Chapter 335: The Opening of the Blood Moon Auction

The following evening, just as the sun set behind the rocky mountains west of Silver Port, a deep, resonant strike of a bronze bell rang out from the highest tower on Auction Island, echoing across the vast bay.

As soon as the bell stopped, the seven layers of magic arrays surrounding Auction Island simultaneously shifted from a misty white to the deep red of fresh blood. The brilliant red light reflected up into the night sky, dyeing the crescent moon that had just risen above the sea surface an eerie, blood-red hue.

This was the origin of the name Blood Moon Auction, whispered among the high society across the Great World with both awe and craving.

At the private ferry reserved for VIP guests holding Diamond Invitations, twelve dragon boats pulled by tamed magical seahorses were already waiting early.

Today, both Kaelen and Sane wore pitch-black formal attire tailored from the finest silk by the most skilled tailors of the Crimson tribe, the collars embroidered with gold thread patterns exuding a dignified and noble aura. Adhering to the auction’s anonymity rules, both wore silver half-masks carved with eagle wings, revealing only their sharp jawlines and perfect lips.

The little leopard cub Finnick lounged on Kaelen’s left shoulder. His smooth, spotted golden coat under the magic lights made him look exactly like a rare, exotic pet magical beast. The little secretary Ivy walked behind, wearing a thick white lace hood that completely covered her pointed Elven ears, walking closely beside Sword Saint Godfrey and ten towering Crimson tribe warriors.

When the dragon boat docked at the marble pier on the island, the old merchant Marcos was already waiting at the head of the pier, his face beaming as he ran out to welcome them:

"Greetings to the two Lords! Greetings, Sir Godfrey! Please come this way; Diamond VIP Room Number One on the highest floor has been prepared with century-old wine and the freshest fruits!"

While bowing and leading the way along the red velvet carpet stretching from the pier up to the crystal palace at the center of the island, Marcos continuously cast glances at the two heavy ironwood chests carried by four White Elephant tribe warriors behind Sane.

Along both sides of the walkway leading into the grand hall, the Council of Twelve Merchants had arranged an extravagant yet utterly sickening display to flaunt their power. Every ten paces stood a transparent crystal cage placed on a high stone pedestal. Inside each cage, filled with seawater or lined with fur rugs, were terrified and cowering Mermaid maidens, white-furred Fox tribe youths chained by the neck with gold leashes, and even a few Elven maidens tied and hung from wooden frames like living decorations!

The masked nobles and merchants walking past on the red carpet pointed and commented incessantly; some even reached out to tap on the crystal cages, teasing the people inside before bursting into sadistic laughter.

Beneath her white lace hood, Ivy’s hands were clenched so tightly that her fingernails dug deep into her palms. Godfrey, walking beside her, gently placed his large hand on the girl’s shoulder, pressing lightly to remind her to stay calm.

Meanwhile, the little leopard cub Finnick on Kaelen’s shoulder only quietly swept his icy green eyes over those cages. A sliver of life force from Chloe’s vine on his ankle silently flicked out, hiding within each crystal cage to protect their heart meridians, waiting for the outbreak of the great battle to shatter the cages and rescue them all at once.

Stepping inside the Auction Island palace, the space opened up into a massive circular arena with a soaring magic glass dome.

On the ground floor, over five hundred rows of red velvet seats were arranged in a tiered formation facing the black stone stage in the center, which was now packed tightly with over three thousand masked guests.

Halfway up the stone walls, twenty meters above the ground, floated twelve independent Diamond VIP Rooms. Each room was fitted with one-way magic glass: from the inside, everything below the stage was clearly visible, but from the outside, one could only see a hazy silver glow and a pure gold number on top of the room.

Entering Diamond VIP Room Number One, Kaelen and Sane sat comfortably on the spacious sofa right by the glass window. From this highest vantage point looking across, Kaelen clearly saw the open balcony of the presiding area reserved for the Council of Twelve Merchants. Sitting in the central leopard-skin chair on the balcony was a man with a face as young as a youth in his thirties, wearing a golden formal suit embroidered with gold coin patterns, his ten slender fingers rhythmically tapping the armrest.

"My two Lords, the one sitting in the middle is the Grand Guildmaster of the Council of Twelve Merchants of Silver Port, Gideon." Godfrey, standing behind the sofa, introduced in a low voice: "He looks that young, but in reality, he has lived for over a hundred and forty years; he is one of the very first people on the East Coast to use the Immortality Elixir. And that shadow completely shrouded in a black cloak standing back in the dark corner behind Gideon must certainly be Grand Apothecary Malakor, whom the Lord God of Life discovered last night!"

Kaelen and Sane simultaneously cast their gazes toward the black-cloaked shadow. Although Malakor had used his mage robes to conceal his face and suppress his aura, with the vision of two True Gods, both clearly saw streams of the distinctive foul black energy of the God of Decay coiling around his emaciated wrists that looked like dry twigs!

"Indeed, a hound directly bestowed with a fragment of a remnant soul by the God of Decay." Sane smirked coldly, lifting a glass of red wine and swirling it lightly: "It seems our trip to Silver Port this time will yield quite a harvest."

Bong!

Just then, all the magic lights in the grand hall suddenly went completely dark, leaving only a pillar of light as red as a blood moon shining straight down from the dome onto the center of the black stone stage.

