Lord of the Eternal Night

Most of the time on the Eternal Night Continent was shrouded in a dusky twilight. Especially during the Dark Season, the orbit of the upper continent would block the sunlight, leaving only a few short hours of daylight.Tonight, the twin Alpha star moved into a near-earth orbit, making it a rare moonlit night. However, the full moon was a blood-red color.Under the crimson night sky, a tiny black dot suddenly appeared. It flew from outer space, slowly moving across the sky and growing larger and larger.It turned out to be a floating airship that was several kilometers long!It was extremely dilapidated. The huge airbags were covered with patches, and the metal components were rusty. Many parts where they were joined were warped, making people worry whether they would suddenly break apart.Dozens of thick cables were hanging down messily from beneath the airship, suspending equally rusty and huge cargo holds. Through the not-fully-closed cargo doors, one could see that they were all filled with garbage.The airship struggled through the last stretch of its journey and finally reached its destination. On the ground hundreds of meters below was an extremely vast airship graveyard!At this moment, tens of thousands of people were swarming out from their hiding places. They had long thrown their fear of the crimson moon to the back of their minds and were waving vigorously at the floating airship, constantly letting out excited cheers!Even on this land that was almost forgotten by the empire, they were the lowest of the low in the whole world, struggling for survival every day.This was the burial place for those once magnificent behemoths. The scrapped floating airships flying from the upper continent usually carried a large amount of garbage, and over time, it had become a junkyard full of all kinds of things.And the people living in the airship graveyard survived on the garbage thrown down from the upper continent.If there was no floating airship delivering garbage for a long time, a large number of people here would starve to death. For them, the garbage from the upper continent was their only hope.And tomorrow...Tomorrow was too luxurious a word here. No one would think about tomorrow.Finally, the floating airship, which had already aligned with the coordinates, let out a painful groan, began to vibrate continuously, suddenly tilted, and crashed towards the ground! When it hit the ground, it broke apart with a deafening roar.Countless pieces of garbage, waste materials, and metal components flew in all directions, and a rain of garbage fell over the airship graveyard.The carnival began!The squatters howled and rushed towards the place where the airship had crashed. Some even ran on all fours like wild beasts.From time to time, huge metal components fell from the sky. Many people right below the falling points couldn't dodge in time and were directly smashed into mincemeat by the components weighing several tons. However, their companions beside them turned a blind eye to the danger and still rushed forward desperately, only hoping to reach the place where they could scramble for the garbage first.Among the people were men, women, the elderly, and children. But age and gender meant nothing here. Each group was distinguished by body shape and strength. This was the only criterion for dividing territory in the graveyard.Those who could rush to the wreckage of the airship were the strongest and most muscular men in the entire graveyard. Then came the weaker men and the stronger women, followed by the weaker women, and on the outermost circle were the elderly and children.People formed concentric circles with the crashed floating airship as the center. There were invisible yet uncrossable boundaries between each layer.On the outermost edge of the concentric circles was the activity area for the children. Hundreds of children were constantly rummaging through the garbage piles in this area, looking for the almost non-existent food.Among them was a skinny little boy, also trying hard to rummage.He was about seven or eight years old. His little face was so dirty that his original appearance couldn't be seen at all. The clothes on his body were originally an adult's shirt, but wrapped around him, it looked like a long robe. Moreover, the shirt was already in tatters and was basically just a few larger pieces of rags tied around his body with cloth strips.He dug hard at the cold garbage with both hands. His little hands were full of cuts, and many of the wounds were festering. But he seemed to feel no pain and was desperately digging through the large pile of shapeless garbage in front of him.He hadn't eaten anything for three days. If he couldn't find something to eat today, he definitely wouldn't be able to hold on until the next floating airship arrived.However, no matter how hard the little boy tried, he still found nothing.This area had already been rummaged through countless times by others and was then left to these children under ten years old. These children were the weakest in this junkyard. And when the stronger people really couldn't find any food, their hungry eyes would... fix on the elderly and children.This was the land of abandonment, the airship graveyard. As long as the people here were alive, they were no different from wild beasts. Even powerful wild beasts lived with more dignity than them!The desire for survival made the little boy unwilling to give up. He kept rummaging through the garbage, and many of his wounds split open again due to excessive force, oozing blood. But he was completely unaware of it.Another rain of garbage fell from the sky, and a larger garbage bag landed beside the little boy.The outer shell of the garbage bag broke open, and an oil paper package rolled out from among the various useless pieces of garbage, immediately attracting all of the little boy's attention. There were even oil stains seeping through the paper package!Suddenly, he pounced on it with the agility of a wild cat and grasped the oil paper package tightly in his hand. He didn't even open it to check what was inside but stuffed it into his clothes at once. Meanwhile, he turned his head vigilantly to look left and right and then carefully crawled towards the periphery.Among these children, there was also competition, looting, and even killing! The cruelty was no less than that in the adult world.The little boy was very skinny and was on the weaker side in this junkyard. Once the stronger older children found out that he had found something edible and wanted to hide it, getting a beating would be the least of his problems.Fortunately, the little boy avoided the sight of all the older children and successfully escaped from this area. He seemed to have an innate sharpness and could always avoid those older children who were even scarier than fierce beasts one step ahead.After getting away from the wreckage of the floating airship, the little boy ran as fast as he could and rushed all the way to behind another garbage mountain and crawled into an empty iron barrel.This was his little nest, a shelter from the wind and rain. In the little boy's mind, this small space of just over one square meter was a paradise on earth.He carefully took out the oil paper package, held his breath, and slowly opened it with a look of reverence as if on a pilgrimage.Inside the paper package was actually a loaf of bread! A loaf of bread with just one bite taken out of it!The moment the little boy saw it, he knew it was called bread. He had never seen such intact food on the garbage dump, but he couldn't remember at all where or when he had learned about bread.In fact, it was just an ordinary round loaf of bread. On the upper continent, even the lowest of the low might take a bite and then throw it away, just like the one in the little boy's hand. But in this junkyard, it could be worth several lives.Getting a bit closer, one could smell a faint aroma of grains. The little boy felt as if all his wounds and pains had disappeared. He carefully held the loaf of bread, unable to believe that he could find such a treasure.Was it a dream?A drop of blood oozed from the wound on his hand and rolled onto the bread. The little boy cried out in alarm and quickly wiped his hand vigorously on his body, drying all the blood and sweat stains. With a sad look on his little face, when he looked back at the loaf of bread again, he was as sad as if his sacred object had been desecrated.At this time, the little boy's stomach suddenly growled. His stomach expressed its craving with a sharp, cramping pain. So he tore off the part of the bread that was stained with blood, summoned up all his courage, and was about to put it into his mouth.But his hand suddenly stopped in mid-air.Outside the iron barrel, a person had appeared at some point...