When there is only one sun left in the sky, the rainy season of Planet Alpha has finally arrived, which means that the hottest summer has passed, and the planet has entered the autumn of revival.

In the northwest of the largest continent on the planet, the Black Mountain Range stretches for hundreds of miles, and its main peak is more than 5,000 meters above sea level.

After more than ten days of heavy rain, the Black Mountain Range has taken on a new look, and even the smoke and fire on the main peak seem to have suddenly decreased a lot, and the smell of sulfur burning in the air is even less rare.

Streams carrying volcanic ash rushed down from the high peaks and converged along the valleys on either side of the mountain to form countless black torrents, which swooped over the craggy black rocks, over the dense forests of the mountains, and swooped down into the vast fields below.

In the rain-moistened forest, the dehydrated and withered giant trees and old vines seemed to come to life at once, and in a few days fresh shoots sprouted from the branches, some of which were covered with green new leaves. Demon birds and monsters that have just woken up from the summer ambush have burrowed out of their underground burrows, and they move around, searching for food and interpreting the laws of the jungle.

In the vast field below the mountain, the tender green grass has just poked its head out of the soil, and the bristle rats are greedily chewing and eating. Suddenly, a demon eagle swooped down from the sky, its sharp claws landing on its body accurately, and before it could open its sharp bristles, it pecked open its head in one gulp, sucking the demon core inside into the brain and emptying it.

This wilderness is known as the Armenian Plateau, and its name comes from the Age of the Apocalypse, and no one knows the meaning of that name in this mythical post-Celestial era. The Armenian Plateau is a high-lying plateau that was originally covered by solidified lava gushing from the ground, but has long since weathered into fertile soil.

The black torrent flows into rivers on the Armenian plateau, some flowing north into the Black Sea, others eastward, flowing through the thousand-kilometre-long Mesopotamian plain before plunging into the Arab Sea.

The river that flowed through Mesopotia was called the Euphrates Greis, but people used to call it the Two Rivers, which also came from the Divine Revelation Age, and no one knows why such a river was called the Two Rivers.

A large area on both sides of the Euphrates River, also known as the Valley of the Two Rivers, was home to many city-states, large and small. Most of them are concentrated in the fertile Mesopotrian plains, and only a few are located on the Armenian plateau at the foot of Montenegro, where each city-state belongs to different lords, but due to their geographical location and beliefs, two opposing alliances have been formed, the Eagle League and the Serpent Alliance.

Black Rock City and Sun City, which are located in the same two river basins, are just across the river, and they are the two main transportation arteries that enter the main vein of Black Mountain, but they belong to two hostile alliances.

The people of Black Rock City believe in the snake god, they believe that it was the goddess of the serpent who created the first human beings and taught them the skills of survival, and she is the ancestral god of mankind. The inhabitants of Sun City believe in the Eagle God, claiming that the Eagle God represents the supreme Sun God, and that the Serpent God is only a servant god who rebels against the Eagle God, and will eventually be destroyed by the Lord God.

History has long been lost in the long river of time, different myths guide different versions of history, and no one knows what the truth of history is, and in the end, it seems that only force can be decided.

For more than a thousand years after the fall of the gods of creation, the Alliance of Eagles and the Alliance of Serpents fought constantly, but there was never a situation where one completely overwhelmed the other, and finally formed a situation of ruling across the river.

As the fortress city that entered Montenegro, Black Rock City and Sun City are definitely a place of four wars. As early as the Apocalypse era, there was an endless war between the two cities, the city wall did not know how many times it was rebuilt, and the people in the city were like leeks in the ground, I don't know how many stubbles were cut off and how many stubbles grew, but the two cities that were evenly matched were never unified.

When the forces are so strong that they are evenly matched, war is not easy to break out, and this sentence is very suitable for Black Rock City and Scorching Sun City in the post-Celestial God era. Nowadays, people seem to be more willing to focus on the countless magical beasts, elixirs, and spirit stone mines on the Black Mountain, and deliberately ignore the hostile city-state across the river, so that the two cities have strangely not had a war in a hundred years.

Not only that, the materials of Blackstone City and Scorching Sun City are very complementary, and the soil outside Blackstone City is fertile, agriculture is developed, and food is abundant, but there is a lack of ore for metallurgy. The city of the scorching sun is located in the highlands, mostly grassland, animal husbandry is developed, and there are many mines and stones. At the same time, Black Rock City leads to the eastern foothills of Black Mountain, which is rich in elixir, while the western foot of Scorching Sun City leading to Black Mountain has more spirit stones.

This unique complementarity gave rise to a special profession between the two cities, merchants, who not only roamed freely between the two cities, but also expanded to the entire continent, and gradually became a bridge between the two rival alliances.

After nearly 100 years of recuperation, the two city-states of Black Rock and Scorching Sun have grown rapidly, and have become the two largest and most important city-states on the Armenian Plateau. The population of the two cities is large, not only are there many hunting teams and mercenaries who have been engaged in hunting and collecting medicine for a long time, and there are many traders who come to purchase and sell goods, but even the relatively rare wizards, elixirs and demon pattern masters on the mainland often come here, and there are also wanderers and fugitives from all over the world, and the personnel can be described as extremely noisy.

The city-states on the Armenian plateau did not have a complete administrative system like those on the Mesopotamian plains, and the cities of Black Rock and Sun did not have a dedicated consul, and the lord was nominally the supreme ruler, but in practice the temple had the final say on all matters in the city.

