They did not need to travel through all nine kingdoms to reach Midgard. In fact, after the death of Heimdallr, the space of Midgard was fixed on the seventh level of the Nine Kingdoms. Behind this solidified space chain, there were also Niebelungen, the country of death, and Niflheim, the underworld. It was said that the situation in those two countries was worse than other places, but Hao Ren did not plan to go there yet.
They arrived at the destination of the trip: Twilight Capital of Midgard.
Midgard, in the prosperous era of the Norse gods, was the "atrium" of the Nine Kingdoms. It was said that Odin led the gods to open up various kingdoms on the branches of Yggdrasil and divided the atrium into a place for human survival. In Vivian's memory, this continent was actually the human experimental base and observation test field of the Norse gods. But no matter what it used to look like, it was now almost the same as other countries.
The sky of Midgard was reddish, and the extremely dim sky was almost no different from midnight. Thick clouds covered the dry and twisted land, and the gloomy atmosphere seemed to be about to collapse. Under the sky, the scorched land was no longer what it used to be. Thick smoke and poisonous fog kept spewing out of the crisscrossing ravines. The tentacles of the First Born snaked out of some of the largest cracks, forming a ridge on the land after the disaster. Midgard once had several rivers flowing through the whole continent and green mountains, but now the rivers had dried up, and the mountains had become bare. Among the scorched mountains, the last tinder of the 'world' was hidden: Twilight Capital.
The spherical spacecraft glided silently in the darkness, gradually approaching the energy source ahead. The situation of Twilight Capital was presented to everyone through a holographic projection.
It was a city of unprecedented scale, but it was also a chaotic, old, and crumbling city. Hao Ren saw a dim barrier shrouding the mountains. The barrier was translucent and irregular in shape as if someone had expanded it into what it was today. Inside the barrier, a large number of grotesque buildings could be vaguely seen. The buildings were stacked on top of each other, like some kind of diseased biological tissue filling every inch of space inside the barrier, just as Wendell described.
The spherical spacecraft stopped some distance away from Twilight Capital. Anthony Alfonso asked, "Where is the entrance?"
Wendell was obviously not used to this view from the air. He stood on the edge of the platform for a long time before he figured out the location of the city. He raised his hand and pointed to a corner near the mountains on the edge of the barrier. "That is one of the gates."
"What procedures do I need to go in and out?" Hao Ren asked casually.
Wendell just shrugged silently. "Who do I need to go through?"
Hao Ren quickly understood the meaning of this sentence:
Inside the barrier was the only refuge for humans. Outside the barrier was the endless darkness of life. This could almost be regarded as a one-way passage for the living and the dead. Except for the Lightseekers, who would dare to go out from the gate? And in this eternal darkness, who would come in from outside the gate?
Perhaps thousands of years ago, the gate of Twilight Capital had a pass, but now, even if there was a pass, it would be useless.
"After going in, I'm afraid we have to deal with the Steam Assembly," Wendell said. "They run the city."
When the old man mentioned the Steam Assembly, his expression was a little complicated. There was a hint of dissatisfaction in his respect. He respected the manager of the city, but the Steam Assembly was not very supportive of the cause of the Lightseekers. In fact, as a pragmatic ruling collective, it was the Steam Assembly that was constantly reducing the size of the Lightseekers, and not long ago issued an announcement that they would no longer send Lightseekers.
This made Wendell's feelings about the Steam Assembly very complicated.
"Steam Assembly? We don't have much interest in this, "Vivian shook her head." We want to see your ancient sage first. He is still sheltering Twilight Capital, right? "
An ancient sage who suddenly appeared two thousand years ago and had been sheltering the humans of Midgard to this day aroused great interest in Vivian. She vaguely guessed the identity of the ancient sage, which was the main reason she came here.
Wendell looked at Vivian in surprise. "Of course, the ancient sage is still sheltering us. But I'm afraid it's not so easy for you to see him."
Hao Ren raised his eyebrows. "He doesn't want to see anyone?"
