Above the Blood Moon

"Just a tactical miniature nuclear bomb," Huang Shuangyan said casually, as if introducing an ordinary household appliance.

"It has an equivalent weight of about 500 tons of TNT. I bought it from a bankrupt arms dealer last year. I originally wanted to resell it, but I haven't been able to find a suitable buyer. This thing is too hot to handle."

She patted the outer casing of the cartridge, which produced a dull metallic echo.

"Now it's just sitting here as a decoration. Sometimes when I look at it, I think to myself, if I really can't survive one day, I'll drag this thing to the city center and we'll all play with it together."

She spoke calmly, but Jockley could hear the almost desperate madness in her voice.

He swallowed hard.

"Awesome, I'm speechless, girl. Here you go."

Huang Shuangyan covered the canvas again, dusted off her hands, and Qiao Keli, still shaken, pushed open the shop door and went out with Da Huang.

The rain had lessened considerably, turning into an almost invisible drizzle. The blood moon rose higher, its dark red light piercing through the sparse clouds and spilling onto the wet streets.

Jockley, carrying a heavy backpack, walked back step by step, his mind still replaying the nuclear bomb.

Is Huang Shuangyan really that wild? Although I know she probably has a lot of good stuff, isn't it a bit too much to just leave a nuclear bomb in her house like that?

On their way back, they passed through that familiar street again.

The old beggar was still under the eaves on the street corner, huddled under a tattered plastic sheet, his body shivering slightly in the cold wind after the rain.

Although the rain has stopped, the damp chill in the air is even more biting.

Jockley stopped in his tracks.

He took out a nutritional supplement from his backpack, walked up to the beggar, squatted down, and gently placed the supplement in his hand.

He no longer haggles over the 0.1 Star Alliance Coins for nutritional paste; he simply wants to make himself feel better.

Sometimes, Jockley felt that he was actually a little sick inside, and he was slowly starting to adapt to the Forgotten City.

The beggar looked up; his eyes were even more cloudy than before, but a faint light suddenly flashed in them when he saw Jockley.

He remembered this gesture; the young man was the one who had given him food that day, and only that person would be willing to squat down and hand him the food.

The beggar trembled as he reached into his pocket and pulled something out. He handed it to Jockley, his fingers shaking violently.

Jockley paused for a moment, took the tattered cloth that was wrapping the item, unwrapped it, and revealed an empty photo frame inside.

The wooden frame of the picture frame was cracked and most of the paint had peeled off, but the glass was intact, though covered with a thick layer of dust.

The beggar looked at Jockley, his lips moving as if he wanted to say something, but in the end he only uttered a few indistinct syllables.

Chokley looked at the empty photo frame in his hand, then at the beggar's cloudy eyes, which held a certain expectation.

He got it.

This is the most precious gift a beggar could give in return; it must be something he picked up from somewhere in the sewer and kept wiping it clean, waiting for someone to arrive.

"Thank you," Jockley said softly. "I really like it."

He carefully wrapped the photo frame and put it in the inside pocket of his backpack. Then he took out a nutritional supplement from the backpack and placed it in front of the beggar.

"Eat more," he said. "It's cold, keep warm."

The beggar didn't react; he simply lowered his head and curled back up under the plastic sheet.

Chokley stood up and continued walking back with Da Huang. After walking a distance, he took out the photo frame from his backpack and gently stroked it in his hand.

He suddenly felt that the empty picture frame matched the butterfly specimen that the old lady had given him before.

He thought that when he got back, he would put the butterfly specimen in this frame and hang it on the wall of his room. It would be the first real decorative item he would own in this world.

Following the address on the note given by the priest, Jockley and Big Yellow arrived at the seventh district of Debris Town around 2:30 p.m.

This place is even more dilapidated than District 11. Most of the buildings on both sides of the street have collapsed, leaving only ruins and scattered stones and metal frames on the ground.

The old textile factory ruins are easy to find; it's the only building in the area that still retains its complete exterior.

A four-story brick-and-concrete factory building, its exterior walls covered with metal pipes and withered vines, all the windows broken, the dark windows like countless eyes, coldly watching visitors.

Jokeri stood at the factory gate, feeling a little apprehensive.

This place doesn't look like a gathering place for people with superpowers at all; it looks more like a gathering place for homeless people or a den of some kind of illegal transaction.

But he still took a deep breath and pushed open the rusty iron door.

The hinges creaked and groaned, echoing through the empty factory.

It was very dark inside, with only a few streaks of blood moonlight shining obliquely through the window. Jockley took a few steps inside, and his eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness.

The factory interior appeared even more empty than the exterior; most of the machinery and equipment had been removed, leaving only some foundations and broken pipes.

