now had at least one more option for suicide. The Demon-Slaying Silver Bullets would be fatal to a titled vampire, let alone him, a half-blood slave. If Qianye swallowed one, all his internal organs would be burned to charcoal, with no visible external injuries.

At least he could die beautifully, Qianye thought.

This was another change in him after being tainted by the Dark Blood, a growing instinct to like beautiful things.

However, just as he had not committed suicide immediately back then, as long as it wasn't the last moment, Qianye would never give up.

He walked to the power room behind the bar and added a few shovels of black stone to the large metal machine, which was half the size of the bar. This would allow the steam boiler to burn for a whole day, providing the necessary power for the bar and maintaining the temperature of the wine cellar. Qianye's wine needed to ferment for ten days at 60 degrees Celsius to achieve the best flavor.

The town had a public black stone steam tower, but it couldn't support such a luxurious consumption. Manjushage and a few households in the town had their own independent power systems.

At ten in the morning, as the sky just began to brighten, the bar's door was pushed open, and a heavily tattooed man walked in.

Seeing Qianye, he approached, patted Qianye's shoulder warmly, and said, "Brother, there's another gambling match! Young Master Zhao sent me to find you. This time, it's a bit far, so we need to leave early. As usual, I'll watch the store, and you go ahead!"

Qianye nodded, took a bottle of strong liquor from the cabinet, and handed it to the man, saying, "As usual, this is yours."

The man grinned, giving Qianye a heavy pat on the chest.

A moment later, Qianye arrived at a large industrial complex in the northeast corner of the town. After the Dawn War, this place had been a large-scale mechanical parts factory, reportedly producing military equipment as well. However, with the upper-class citizens of the Empire moving to the better living environments of the Upper Continents, the factory was abandoned.

Now, the factory had become the base for Young Master Zhao and his men.

Young Master Zhao was very young, not yet thirty. He was extremely handsome and had the cleanliness and elegance that the native savages lacked. It was said that he was an illegitimate son of a major family in the Empire, who had ended up on the Eternal Night Continent for some reason. The townspeople called him Young Master Zhao, but no one knew his real name.

In the Empire, Zhao was a special surname. The Zhao family was a thousand-year-old noble family, with ancestors who had participated in the Dawn War and were one of the seven founding marshals of the Empire. Today, the Zhao family's power had only increased, ranking among the four major families of the Empire, second only to the Zhang family.

So the rumors were not credible. Even if this Young Master Zhao had a distant connection to a branch of the Zhao family, he wouldn't have ended up collecting protection fees in a rundown town on the Eternal Night Continent.

Young Master Zhao did have some strength, as a Level 1 Warrior, he could easily suppress his dozen or so henchmen. However, his ambitions seemed to extend beyond the Lighthouse Town area, and he had been frequently interacting with forces in nearby towns.

Interactions often led to disputes, and resolving disputes through gambling matches was very popular among various forces, being a relatively mild method. After all, a formal war between two forces would result in heavy casualties, and the losing side would be annihilated, while the winning side, if the cost was too high, would eventually be swallowed by other forces.

Seeing Qianye arrive, Young Master Zhao immediately smiled, putting his arm around Qianye's shoulder and saying warmly, "Finally, you're here! Brother, this time we're going big, you absolutely can't lose! If we win, I'll pay for Min'er to keep you company for three nights. If you think she's not enough, you can pick any woman you want, except for Yun!"

"Still virtual combat?" Qianye asked.

"Of course! You're the king of the arena!"

"Alright, I don't want the women. I still want those medicines as payment."

"No problem! But the next caravan won't arrive in Blackstream City for ten days. You'll probably have to wait half a month to get the medicines. If we win this time, I'll buy you double!"

"One bottle is enough."

Young Master Zhao patted Qianye's shoulder, laughing, "I, Young Master Zhao, never go back on my word. Double! It's settled! This match is very important to me, just win it for me."

At this moment, the heavy rumble of engines came from outside, and two heavy-duty off-road trucks stopped in front of the factory. Young Master Zhao pulled Qianye and two other men with a murderous aura and a sinister look into one truck, while the other twenty henchmen squeezed into the other truck.

These were two old steam-powered trucks, favored on the Eternal Night Continent for their durability and ease of repair. Their only drawback was their slow speed and the noise and smell, which were intolerable to the upper class.

The two trucks, moving at a turtle's pace of thirty kilometers per hour, bumped along for four hours without breaking down, which was a small miracle. By then, the outline of a large city was already visible. This was not a small place like Lighthouse Town with only a few thousand people, but Blackstream City with over a hundred thousand residents.

From a distance, Blackstream City's ten-meter-high walls were much more magnificent than Lighthouse Town's, with metal skeletons visibly protruding from the exposed green stones. Every few hundred meters along the walls, there were cannons and two ballistae.

When dealing with dark races and large, ferocious beasts, these old ballistae were more powerful than cannons and were very popular on the Eternal Night Continent. The steam-driven, gear-operated mechanical devices made it easier to reset and load the ballistae, greatly improving their practicality.

In Blackstream City, several hundred-meter-high chimneys constantly spewed black smoke, which were the city's core energy facilities, the perpetual motion towers.

The most prominent feature was the lighthouse that burned year-round. This was not the twenty-meter-tall lighthouse in Lighthouse Town but a massive 150-meter-tall structure. Besides serving as a landmark for a thousand miles, it also prevented airships traveling to Blackstream City from mistakenly entering the energy zone and colliding with the chimneys.

Compared to Lighthouse Town, Blackstream City was a heavily armed giant.

The two trucks, breathing heavily, entered Blackstream City. Young Master Zhao was indeed well-known in the surrounding area, and he didn't even have to pay the entry fee.