Wendell shook his head. "The ancient sage has not shown up for many years. Now, only the guardians in the lower area can see him. There are thousands of people in Twilight Capital who want to see the ancient sage, but ordinary people are not qualified at all. "
Vivian smiled slightly. "We are from another country. I think this identity is enough to arouse the interest of the ancient sage."
Wendell's expression changed instantly. Apparently, he agreed with what Vivian said. He pondered for a moment and said, "Well, it makes sense. The ancient sage will be very happy if he hears about you. I can help you send a message through the Lightseeker organization. We still have a little friendship with the guardians. But in any case, the Steam Assembly will certainly pay attention to you. They run the whole city, and nothing that happens inside the barrier can be hidden from them. To be honest, I don't want to provoke the Steam Assembly as much as possible. They are very conservative, and I'm afraid they will try to stop us. "
Hao Ren waved his hand to indicate that it did not matter. Then Anthony Alfonso controlled the spherical spacecraft to approach the gate of Twilight Capital.
When there was still a distance from the barrier, the spacecraft slowly descended, and the group landed directly in the desolate area outside the city. In order not to cause too much commotion, they could not fly in such a large space shuttle.
Before reaching the entrance of the barrier, Hao Ren saw the situation outside the light curtain.
Outside the barrier was a dry and twisted land, which had also been eroded by the magic storm. Everything on the land showed signs of severe weathering, and in the severely weathered landscape, there was a rather old building complex: they were probably the ruins of a city more than 2,000 years ago.
The ruins were close to the Twilight Shroud, and some of the ruins were even divided into two by the shroud!
"That's the ancient city of 'Kamhilen'." Wendell stood beside Hao Ren and explained, curiously fiddling with the life-support collar around his neck. This small device was much more advanced than his original magic amulet. He did not feel anything wearing it in the magic radiation.
Looking at the ruins of the buildings divided by the light curtain, Hao Ren certainly knew what they meant. "Life and death, separated by a wall."
"When the barrier rose, the city was just on the edge of it, so the whole city was divided into two. Half of the city survived and has now merged into a block of Twilight Capital, and the part outside the barrier became like this," Wendell shook his head with a wry smile. "There was no gate here at that time, so the people who stayed outside were all dead."
Lily stood on a large rock protruding from the ground and looked into the distance. Suddenly, she found that there were spots of light in the dark wilderness outside the light curtain. She was surprised. "There are people outside the barrier?"
"That's the gatherers," Wendell nodded. "The resources in Twilight Capital are always limited. We have to risk mining ore from the darkness outside. The scholars have studied various methods, so we can open up three mines near Twilight Capital. Unfortunately, we can't go further. Come with me. After entering the gate, I know a way. If we go there, we can try not to cause trouble. "
The team moved forward in the darkness, heading for the magnificent light curtain that emitted a soft yellow light.
Twilight Capital, as its name suggested, served as the last lighthouse of civilization on the Midgard continent shrouded in the long night.
It took them half an hour to pass through the ruins of the city outside the barrier. After crossing a large area of weathered and collapsed buildings, a halo that could accommodate three trucks side by side appeared in front of them. This halo was embedded in the Twilight Shroud, and the light curtain inside the halo was thinner than outside. This was the gate.
"What is this?" Hao Ren looked at the thing outside the gate in surprise.
Outside the gate of Twilight Capital was a piece of land that had been artificially leveled. There were hundreds of sculptures, all of which were men, women, young, and old. Some of these lifelike figures were crying, some were holding each other, and some were struggling to crawl forward. The most eye-catching one was the one at the front of the group of sculptures: it was an old man sitting on the ground. His legs had shrunk and deformed, but he just sat there quietly, facing the gate, waving and smiling.
It was as if he was waving and smiling at the entire Twilight Capital. It was as if someone was standing on the other side of the light curtain, and the old man was waving goodbye to him.
In response, Wendell only said, "When the barrier rose, half of the city was left outside."
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
