Kingdom Bloodline

Chapter 44 The Truth About Red Street
Hongfang Street.

8 pm.

The security office and city hall were evacuated two days ago.

Aside from the fact that the ruins from the battle will need time to be rebuilt, Red Town Street has already opened for business.

The entire street was brightly lit and bustling with people, men and women of all kinds coming and going. The lowest-class prostitutes would secretly beckon from behind dark alleys, wait for a customer, haggle for a long time, and then the two would impatiently go into a bungalow on the side.

In front of the upscale club, graceful receptionists beckon customers of all kinds, from drunken veterans to clueless newcomers, from newly rich nobles to wealthy merchants smug with the smell of money, devouring the wallets of passersby with a dazzling array of services and a feast for the eyes.
The most elite were the impeccably dressed coachmen who would bring their understated yet luxurious carriages, unmarked yet elegant, to the entrances of various clubs. Several servants would respectfully escort the ladies arriving from the clubs onto the carriages before they drove away, only to return the next day. These were the truly extravagant and powerful patrons, whose hidden identities could even make the owners of the major clubs tremble with fear.

Everything was the same as it had been twenty days ago, as if Red Street had never experienced a bloody and terrible gang fight, and the protectors and cut collectors of the street had not changed from the Blood Bottle Gang to the Black Street Brotherhood.

Besides the center of Red Town Street.

There, the ruins of the dozen or so houses that had been blasted to pieces by the Qi Demon Master were still pitch black.

In the pitch black, dozens of people were busy digging through the rubble, the sound of shovels hitting the soil echoing through the air.

Under the moonlight, Corbion Lancer, the head of intelligence and one of the six leaders of the Black Street Brotherhood, stood amidst the ruins, draped in a scarlet cloak. Looking at the darkness around him and the distant lights of countless homes, he couldn't help but frown.

Too close… he thought.

Those clubs that have already opened are still too close to the location we need to explore.

In the distance, one of the sleepless men whistled, a coded signal: two people had passed by, everything was normal.

Lancer nodded to the other sleepless one in the darkness.

But he saw that a clubhouse next door had turned on its rooftop lights, which dimly illuminated a path leading there.

Lancer snorted in dissatisfaction through his nose.

too close.

Immediately, a shrewd sleepless man left behind him, spoke briefly with another fraternity member, who then strode toward the fraternity.

Before long, the lights on the roof of the clubhouse went out, and the area around the ruins was plunged into darkness again.

Lancer then nodded.

Rick should extend the curfew even further.

It's really affecting our homework.

Unfortunately, we can only do these things at night.

But Lancer knew that banning Red Street from operating and making those nobles endure it for another day was less efficient than having each of them carve out an acre of land in their own territory and hand it over to the Brotherhood.

Lancer walked forward slowly.

For ten days and ten nights, they dug a full ten meters deep and twenty meters wide beneath that chess and card room, but found nothing.

Right now, they can still use excuses like "searching for clues about the Air Mage" and "finding the truth behind the deaths of the Taren brothers and Moria" to cover it up, but if they still can't find it...

If we can't find it sooner or later, someone with ulterior motives will discover us—Lancer thought somberly.

Whether it's the Secret Science or the Blood Bottle Gang, which is still going strong even after it's been killed.

Even the other venomous snakes lurking in the darkness.

Even if, even if Red Street is now part of the Brotherhood.

Fortunately, the Qi Mage blasted away the surrounding area for them; otherwise, they would have had to go to great lengths to seize ownership of all the nearby houses from the Red Town Street homeowners, who all had some background, before they could even begin the excavation.

But things are not bad now—in the original plan, the excavation might take a year and a half or even longer to begin, unlike now, which can begin just a few days after taking over Red Town Street.

Of course, the open excavation site also increased the difficulty for them to cover up the secret.

That's why we need to dig it up quickly—Lancer couldn't help but feel a little annoyed.

Just now.

"Found it!" A rough and bold voice rang out from afar!

Lancer was deeply moved!

He waved away the sleepless ones behind him and strode forward.

"Found it, Corbion!" A tall, thin figure walked forward, tightly clutching a long, cloth-wrapped object.

This was a man with a long, narrow face, dark golden curly hair that draped uneasily over his shoulders, and black leather straps binding his body. Three short knives were inserted into his left and right ribs and waist. His arms were wrapped in thick bandages. He was almost as tall as Qincha, who was two meters tall, but his thin figure unfortunately affected his appearance.

"The Ripper" Anton Levanowski—one of the Brotherhood's six leaders and the head of the smuggling of strategic resources such as Everlasting Oil and Asphalt—was excitedly carrying a long, muddy object towards Lancer. Behind him, a fat figure—one of the six leaders, Maurice, who was in charge of the population business—approached with a displeased expression.

“This should be it! I lifted it up and took a look, wow... it’s exactly the same as the one in the painting…” Anton’s rough accent sounded particularly jarring.

"You wouldn't believe it, you dug for ten days, almost through the sewer, and it wasn't buried underground—it was hidden in the partition between the basement and the ground!"