"Is anyone there?" Jockley asked tentatively.

The sound echoed in the open space and traveled far.

no respond.

Jockley frowned and glanced at the time: 2:40 p.m.

Am I too early?

Just as he hesitated whether to leave first and come back in when the time came, a voice suddenly came from the shadows:

"Stop right there."

The voice was cold, with a metallic echo, and it was impossible to tell whether it was male or female. Jockley's body stiffened, and he slowly turned around to look in the direction from which the voice came.

A figure emerged from the shadows of the factory.

It was a person completely wrapped in a black bodysuit, with an iron mask on his face, and the eyes behind the mask glowing red in the dim light.

The man in black walked up to Jockley, looked him up and down, and then glanced at Big Yellow behind him.

"Who are you?" the man in black asked, his voice still icy. "How did you find this place?"

Jockley took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.

"The priest introduced me to this place."

Upon hearing the word "priest," the man in black visibly paused, staring at Jockley for several seconds behind his mask, seemingly trying to discern the truth in his words.

Then, the man in black nodded.

"Come with me."

He turned and walked deeper into the factory. Jockley and Big Yellow exchanged a glance and followed him.

The man in black led them through the empty main workshop to a hidden metal door.

The door was embedded in the wall, and its surface was painted with the same gray paint as the wall, so it was impossible to notice unless you looked closely.

The man in black pressed a hidden button next to the door, and the door slid open with a click, revealing a staircase leading downwards behind it.

The staircase was narrow, allowing only one person to pass at a time. They descended about two floors, and at the bottom of the staircase was another door.

The man in black pushed open the door and made Jockley put on the iron mask outside.

It was an underground space of about fifty square meters. In the center of the space was a circle of old chairs, forming an irregular circle. Most of the chairs were empty, but there were already more than a dozen people sitting there.

The people there were all sorts of people: some were wearing company uniforms, some were wearing tattered work clothes, some were completely covered up, and some openly showed the signs of alteration on their faces and bodies.

Their ages, genders, and backgrounds all seemed different, but they all had one thing in common: they all appeared to be insane to varying degrees.

Those are traces that cannot be completely hidden after long-term exposure to alien energy or long-term use of alien energy chips.

Jockley activated his powers, and an image of a heat source flashed through his mind.

The energy flow within each person present was much more active than that of an average person.

Some people concentrate their energy in their brains, which is a characteristic of chip-powered individuals; others distribute their energy throughout their bodies, like a gentle flow of water, which is a characteristic of naturally awakened individuals.

The priest was right; everyone here has superpowers.

The man in black led Jockley to the door and stopped.

"You can sit here." He pointed to an empty chair near the door.

"Your attendant cannot go in; that's the rule. Leave him outside."

Big Yellow's optical sensor flickered, and an emoticon "[○･｀Д´･○]" popped up on the panel, clearly indicating its dissatisfaction.

Jockley patted its shoulder, comforting Big Yellow.

"Wait for me outside. If there's any danger, I'll run out immediately. Don't worry, everything will be fine."

Big Yellow reluctantly nodded and retreated into the shadows outside the door, while the optical sensor remained fixed on the inside.

Jockley sat down in the chair he was assigned.

He tried to appear as natural as possible, but his heart was pounding. This was his first time attending a gathering of people with superpowers, and he was surrounded by strangers.

He began to observe the people around him, and observing the new environment seemed to become his instinct.

Sitting opposite him was a middle-aged woman wearing a low-level office worker uniform from Yadea Company. Her hair was neatly combed, and she wore the same iron mask as the man in black, but her eyes behind the mask showed exhaustion.

Next to her was a young man who looked to be under twenty and had acne scars on his face.

Beyond that was an old man, his back hunched, his face covered with deep, furrowed wrinkles.

The old man had his eyes closed, seemingly dozing off, but Jockley could sense from the energy fluctuations emanating from him that he was a level three ability user, though he didn't know what type.

A few more people came in one after another.

At three o'clock sharp, the chairs were almost full. Jockley counted, and including himself, there were twenty-one people in total.

The last person to enter the room was an old man dressed in a black robe.

The old man was very thin, and the black robe he wore looked loose on him. He also wore an iron mask.

He walked to the seat placed in the center of the wooden chair circle and slowly sat down, his movements very gentle, as if afraid of disturbing something.

The entire underground space fell into absolute silence. Everyone stared at the old man in the center. A few seconds later, the old man raised his hand and gently tapped the back of the wooden chair beneath him.

"Thump, thump".

Two soft sounds, exceptionally clear in the silence.

Then, the old man spoke.

The voice was very old, yet each word was so clear it seemed to resonate directly in everyone's ears.

"Since no one else is coming to the gathering, let's begin."