After Lin Gui and Elvia left the outpost.
They advanced rapidly toward Coppergate City.
The flying vessel cut through the sky.
The ridges of Serpent-Spine Ridge meandered below.
Like a giant serpent crouching upon the earth.
The dangers of Serpent-Spine Ridge were far less than those of the Withered Wood Wasteland.
It was marked clearly on the Golden Route map he had purchased.
Only seven Legendary demons had ever been discovered there.
There were no active traces of Epic demons.
As for his Shroud of the Gloomy Night.
It could shield them from the perception of any demon below the Epic rank.
Therefore.
He barely slowed down.
The flying vessel tore across the sky above the ridges at nearly full throttle.
By the second day.
The flying vessel crested the final mountain range.
Ahead, the field of vision suddenly opened up.
Lin Gui and Elvia knew.
They had officially entered the region of the Central City-States.
Entering the core territory under the jurisdiction of the Alliance.
The Central City-State cluster.
With Dawn City as the core.
The ten surrounding subsidiary hub city-states served as the skeleton.
Thirty-six resource-supplying city-states served as the flesh and blood.
Together, they constituted a domain so vast it was stifling.
These city-states were scattered like stars.
Yet the distances between them remained vast.
The wilderness and demons lay in between.
The existence of transport teams remained an indispensable lifeline.
This land.
It gathered nearly nine-tenths of all living beings on the Akara Continent.
The territory it spanned far exceeded any ancient empire.
Excluding the Carter Royal Capital, all the city-states in the borderlands combined likely did not have as large a population as this single Coppergate City before them.
And Coppergate City.
Was only one of the thirty-six resource-supplying city-states.
In the Central City-States, there were forty-seven in total.
One core: Dawn City.
Ten subsidiary hub city-states.
Thirty-six resource-supplying city-states.
Such a massive gathering of population.
Was not a symbol of prosperity.
But a necessity born of despair.
It had been forty years since the Demon God descended.
There had been twenty Dark Tides.
Three-quarters of the population of the Akara Continent had been turned into bloody water.
The survivors should have possessed broader living space.
But the reality was exactly the opposite.
Demons were everywhere.
The wilderness was infinitely fragmented.
Every forest, every canyon, and every ridge was occupied by demons.
Legendary, Epic, and Demigod ranks.
Like insurmountable high walls.
They squeezed the living space of humanity into a series of isolated islands.
Beyond the city-states lay certain death.
Beyond the high walls lay the abyss.
And the Central City-State cluster.
This land where nine-tenths of living beings gathered.
Its periphery was a desperate situation surrounded layer by layer by demons.
The closer one was to the core, the safer it became.
The further from the core, the more dangerous.
Therefore.
The population flooded frantically toward the center.
Living space was infinitely compressed.
The flying vessel continued forward.
On the hills in the distance.
A complex expanse of factories and construction sites came into view.
Towering chimneys spat out rolling black smoke.
Giant furnaces glowed with an amber-red light.
The roar of ore crushers could be heard from a great distance.
Hundreds and thousands of tons of ore.
Were piled up in open-pit mines.
Waiting to be smelted, waiting to be transported.
Countless figures shuttled between those factories and mines.
Wearing gray, coarse-cloth work uniforms.
Their faces were covered in dust and exhaustion.
Carrying ore, pushing handcarts.
Their movements were mechanical and repetitive.
Like countless ants.
Coppergate City.
Was exactly that kind of city-state.
It was located southeast of Dawn City.
It guarded an important mineral vein.
What was produced here was copper and iron.
Along with a small amount of associated minerals used for manufacturing magic items.
Every day, hundreds and thousands of tons of ore.
Were transported from Coppergate City to Dawn City.
Those ores were smelted into metal.
They were forged into weapons, armor, and magic items.
Then they were transported even further away.
In the air, the smell of sulfur and metal permeated.
Even from a great distance.
That scent still found its way into the nostrils.
And these ores, these metals, and this wealth.
Passed through the hands of these gray figures.
Yet not a single trace remained in their hands.
From birth until death.
They served those eleven core central city-states.
In exchange, they provided a life in Dawn City that was even more superior and affluent than in the Golden Age.
In exchange, they provided those sky-high magic towers in the City of a Thousand Towers.
In exchange, they provided the never-extinguished furnaces of the Steel Fortress.
As for themselves.
What they got in return.
Was merely access to the Alliance's transport network.
Was merely the qualification to continue being exploited for their value.
The flying vessel continued forward.
Approaching Coppergate City.
The city walls rose into the clouds.
The grayish-white walls were covered in dense, meticulously carved runes.
