Chapter 152: The Origin of Respite, The Legend of the Blood Moon

The vast expanse of the Fifteenth Gray District stretched endlessly. After emerging from the Green Demon Forest, the driver whipped the horses forward, passing first through a city, then two small towns, and finally entering a desolate and bleak wasteland.

"Dammit, hell, how did we end up in this godforsaken place?"

As night fell, the carriage came to a halt, and the driver's disgruntled cursing drifted inside.

Ye Ran parted the curtain and peered outside. Ahead lay a small town, standing in solitary isolation upon the wasteland like a wandering, orphaned ghost in the wild.

He could catch glimpses of figures moving along the stone-paved streets within.

Aside from a somewhat eerie atmosphere, nothing about the place seemed particularly bizarre.

Puzzled, Ye Ran asked, "Boss, is something wrong?"

Having grown up as an orphan who had endured many hardships, he held deep respect for professions like drivers, coachmen, and attendants, habitually addressing them all as "Boss."

Naturally, a coachman willing to undertake long-haul journeys through the gray zones was no ordinary person. They were invariably bold, utterly fearless of gods and ghosts, and possessed a wealth of worldly experience.

The coachman Ye Ran had hired was named Maglian. In his youth, he had been an adventurer roaming far and wide—a notoriously tough and slippery character—who had only settled down a bit in his old age to work as a driver and provide for his family.

When it came to the matters of the Fifteenth Gray District, Maglian naturally knew far more than an inexperienced, sheltered kid like Ye Ran.

"Little fellow, do you see that castle?"

Maglian was around fifty years old, with rugged features, prickly facial hair, and a deep, resonant voice.

Following the direction of his finger, Ye Ran spotted a towering castle.

It stood on the eastern side of the town like a lofty spire.

"Yes, I see it."

Ye Ran rubbed his eyes, thinking he caught sight of gray, wispy figures drifting across the cyan sky above the castle, though they blurred into indistinct shapes upon closer inspection.

"Just behind that castle lies the Place of Rest," Maglian said.

"The Place of Rest?" Ye Ran could not help but frown.

Within the gray zones, the Place of Rest held a notorious and terrifying reputation.

Legend had it that long ago, that region was originally the territory of the Rabbit-folk and the Moon-folk. The powerful Moon-folk protected the gentle and weak rabbits, and back then, the Goat-Horn Continent had no division between gray and white zones—until one fateful day...

"Little fellow, you should know that when the gods and demons descended upon Goat-Horn, the gray zone was the most fiercely contested battlefield of their conflict. The Moon-folk were powerful and upright, while the Rabbit-folk were gentle and peace-loving. Both races were willing to swear allegiance to the divine race, and the gods readily accepted them. But because of this, both races became targets of fierce attacks by the demonic race."

"Especially the Moon-folk. Their strength filled the demons with deep dread. In the final battle before the Moon-folk vanished, the demons dispatched their most inhumane ghouls and evil spirit armies. The Moon-folk met a formidable enemy. After suffering a defeat, they could have retreated, but the gentle Rabbit-folk, trusting the reinforcements promised by the divine race, also chose to stay behind in the Place of Rest. To protect the safe retreat of the Rabbit-folk, the entire Moon-folk race... fought to the last man and perished right there."

"They died a horrific death. You know what kind of creatures ghouls and evil spirits are—they have no humanity and are more ferocious than beasts. The Moon-folk not only failed to keep their bodies intact, but even their souls were detained by the demons after death, denied eternal rest."

Hearing this, Ye Ran felt a sharp, needle-like pain pierce his heart.

"Do you know why it was later called the Place of Rest? Because the Rabbit-folk, who had originally intended to die in battle as well, chose to swallow their humiliation and surrender to the demons so that the heroic souls of the Moon-folk could finally rest. As long as the Moon-folk's spirits could find peace, the rabbits were willing to offer their own souls to the demons, marching into battle clad in armor for the demonic race for all eternity."

"The irony is that the Rabbit-folk never saw the promised reinforcements from the divine race. A month later, they learned that while the Moon-folk were locked in a bloody battle with ghouls and evil spirits, the gods had quietly retreated to the Yibo Badlands, and there had never been any reinforcements at all."

"Overwhelmed by grief and fury upon learning the truth, the three great elders used their blood and souls that very day to cast the most venomous curse upon the gods within the Place of Rest. Afterward, aside from the infant rabbits left behind to propagate the race, every single member of the Rabbit-folk joined in the curse. That is how the Place of Rest came to be."

Maglian sighed. "To this day, the heavily persecuted Rabbit-folk would rather become god-hunters than accept an olive branch from the divine race. Ah, such betrayal is unbearable for any race."

Ye Ran had read few books, and this was his first time hearing the origin of the Place of Rest. An inexpressible sorrow gripped his heart.

"Yet some say the Moon-folk were not entirely wiped out. Some unofficial histories record that on the night of the Battle of Rest, the chieftain of the Moon-folk hurled an infant into Long-Tail Mountain to preserve their bloodline. The Rabbit-folk seem to have always firmly believed this. An obscure secret scripture states that the Rabbit-folk have tirelessly searched for that infant, and that the curse carved upon the Blood Stone Tablet holds a deeper mystery."

"还有一千五百年前的血月传说......" (Wait, rule check: must translate fully. Let me rephrase:)
"And then there is the legend of the Blood Moon from fifteen hundred years ago..."

"The curse on the Blood Stone Tablet? The legend of the Blood Moon?"

A sudden stir rippled through Ye Ran's heart.

"Fifteen hundred years ago, a man dressed in blood-red robes, bearing a blood moon mark upon his forehead and wielding the cultivation arts of the Moon-folk, went to the Second Demonic Vein of the demonic race and held a meeting with the Rabbit-folk. His power was so immense that even the reigning Great Demon King Crisin found him deeply troublesome."

Unbeknownst when, Shali had walked up from behind.

Maglian bowed and offered a greeting of "My Lady Divine Envoy."

Mortals on the Goat-Horn Continent always held divine envoys in profound respect.

Shali nodded and said, "He appeared in the Second Demonic Vein only once and then vanished completely. Ever since then, the Rabbit-folk have searched for him, and Athena and Zeus have also sought him out, hoping to make amends for the regrets of the past, but he was never found. He never appeared again."

Recovering her usual dignified and serene demeanor, she looked at Ye Ran's slightly reddened eyes, brushed his bangs aside, and said, "That castle is named 'Eternal Night.' Because it is too close to the Place of Rest, it is inevitably affected by the curse. The resentment of the Rabbit-folk back then was simply too intense, and even after all these years, it still cannot be dissipated."

Maglian nodded in agreement. "Indeed. That is why this town has always ostracized Eternal Night Castle, though the town itself cannot completely escape the curse either."

Having traveled this route several times, he was intimately familiar with the place.

Shali nodded. "Many people say this place is filled with ominous portents, but spending a night here should pose no problem. Mr. Maglian, what do you think?"

Maglian let out a hearty laugh. "If My Lady Divine Envoy says there's no problem, then of course there's no problem! Little fellow, get in the carriage; let's head inside together."

Shali cast a gentle yet profoundly meaningful glance at Ye Ran.

Inside the carriage, however, Ye Ran remained lost in deep thought: the legend of the Moon-folk, the resentment of the Rabbit-folk, the meteor-like Blood Moon, and the curse left by the Rabbit-folk upon the Blood Stone Tablet...

The Blood Stone Tablet had now been absorbed by himself. Could it be...