"If I hadn't slipped and stepped on it while peeing... haha, I told you not to overthink things... you and Maurice dug like lunatics for ten days... haha..."

Behind him, Maurice crossed his arms, looking annoyed, and gritted his teeth.

"Look! I was only here for five minutes, and I wanted to take a piss before I left..."

After enduring it for more than ten seconds, Lancer finally couldn't stand this endless chatter from Nie Daren of the Eastern Continent, who had been nagging for over a decade.

"Shut up, skinny!" Lancer snatched the long object from Anton's hand with a vicious snarl, ignoring the dirt on it, and peeled off a corner with trembling hands.

Anton was about to say something when Morris behind him maliciously nudged him, causing him to stumble and fall.

"You fatso...you're just jealous that I'm better than you..."

“Shut up, Anton!” This time it was Maurice who said fiercely.

Lancer gently covered it with the cloth.

“That’s right,” he said softly, but couldn’t hide the unusual excitement in his voice: “This is it.”

Lancer stroked the long object with trembling hands, as if caressing a lover: "After countless hardships, and under the premise of not alerting the magic masters or the secret department, we finally took Red Street—and it has finally paid off!"

“Hey,” Anton spread his hands, looking annoyed, “Who said it didn’t alert the magic masters? Who do you think blew up these ruins?”

“The appearance of the Air Mage was an accident. Black Sword failed to lure him away, but he really didn’t know about this thing.” Morris said calmly, “But I think that Ashida must know something—that’s why she gave up the chance to kill Black Sword and risked rushing back to the capital to get involved in a small territory dispute—she may even know that what we are looking for is a weapon that can deal with him.”

“But we still found it right under his nose, right under the nose of the Qi Mage.” Lancer observed the outline of the thing and said in a sinister tone.

When the mention of the Qi Mage was brought up, all three people present fell silent for a moment.

“When I received the news, I thought you and Qincha were going to die on Red Street.” Lancer broke the silence and sighed softly.

“We’re lucky,” Morris said, his head bowed and his eyes shrouded in shadow. “You should look at Moria and the Taren brothers—he still loves squashing human balls.”

"What's wrong with him?" Anton's eyes flashed with a strange light.

“Perhaps he encountered his nemesis,” Lancer said, clutching the package tightly in his hands and gently closing his eyes, “but he certainly didn’t die.”

"Speaking of which, twelve years have passed... I still can't believe it..." Anton gritted his teeth, recalling the events amidst a mixture of fear and hatred: "I saw it with my own eyes, Black Sword clearly killed him three times... three times..."

“Then he came back to life,” Morris said through grim teeth, “three times in two hours.”

“Four times,” Lancer added quietly, “outside the palace gates, after the Crown Prince was poisoned, Great Saridon killed the monster once more.”

In an instant, the air between the three seemed to sink.

Looking at the long object before him, Anton asked with lingering fear and doubt, "We've been searching for ten years—but is this thing really useful? After all, the entire continent is filled with anti-magic forces..."

“The items on those guards can only slightly weaken the influence of magic,” Lancer said without hesitation. “Only the legendary anti-magic weapons bestowed by the Empire can truly deal with magic masters—that’s what Morat told me back in the Secret Department.”

“I don’t really trust your former boss’s information.” Anton’s expression changed, as if he remembered something, and he shuddered again: “...that old man, even his saliva was poisonous.”

“By the way, regarding our operation this time,” Morris said worriedly, “the Kingdom’s Secret Service didn’t intervene? After all, according to you, this is an unregistered legendary anti-magic weapon… even more serious than unauthorized possession of a magic gun…”

Possessing a magic-powered gun without permission? Lancer scoffed inwardly.

Possessing a magic-powered gun is just a death sentence, but concealing an unregistered legendary anti-magic force? Hmph.

But Lancer simply shook his head: "The king is almost forty-eight years old, and the matter of choosing a noble heir is enough to give them a headache—besides, I made a deal with Exster's secret chamber. They will release information that Morat is interested in, and Ramon will attract all of the secret society's attention. Morat will not find out our purpose—I know my teacher too well."

"Fortunately, neither the Blood Bottle Gang's magic users nor the Secret Society knew the importance of this item..." Lancer stroked the cloth in his hand, deep in thought.

"By the way, are we really not going to tell Qincha, Feisuo, and Luoda the truth about this?" Anton frowned as he mentioned the other three of the six giants, "Anyway, the Qi Mage has also disappeared."

Lancer shook his head solemnly and handed the package in his hand to Maurice: "Nekra and Catherine have both set off to find the Blood Mage—believe me, I've read the Secret Society's records, and compared to the Blood Mage, Ashida is even kinder than His Highness Midil."

“The magemasters are enough to be dealt with by the three leaders of our Brotherhood and Black Sword. The less others know, the safer we are,” Maurice nodded, tightly binding the long object in his hand, his voice tinged with sorrow, “for the sake of the former nine leaders.”

Anthony and Lancer's expressions turned serious, and they both whispered in unison, "For the sake of the former Big Nine."

This chapter seems to contain a lot of spoilers, I feel so guilty.

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(End of this chapter)