Chapter 140 | From Galgame Nobody to Eternal Sovereign

As his voice faded, Claire leaned down and lightly tapped a main blood vessel at the edge of the pit with the tip of his cane.

Instantly, the blood vessel split into countless fine threads, plunging like a torrential downpour into the back of the necks of the commoners in the front row.

The crowd raised their heads, their mouths agape as a chorus of hoarse, agonizing wails erupted all at once.

The crying of children.

The screaming of women.

The wheezing of old men like broken bellows.

All of it intertwined into fragmented, desperate cries for help.

Eno listened quietly for a moment, and a sudden realization dawned on him.

The Hero would inevitably be dragged down.

It had nothing to do with stupidity, nor weakness.

Simply because she was the Hero.

Claire withdrew his cane. The wailing stopped instantly, leaving only the sound of the heartbeat echoing across the plaza.

“An inescapable net has already been laid,” Claire said indifferently. “Everything is ready. But even so, there is still a risk that this ambush might fail.”

“It could still fail? With so many of them...”

“That is why you do not understand the Hero at all.”

Eno lowered his head, not daring to say another word as he swallowed the phrase “merely the Hero” back down his throat.

“You have no idea how powerful a Hero who can fight a Witch and survive truly is.”

Claire’s gaze drifted back to the steward.

“Therefore, I will not allow any vampire to waste my bargaining chips to satisfy their gluttony or selfish desires.”

Eno’s fingertips trembled slightly.

“Every single citizen of Black Gallows is to be sent to Silvervein City. The miners, the children, the elderly, the severed limbs, the baits—not one is to be left behind. You are not to hoard any blood food, withhold any materials, and absolutely not secretly stuff any row of people into your cellar.”

Claire paused, delivering his final decree:

“If you are hungry, go find food elsewhere. From now on, Black Gallows is merely a nail on the Council's chessboard, not your personal buffet.”

“I will be staying here for a short while. Prepare my quarters and blood food.”

The heavy thumping of the giant heart reverberated between the two of them.

Thump.

Eno bowed deeply, his posture humble to the absolute extreme. “As you command, Your Grace.”

Claire paid him no further attention, turning and vanishing into the blood mist. With every step he took, the blood vessels on the ground retreated to either side, parting to leave a clean path for the superior being.

Only after that figure had completely vanished into the depths of the blood mist did Eno slowly straighten his back.

The polite, gentle expression on his face faded slightly.

The crowd along the roadside remained deathly silent. A thin-cheeked little girl stood closest to him, clutching half of a blood-soaked rag doll. A red thread pierced through the corner of her eye, forming a tragic, crimson tear stain.

Eno stared at her for a long time.

He let out a silent sigh.

Such fresh blood, such rich fear, such obedient materials... What a pity they all have to be handed over.

He was about to reach out and touch her soft cheek, but his hand froze in mid-air.

The Duke’s orders could not be disobeyed. At least, not where the Duke could see.

Resentment lodged itself in the steward's throat like a poisoned bone spur.

He had always followed the rules, yet he hated them more than anything.

He especially loathed the kind of rule that laid a table of delicacies right before his eyes but forbade him from touching a single bite.

“Everyone, don't make things difficult for me,” Eno said, clapping his hands toward the crowd as he resumed his usual composed demeanor. “Line up, follow the list. Those who can cry, stand at the front. Those who can run, stand in the middle. The mute go to the back. Remember, stretch your hands out a bit further. If you behave too quietly, Miss Hero might get suspicious.”

The blood threads tightened, pulling with sudden force.

Driven by the invisible force, the massive crowd began to stagger and shuffle toward the edge of town.

Standing on high ground, Eno watched with cold eyes as what should have been his personal property slowly drifted away.

Just then, a bat tore through the dense fog outside of town and flew back, hanging upside down from the edge of the gallows tower. Clutched in its tiny, bony claws was a fragment of a muddy carriage wheel track.

Eno raised his hand.

The bat burst into a crimson mist, within which flickering, fragmented afterimages began to form:

A border post road.

A lead-gray carriage roof.

A modest carriage that looked distinctly out of place, clearly having undergone high-tier alchemy modifications.

And... two burly men bound in leashes.

Eno narrowed his eyes, the gloom in his gaze instantly vanishing.

The Duke had ordered him not to touch the people in the town.

But surely the people outside the town, the carriage outside the town, and those fat sheep who blindly wandered into this desolate borderland wouldn't be recorded in the Duke’s ledger?

An alchemy carriage capable of speeding along the border of Solitude would be a windfall even if dismantled and sold for scrap. Potions, amulets, chamber of commerce documents, or perhaps passengers who were sufficiently terrified and fresh... Maybe he could even squeeze the locations of more blood food out of them.