Chapter 1568 - 89: Gathering

Amidst the vast fog, Melissa cautiously navigated the towering ruins, moving through narrow crevices, heading toward her home.

Melissa wasn’t safe until she returned to her familiar, humble hut, but once there, she could temporarily breathe a sigh of relief, enjoy a hearty meal, and curl up in the crevice for a short nap.

After waking up, Melissa was ready to scavenge among the ruins. Every day, blood citizens died, and after the Blood Tax officials recycled their bodies, blood citizens like Melissa would swarm in, recovering the few remaining possessions of the deceased.

Melissa didn’t plan on taking anything valuable; she just wanted to gather some scraps of cloth, cotton—the old city was getting colder by the day, and every morning Melissa woke up shivering from the cold.

The constant drizzle seeped into the ruins, dripping back and forth in the crevices.

"Sun... sun..."

Melissa murmured to herself; whenever this moment came, she recalled Devon’s story.

Devon said that in the world outside, the sky was blue, and there was a huge fireball hanging high above, providing illumination and warmth to the earth.

Truth be told, Melissa couldn’t fully comprehend Devon’s mentions of blue sky, sun, day and night... It was like asking someone who had never had sight to imagine what vibrant colors were.

But Melissa would still try to imagine the world outside; it was one of the few colors in her life and the motivation that kept her struggling to survive in this Hell.

"Curious to know, is the sun really that large and that hot?"

Melissa doubted not because she didn’t trust Devon’s words, but because her barren imagination found it hard to envision such things, an imagination that at times brought fear.

If such a gigantic fireball were to fall, wouldn’t everyone be burned to ashes?

Actually... being turned to ashes wouldn’t be so bad; warmth was equally luxurious and expensive in the Land of Eternal Night. Only a few blood citizens could slightly experience that warmth, while many others, like Melissa, shivered in the shadows.

Melissa squeezed her body through another crevice carefully, poked her head out, ensured no one was around, then quickly leaped out, ran back into the rickety hut, and burrowed into the crevice.

The distinct corners of the bricks in the crevice had been smoothed by Melissa, who had stuffed a lot of fabric and cotton inside, plugged other dripping cracks, trying hard to keep this narrow little nest dry and warm.

Leaving one starch stick behind, Melissa wrapped the other starch sticks with cloth several times and stuffed them into a corner before taking big bites of the starch stick in her hand.

Melissa didn’t eat too much—overeating made it hard to run, and she might not be able to squeeze through crevices. After slightly relieving her hunger, she set off again, scavenging among the ruins.

Melissa was quite lucky today; she picked up several strips of torn cloth along the way and wrapped them around herself, resembling a ghost wandering through the fog.

A giant shadow enveloped Melissa, and she looked up. It was the "statue" Devon had mentioned. Said to be a massive rock sculpted in human form for commemoration or other uses.

Melissa didn’t quite understand the words statue or commemoration; learning to communicate verbally was already challenging enough in this ghostly place.

This enormous sculpture stood towering over the ruins, bearing the brunt of weathering and water erosion. Its surface was mottled and damaged, yet it emitted a solemn and mysterious aura.

Melissa guessed the statue depicted a man; his upper body was concealed in the fog, utterly invisible, but Melissa imagined this was the man who used to rule the old city.

Devon mentioned that the city wasn’t originally called the old city, but for reasons unknown even to him, its name had been erased, and the place reduced to ruins, becoming a shelter for blood citizens.

Melissa thought so too. How could those high and mighty members of the Night Race be willing to live with blood citizens in such conditions?

They should live outside the city, though Melissa wasn’t sure exactly where outside.

To prevent blood citizens from escaping, countless hungry Bloodthirstys wandered outside the city, combined with the lingering fog; many who ventured out never returned again.

Shooting a glance away from the statue, Melissa continued forward.

Today’s scavenging goal was accomplished; usually, Melissa would have returned to her little home to minimize energy consumption. But this time, Devon gave her extra starch sticks, supplies enough that Melissa planned to continue roaming the old city until she felt hungry.

Melissa avoided dangerous places, heading toward the west side of the old city. Unlike her residence among the ruins, there stood still-standing buildings—though dilapidated, they counted as luxurious within the old city.

