A Beast Cloaked in Civilization

Eight years ago, in the year 1660, Kaimeng City. On a sweltering summer day, Financier drove a sedan into the Lower District—a cesspool he had sworn never to set foot in again. At the time, the old mayor, Punk, was preparing to step down and retire after suffering a death during Void Realm exploration on top of his advancing age and failing health. Financier seized the opportunity to ally with councilors and bribe civil officials, determined to claim the mayoral seat. It was also during this period that he established the Gallery in the Woods, giving him decisive influence among the upper echelons of Kaimeng City. Yet at this crucial juncture in his campaign for the next mayoral term, he had set aside all official duties, declined every meeting, and driven alone in an unremarkable sedan. He pulled over beside a street so wretched it seemed to sprout excrement on its own, cranked the car's air conditioning to maximum, puffed on his pipe, and stared at a studio on the corner. It was a very ordinary ogre art studio. The entire street was lined with ogre art studios, making the area reek to high heaven and dealing a fatal blow to nearby property values. Oil painting was a talent unique to ogres. As low-class citizens whose average education barely surpassed prenatal conditioning, ogres naturally had no interest in playing life on hard mode. Since they could coast by on raw talent, they were more than happy to let themselves rot, thoroughly beyond redemption. Yet despite the sheer number of practitioners, the trade saw no fierce internal competition. If anything, supply fell short of demand; a genuine 'ogre oil painting' was practically a rarity in high demand. The reason was that while painting, ogres occasionally triggered Void Realm Resonance. An oil painting created in such a state allowed viewers to slowly advance their faction realm, equivalent to navigating the Void Realm. However, ogre oil paintings had a time limit, losing their effectiveness within roughly sixty days. Thus, an ogre oil painting was not an enduring work of art, but a consumable—and a consumable effective for sorcerers, which naturally commanded an exorbitant price. The catch was that they had to trigger Void Realm Resonance to produce a true ogre oil painting. If they failed to resonate, they were merely churning out trash. Consequently, most ogre painters spent months or even years working as studio apprentices, learning on the job until they produced their first painting and made their first pot of gold. As for an apprentice's duties, cleaning was hardly on the list; after all, very few ogres cared for cleanliness. If not for the sake of dignity, Financier would have ripped apart the white shirt clinging to him so tightly it felt like it was choking him. *Puff.* Exhaling a smoke ring, Financier tilted his head slightly and saw a young ogre walking past his car. The youth wore a tank top that had once been white but was now stained brown, paired with shorts riddled with holes. At one meter ninety, he was considered short by ogre standards, but his facial features leaned closer to the standard races, sporting a row of fangs that looked ferocious without being hideous. He carried two large lunchboxes in his hands. This was his duty as an apprentice: buying meals for the painters. Ogres felt the urge to eat every two hours and loved piping-hot food above all else. Yet they were too lazy to visit restaurants, and hiring delivery couriers came at an outrageous cost—no courier was willing to enter the ogre district, where insurance companies wouldn't even pay out if one was killed. Hiring an ogre apprentice was therefore the ideal solution. Besides, they didn't even have to pay him; covering the apprentice's meals was enough. The moment Financier saw the young man, he froze. The youth looked toward the car as well, as if making eye contact with the middle-aged ogre inside. Glancing around and confirming no one was watching, the youth smirked crookedly. He spat a thick, foul gob of phlegm onto the car window, set down the lunchboxes, and pissed straight against the door. When he finished, he even picked up a small stone and dragged it viciously across the body of the car. The screeching scrape pierced Financier's eardrums like a blade. The windows and windshield were fitted with one-way glass; no one on the outside could see in. Financier watched the youth walk along the sweltering street, whistling with the lunchboxes in hand as he entered the studio. The moment he stepped inside, the boss seemed to berate him. The youth bowed and scraped with a fawning expression, secretly spat into one of the lunchboxes, and deferentially carried them inside. Throughout the entire ordeal, Financier never moved, his hand frozen in place holding his pipe. His gaze followed the youth's retreating figure until the boy disappeared from sight. In the end, he drove back to the Administrative Hall and wrote off the car as official property damage. He never bought a single painting from that young man, nor did he send anyone to help him. In fact, after that day, he never went to see the youth again. Even when checking up on the boy's recent circumstances, Financier did so under the pretext of 'preventing heinous ogre crimes,' commissioning the Sin Hunting Hall to investigate a dozen ogres—the youth merely one among them. Back when only a thin pane of glass had separated Financier from the youth, yet he had not dared roll down the window, this man who had clawed his way up from the bottom to the pinnacle of Kaimeng City's power had finally understood the horrifying, pathological nature of this realm. Eight years later, in the year 1668, at the Shattered Lake Blood Moon Trial. Financier looked at the pale-faced Andere and said, "Do you know that in the vast majority of nations, every race maintains the family as its basic unit?" Menken spoke up reflexively, "That is because they are backward." "I have no interest in debating whether the family system is backward or progressive; I will point out only one thing." Financier broke into a savage grin. "Other nations have ruling races as well, but their ruling races are fundamentally capable of reproducing on their own—some even giving rise to royal families and aristocracies because of it!" The color drained further from everyone's faces, dyed an increasingly deep red beneath the light of the blood moon. Menken pleaded almost desperately, "That is precisely why their classes are solidified, why they are backward! The Blood Moon Country is the most civilized nation—" "The reason we prohibit the existence of families is that our ruling races cannot reproduce on their own! They are born homeless!" Financier roared. "Blood Saints undergo blood exchanges, and Moon Shadows undergo moon cleansings! Once their races are altered, they lose the ability to reproduce. If they wish to foster new scions, they must subject members of other races to their transformation! "The two races of the Blood Moon are like parasites incapable of surviving on their own. They harvest the most outstanding talents of every race to turn them into their own kind, absorbing the nourishment of all races to strengthen themselves, thereby enslaving every race for a thousand years! "Why are we forbidden from having families? Because the Blood Saints and Moon Shadows cast aside the bond of blood, and so we are forbidden from having it as well! That way, we can never form a unified whole through the bonds of family, romance, or kinship! "Why emphasize racial human rights and freedom? Because the Blood Saints and Moon Shadows are monsters without gender, race, or age. They form an organic whole by nature, whereas we tear each other apart over race, gender, age, education, and background! They intentionally incite different races, different genders, and different generations to fight among themselves! That way, we can never form a collective bound by shared interests! "The Racial Human Rights Act has erected towering, impenetrable walls around every single one of us, and the Consanguinity Prohibition Act prevents any breach of those walls. From then on, every one of us became an isolated individual, left to face those two colossal behemoths—the research institutes and the Church—entirely alone!" Financier raised his left hand, weighed down by chains, and pointed at the prison. "Is there any difference between us and those condemned criminals? None," the ogre said coldly. "Death row inmates are drained of value for the prison; we are drained of value for the Blood Moon. Death row inmates have their words and deeds controlled by chips, while we have our entire lives controlled by ideology! "In the Blood Moon Country, from birth to death, there are only two paths available to us: become Blood Saints and Moon Shadows, or become food for Blood Saints and Moon Shadows. "The Blood Moon is a beast cloaked in civilization—the most savage civilization of all."