Security in Blackstone can be more chaotic than in Sun, as it's a place where wizards and fugitives are more likely to visit. Black Rock City is rich in elixirs, it is an indispensable raw material for refining all kinds of elixirs, and it is also a necessary thing for wizards to prepare various potions, and wizards are the most mysterious and unreasonable people on the continent, and fugitives are often hired by wizards.

At the right time, the autumn rain began to rise, all things recovered, and the elixir on the black mountain was stinging all summer, and the aura was full, the vitality was the most vigorous, and the medicinal effect was the best. Therefore, Black Rock City, which has just woken up from Xiafuli, men, women and children, of all religions and nine ranks, can't wait to get out of the dungeon and earn the first gold coin of the new autumn.

No, when the boiling black stone could still boil eggs, when the diffuse water was still as dull as a sauna, people were already in a hurry to move things to the surface. In just a few days, this stone town, which was as desolate and uninhabited as a ghost town, was full of swaying banners and noisy noises, full of hunting teams and mercenaries ready to go, and even beggars who played a game of hide and seek with the city guards had to take advantage of the moment to quickly beg for food.

There were a few tattered children, the eldest of whom was about ten years old, and the youngest of whom was no more than four or five years old, all with hungry faces! But they were not beggars, but little merchants, who had been working in the bazaar for more than a year, and had made a living by showing people around.

The so-called merchant is actually an intermediary in the bazaar, who earns remuneration by selling business information. For example, Zhang San needs to buy a pure white bear skin, but he is not familiar with the market, so he can consult with Langzhong. The merchant helped him find cheap and eligible goods, helped him bargain if necessary, and once the deal was closed, he could receive a certain amount of remuneration from Zhang San.

But it is clear that the bazaar at this time has not yet reached the peak period of commerce, and the business of the small merchants is lighter than water. It is conceivable that the stall owners have just moved the goods out of the underground warehouse, and the vendors have not yet had time to come from other places, only the hunters and mercenaries will come to purchase some supplies.

All day long, the little merchant asked no less than 100 people, but they didn't take a business, their already pale faces became more and more pale, and the two younger ones couldn't even stand on their feet.

"Brother Shi, you can't go on like this! Business is so light, everyone hasn't eaten for a day, and Qiangzi and Xiaolan are probably going to fall. Why don't I go to Aunt Zhang's steamed bun shop over there to buy a few?"

It was one of the two slightly older children who spoke, he was slender, wearing a coarse linen robe with a few holes, and he looked quite handsome.

"Ah Jian, don't go to Aunt Zhang's! This Xia Fu has just passed, how can anyone's family be better? Aunt Zhang has a good heart, but her family has old and young, and her husband can't work when he has just recovered from a serious illness, so the family's livelihood is all counting on her income this day, and we don't want to harm her by buying her?"

The person who is called Brother Shi is probably the head of these children, his eyebrows are tightly locked, he speaks quickly but is very assertive, but the matter in front of him really stumped him.

The two were relatively silent. After a long while, that Ah Jian suddenly spoke: "Otherwise, I'll go out of the city tomorrow, as long as I don't run into the demonic beast and get some food back, it shouldn't be a big problem." I'll leave them to you!"

"Ah Jian, you're crazy! The monsters at this time are the most terrifying, they are so hungry that they may even treat mud as a delicacy, and you dare to put it in its mouth? This is not good, absolutely not!"

"I don't go far, just go around the city walls, no problem. If there were any magical beasts here, they would have been cleaned up by the hunting teams and mercenaries passing by, so where would I still have a share in the encounter? If I just want to dig up the roots of plants and catch a few groundhogs by the way, there will be no problem at all. ”

"No, it won't work! unless...... Unless I go you stay!"

"Isn't that the same? I think it's all right, and if you really can't rest assured, then we'll both go together tomorrow, so that our siblings don't have to go to the market." ”

"This ...... Okay, you go and call everyone back, I'll be back when I get some errands. ”

Half an hour later, Ah Jian and his four other children returned to their place, an old abandoned warehouse, the doors and windows had long since been broken, but the walls and roof were largely intact to protect them from the wind and rain.

After drinking a little raw water, they lay on the stone floor covered with a layer of hay, not bothering to move, except for the sound of their bellies rattling. But there is no way, everything that can be eaten at home has been taken out and eaten yesterday, and even the cow belt used to tie the pants of the stone has been boiled and eaten by everyone, and now it can only be boiled like this. I just hope that tomorrow I will be lucky enough to catch a few fat ground rats, and everyone can also have a dozen tooth sacrifices.

It was only when the night was getting dark and the street lights were turning on that the stones returned. To everyone's delight, he was actually carrying a bag of coarse grains in his hand and a fifty-percent new steel knife in the other hand.

Ever since the old axe was broken when chopping wood last fall, there have been no cutting tools at home, not even a kitchen knife. It's okay to eat fruits and the like without peeling, but occasionally get some cheap animal meat and bones back, and you have to go to Aunt Zhang's house to borrow a knife, which is really inconvenient. It's good now, not only do you have food, but you also have a knife, and it's still a steel knife that can kill.

Homicide?

Who mentioned this word inexplicably, and everyone's mood changed sharply? Those five children, you look at me, I look at you, and then look at the bag of coarse grain and steel knives, and their faces change dramatically.

"Brother Shi, are you killing again?"