In the buildings on the western side, there was a place called a church. According to Devon, that was where people prayed. Unfortunately, Melissa still didn’t grasp the meanings of church, prayer, or follower, but she knew people called followers often gathered there to perform some mysterious ritual practices.

Most importantly, those followers would waste a lot of fresh blood during the rituals to sacrifice to some unknown being.

Melissa couldn’t understand their faith, nor why they would waste precious blood on something so intangible, but what she knew was that if she was clever enough, she might be able to recover some fresh blood from the pool at the ritual site.

West City District gradually emerged from the mist, and compared to the gray ruins, there were more lights and vitality here, even the surrounding cold was dispelled a bit.

Many blood citizens set up stalls on the street, exchanging goods such as starch bars, cloth, sharp metal shards...

A fragrance wafted by, and Melissa immediately felt her mouth salivating rapidly. She looked in the direction of the scent, seeing a stove set up by the roadside with one rat after another being roasted. Many people were eagerly gathered around the stove.

In the resource-scarce Land of Eternal Night, blood citizens have no food source other than starch bars, making meat products extraordinarily precious in this Hell.

"I never thought rats could survive in this damned place."

Devon once made such a remark, suggesting from his words that rats didn’t seem to be good things.

Melissa disagreed with Devon’s view. She’s always thought rats are magical creatures with tenacious life, so she wants to be like rats... resilient like them.

Suddenly someone bumped into Melissa. She instantly became nervous and tried to turn around and leave, but discovered more people were crowding in. Terrified, Melissa bumped into things frantically but found more and more people approaching, feeling like a little fish trying to swim upstream, only to be swept forward in powerless struggle.

After a brief panic, Melissa calmed down, realizing these people weren’t hostile, merely numerous and sweeping her along.

They were muttering words, seemingly whispering something Melissa couldn’t understand. To avoid injury, she could only move along with them.

The crowd grew stronger, like a dark wave, tearing through dilapidated buildings and flowing into the central cathedral.

The flickering firelight and warmth of the crowd made Melissa reluctant to leave. Slowly, the crowd stopped moving. Melissa looked around to figure out what was happening but was too short to see anything except faces filled with zeal overhead.

"The sun, the sun waits for us behind the clouds!"

An exalted voice rang from the front. Melissa had heard this voice before, but on the outskirts of the West City District, the blood citizens living nearby all knew among the believers was a loud-voiced fellow whose shout could carry far.

"The current pain is only our trial and test. If we devotedly offer our precious things, then the Angel of the Fiery Sun will one day arrive."

Melissa stopped moving, murmuring to herself, "One day? Angel of the Fiery Sun?"

Sun?

Melissa moved toward the edge of the crowd, spotting a column before her and climbed it without hesitation, finally gaining a broad view.

Before the mass of believers was a gigantic platform with the loud-voiced Priest standing there, arms outstretched. Behind him was a glass painting depicting a crimson sphere, which appeared ablaze under the reflected firelight.

Melissa instinctively muttered, "Sun..."

All Melissa’s understanding of the sun came from Devon. One could say the sun in her mind was merely a fantastical mirage, yet at this moment, Melissa clearly hadn’t seen the real sun but she was certain the glass-ensconced fiery sphere behind the Priest was the sun’s likeness.

Warm, blazing, immense.

"Angel of the Fiery Sun!"

The believers shouted, then they ascended the platform one after another, squeezing blood from their blood packs into the large container atop. Some had packs already deflated, and so directly used needles to donate blood.

Everyone sacrificed blood, praying for the arrival of the Fiery Sun, the fervor spreading wildly, nearly dizzying Melissa. For a moment, she desired to jump off the column and join the line donating blood.

But before Melissa’s mind sank entirely into the fervor, the cathedral’s shut doors were kicked open by someone, and turning back, teams of blood tax officers strode in wielding weapons.

...

Devon looked at the figures charging ahead and then at the sturdy short baton in his hand. Blood tax officers seldom acted in unison, let alone at such scale to demand blood collection from blood citizens.

Non-stop forced collection would only disrupt the blood tax cycle, reducing fresh blood production, something every blood tax officer understands, yet understanding does nothing when it comes to affecting those in higher power.

Devon caught sight of the figure amongst the blood tax officers from the corner of his eye, his pale skin common in the old city, but uncommon were his pair of crimson pupils.

A noble Night Race personally supervising blood tax collection... Devon hoped it was just about collecting blood tax.