Watching the vampires dressed as shipbuilders getting restless, James, who stood behind Charles, quickly grew larger. He hefted a steel girder as thick as a bowl onto his shoulder with one hand, and the commotion instantly subsided.
Charles turned his head toward the blind man next to him and asked, "When will those two Dukes you mentioned arrive?"
"Normally, they are in the central tomb of the island. It might take them half a day to get here,"
"Good."
Charles pointed to the Unicorne next to him and said to the vampire foreman in front of him, "I'm giving you three hours to get the turbine installed. Otherwise, your fate will be the same as Durand's."
One of the shipbuilders, a man with a bearded chin, stood out and said excitedly, "That's impossible! Do you have any idea how much trouble it is to replace a turbine?"
"Chief Engineer."
Upon Charles's order, the steel girder whistled as it instantly struck the bearded man.
The twisted body tried to heal, but the steel girder smashed down repeatedly, grinding the bearded man into a mash of flesh.
Blood splattered onto the remaining vampires, and a trace of fear appeared on each one's face.
"Do you think I'm easy to talk to, you blood-sucking monsters? Now go change it!" Charles's words were filled with suppressed rage.
The foreman's lips trembled slightly as he wiped the gore from his face and, with the other vampires, turned to walk towards the Unicorne.
"Chief Engineer, you're familiar with the turbine. Keep an eye on them, and beware of their dirty tricks."
"Okay, boss," the Unicorne's Chief Engineer followed them.
Normally, this sort of task would be for a Chief Engineer; however, the current Chief Engineer's intelligence was too low, really not up to the job. Now, James stood motionless in his place, deterring all the vampires.
"Creak~" The metal gate of the shipyard was opened a crack, and Deep looked out warily.
After briefly observing for a few seconds, he turned back to Charles, who was sitting on a crate, and said, "Captain, it looks like the people outside have noticed us; a lot of them are looking this way."
"Audric, won't these people charge in here?" Charles asked the blind man while wiping the Black Blade.
The blind man beside him shook his head, "No, they wouldn't dare touch the Duke's quarry. Besides, you're not just ordinary humans to be easily slaughtered. They are all loose sand; it's unlikely they'll dare to act."
Charles felt a flicker of understanding in his heart; it seemed the intimidation from earlier was still in effect. Even if the vampires outside knew they were planning to escape, without a leader, they wouldn't dare to act rashly.
"How powerful is a Duke?" Charles inquired about the enemies that were about to arrive.
"The power of the Blood Clan is determined by age; the older they are, the more experience and strength they have. To become a Duke, one must be at least five hundred years old. They're fundamentally different from us; if they wish, they could easily kill thousands of ordinary Blood Clan members."
Five hundred years old? Charles was somewhat astonished; with so many years, did they have some understanding of the Bright Continent?
When Charles voiced his speculation, Audric shook his head.
"You can only ask the Lady about this. The entire Blood Clan of our island was created by her Initial Embrace, and she alone has been to that cursed place. It is said that light is ever-present there, and upon mere touch, one burns to ashes directly. I truly do not understand how the Lady managed to survive."
"Why did your Lady come to this place?"
"Ah, I have heard about this. Legend has it that a being once told the Lady of a place where the sunlight, harmful to the Blood Clan, never penetrates, and where humans are abundant."
Charles was momentarily stunned; he had never considered that the vampires had come here for that reason.
Blind Audric, who could not see Charles's expression, continued speaking.
"But that being deceived the Lady. Not only are there humans here, there are also various beings far more powerful than our Blood Clan, and even for us, survival in such a place is tremendously difficult. The Lady holds a grudge against him."
Hearing about beings far more powerful than the Lady of the Blood Clan, Charles instinctively thought of that hand rising from the sea, that irresistible, colossal palm.
"So, what do you know about the Lady's previous world? From which country does your Lady hail? How many suns are there in the sky?" Charles threw out several questions in rapid succession, hoping to deduce the current era and environment on Earth's surface through the details.
A bitter smile appeared on Audric's face. "Mr. Charles, I am only 124 years old and quite young. Moreover, I assume you've seen my status within the Blood Clan; I simply cannot know the answers to these questions."
Charles let out a sigh with a hint of melancholy and walked towards the Unicorne, expecting this answer.
Now, to know the answer, one would have to confront the Lady of the Blood Clan face to face. But he thought it impossible unless he was tired of living.
Lily, who had been listening intently, saw Charles leave and moved closer to Audric, asking curiously, "So did your Lady come to this island to avoid a crisis? That's really sad."
"No, we came to avoid humans. Humans have been growing increasingly powerful, and the conflicts with the Blood Clan have escalated. The Lady foresaw the impending conflict and left with her progeny. Actually, we have a symbiotic relationship with humans; if you were to die, we would have no food and could not survive."
"Then what about your food? Do you eat rats?"
"In the northern part of Dark Crystal Island, we keep a group of humans. They provide a fixed amount of blood every week, but it's really expensive... Usually, we can only bear it and eat some human food, revolted."
Time ticked away by the second, and the number of vampires lurking outside the shipyard was increasing.
Now they were no longer hiding, displaying their long fangs and the bloodthirsty gleam in their eyes unobstructedly.
Although they had not stormed in, the sight of rings of vampires outside still put a lot of pressure on Charles.
"How much longer? Move faster if you don't want to die!" Charles's roar echoed inside the shipyard.
"Almost, almost! We're just riveting." The Chief Engineer, sweating profusely, frantically urged his subordinates.
At that moment, the sound of flapping wings outside drifted into everyone's ears in the shipyard.
Charles quickly dashed to a window to look out, only to see a large group of black bats approaching, with the vampires outside cheering at the bats in the sky.
The bats swiftly descended to the ground, coalescing into black and red high-collared capes draped over a man and a woman.
"Fuck!" An agitated Charles didn't need anyone to explain to guess the identity of these two.
"Weren't they supposed to take half a day? Why have they come after only two hours?"