A middle-aged man wearing a bright red tailcoat stepped out onto the center of the stage. His voice, amplified by magic, echoed resoundingly throughout the palace:

"Welcome, all royalty, nobles, lords, and the greatest merchants of the Great World to the Blood Moon Auction tonight! Here in Silver Port, we do not ask about your background or the origins of your gold coins; as long as you bid the highest price, you are the master of the item! To warm up the atmosphere before we move on to the masterpieces of the Immortality Elixir, please admire these special lots just transported from the continent across the bay and the Northern mountains to the port yesterday morning!"

Thunderous applause and cheers erupted from the audience. As the host waved his hand, the iron floor in the center of the stage slid open, and three massive iron cages, one after another, were hoisted up to the stage by a pulley system.

In the first cage were twelve Dwarven blacksmiths with bulging muscles but bodies covered in bloody whip marks. The second cage held twenty Beastmen youths, including members of the Wolf, Fox, and Leopard tribes, holding each other tightly and looking around warily. And in the third cage were fifteen children carrying Half-Demon blood, only seven to ten years old!

"A total of forty-seven premium slaves!" The host slammed his golden hammer down on the table: "Dwarves can forge weapons day and night without needing wages; Beastmen can be sent into the death arenas for entertainment or used as vanguard cannon fodder; and those Half-Demon brats have innate magic power perfectly suited as sacrifices for crafting magical artifacts! All three cages sold as a single bundle, starting price five hundred gold coins! Please, place your bids!"

"Six hundred gold coins!" A plantation owner in the front row raised his paddle and shouted.

"Eight hundred gold coins!" From Diamond VIP Room Number Four, flying the banner of a Northern Prince, an arrogant bid rang out: "This King will take all these Dwarven blacksmiths to forge armor for the army!"

"One thousand gold coins!" A grand slave master in VIP Room Number Eight refused to be outdone.

In VIP Room Number One, Kaelen looked at the fifteen Half-Demon children and the Beastmen youths trembling in the iron cages, remembering little Preston and the boy Steven when he had first picked them up in the city of Lyra, his eyes immediately darkening.

"Buy them all." Kaelen tilted his head and said to Sane: "In today’s auction, whether humans or other races sold as slaves, we will buy them all outright before we make our move, so we can send them to the backstage area for protection first, lest they get injured when the fighting breaks out later."

"Whatever my baby says."

Sane smiled dotingly, lazily tapping his finger on the transmission bell on the tea table. The pure gold number one atop Diamond VIP Room Number One instantly lit up. Sane’s deep, indifferent voice rang out through the magic speaker system across the grand hall:

"Ten thousand gold coins. Paid in high-tier magic cores."

The entire hall of over three thousand people clamoring with bids instantly fell dead silent! The market value of those forty-seven slaves was at most one thousand five hundred gold coins. Yet the mysterious guest in VIP Room Number One just opened his mouth and raised the price nearly tenfold, and even offered to pay in high-tier magic cores that couldn’t be bought even if one had the money!

The Northern Prince in VIP Room Number Four turned red with fury, slamming his table and shouting into the transmission speaker:

"Who is that in VIP Room Number One?! Auctioning a bunch of lowly slaves and you scream a price of ten thousand gold coins, are you trying to smack this King in the face with your money?!"

In VIP Room Number One, Sane smirked slightly, his voice echoing out from the speakers even more arrogantly than before:

"I am indeed smacking you in the face with my money. What’s the matter, if you don’t have the money to match the price, then shut your mouth and sit quietly to watch. If you dare to raise it by even one coin, I will immediately raise it to twenty thousand."

"You...!" The Prince choked, his face turning from blue to white, but in the end, he didn’t dare to bid further, because the gold he brought had to be saved to buy the Immortality Elixir for his royal father back home; how could he dare to burn it pointlessly against someone who spent money like dirt!

On the stage, the host was so ecstatic that the hand holding the hammer trembled violently. He hurriedly struck the hammer three times to seal the price:

"Ten thousand gold coins going thrice! Sold! Congratulations to the honorable guest in Diamond VIP Room Number One! Men, immediately take all forty-seven of these goods to the private backstage area and hand them over to the guards of VIP Room Number One!"

Over the next two hours, an unprecedentedly bizarre scene continuously played out. Whenever the item brought up was a weapon, jewelry, or antique, VIP Room Number One remained completely silent. However, whenever any slave cage—regardless of whether it held Merfolk, Dwarves, Beastmen, Goblins, or humans—was pushed onto the stage, the freezing voice from VIP Room Number One would ring out with a price five to ten times higher than the starting bid!

In just two hours, over three hundred slaves of all races were swept clean by VIP Room Number One using high-tier magic cores, and all were sent straight to the private warehouse in the back, where Godfrey and fifty Crimson tribe warriors were waiting to remove their chains and feed them recovery potions.

On the presiding balcony opposite, old Marcos couldn’t stop grinning, turning to fawn over Gideon:

"Grand Guildmaster, do you see? I told you those two tycoons newly arrived from the North were filthy rich! We’re only at the early appetizers and they’ve already thrown out over a hundred high-tier magic cores without even blinking!"

Gideon gently stroked the jade ring on his finger, his eyes looking toward the silver glass of VIP Room Number One with malicious greed:

"Just let them splurge to their hearts’ content. Wait until the grand blood sacrifice array opens, all the magic cores in their chests and that black merchant ship out in the harbor... will end up in our pockets anyway!"