Those runes shimmered with a pale golden light in the sun.
And outside the city walls.
On both sides of the city gates.
A multitude of wooden high-rises stood densely packed.
No.
They were not buildings.
They were nests.
The structures were lopsided, made of pieced-together planks.
Gaps were stuffed with rags and dried grass.
They were huddled together, one stacked atop another.
The tall ones had five or six floors, while the short ones had three or four.
Every floor was packed with people.
Men, women, the elderly, and children.
They had once been ordinary commoners of the Golden Age.
They had their own houses and their own fields.
Now.
They could only huddle within these precarious wooden buildings.
Bunk beds, three layers, four layers.
People were stacked upon people.
Even turning over was difficult.
The windows of the wooden buildings were tiny.
Some were just a mere slit.
Through those slits, dim candlelight flickered.
Along with blurry silhouettes.
The sounds of coughing, of infants crying, and of low-pitched arguments.
Seeped out from those wooden buildings.
Mixing with the smell of sulfur and metal.
Becoming a dull, continuous buzzing.
On the sides further from the city gate.
There were even more wooden buildings.
More shacks.
More rags and dried grass.
More people.
There were too many people, far too many.
The line could not be seen to its end.
Putting away the flying vessel, Lin Gui manipulated his staff to lead Elvia.
They floated through those wooden buildings.
Their speed was not fast.
He narrowed his eyes slightly.
His gaze swept over those figures.
Emaciated figures.
Ribs protruding one by one, clearly visible through their rags.
Figures of toil.
Palms covered in callouses and cracks, with unwashable ore dust embedded under their fingernails.
Numbed figures.
Their eyes were hollow, like two dried-up wells.
They watched Lin Gui and Elvia float over their heads.
No one looked up.
No one was surprised.
No one spoke.
They simply continued carrying ore and pushing handcarts.
Or they sat by the roadside, gnawing on black bread.
Their movements were mechanical and repetitive.
Like a group of soulless puppets.
Elvia’s fingers tightened around Lin Gui’s mage robes.
Her brow was furrowed tightly.
She looked at those wooden buildings, those shacks, and those figures.
Disordered, chaotic, foul-smelling, and without order.
It was ten times worse than the refugee district in the Carter Royal Capital.
Hundreds of times worse.
She had seen human tragedies.
She had seen the oppression of commoners by nobles.
She had seen refugees waiting to die in the gutters.
But she had never seen such a sight.
It wasn't dozens of people; it wasn't hundreds.
It was tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands.
Crowded into this narrow strip of land outside the city walls.
Like garbage being dumped at will.
Boundless.
Her breathing became somewhat hurried.
Her fingers gripped even tighter.
Even though she had once been at the pinnacle of the nobility, Elvia felt a sense of oppression that struck her directly in the face.
Subconsciously, she peeked at Lin Gui.
There were no extra emotions on Lin Gui’s face.
No anger.
No sadness.
No pity.
Only a kind of calm that made her feel uneasy.
He looked straight ahead, not even lowering his head for a single glance.
Elvia paused for a moment.
As if defending the situation, or perhaps trying to convince herself.
"In an apocalyptic city-state, the collection and transport of resources are limited."
"For the sake of survival, such situations will always arise."
Lin Gui did not look back.
His voice was very flat.
As if he were speaking about something that had nothing to do with him.
"There are plenty of ways to solve such problems."
He paused.
"And yet..."
"They turn a blind eye."
Elvia’s lips moved.
She opened her mouth but then closed it again.
Lin Gui continued.
His voice was still very flat.
"Because these apocalyptic city-states are a disaster for all living beings at the bottom."
"But for those people..."
"They are a dreamland."
"With status, power, and strength far exceeding that of the peaceful Golden Age."
Elvia was speechless.
She wanted to refute him.
But she could find no words.
Lin Gui was right.
There were plenty of ways to solve this seemingly unsolvable predicament.
Rational planning.
Allocation of resources.
Constraint of the law.
Even just slightly loosening that iron-clad class barrier.
It would allow the people in these wooden buildings to live slightly more like human beings.
But Dawn City would not do that.
Those eleven central hub city-states would not do that.
Because that would seriously damage their interests.
And the current extreme disparity.
This silent plunder at the minimum cost.
Was the scene they were most delighted to see.
This was a dark age.
But for them.
It was the most powerful "Golden Age" for the powerful and wealthy classes.
Elvia lowered her head.
She stopped speaking.
Lin Gui stopped speaking as well.
He exhaled softly, as if swallowing down some emotion.
He manipulated his staff.
And flew toward that massive city gate.
Rate on N.U.
