The sculptures standing quietly in the darkness were left by the earliest builders of Twilight Capital. When they finally stabilized the structure of the city inside the shroud and were able to control the opening and closing of the shroud, the people who were separated from the city left these things outside the gate. Now two thousand years had passed. These sculptures had been rebuilt and replaced many times, but they still retained 100% of their original appearance. They stood in the darkness, reminding the survivors of Twilight Capital of everything they had lost — the whole world outside the shroud.
There were many versions of the story about these sculptures. But even if he did not understand these stories, Hao Ren could see a lot of things from the different expressions on the faces of the sculptures. It was said that each of the statues was a real person, the last of the ancestors who fell outside the gate when the Twilight Shroud rose. Wendell was familiar with the story of these statues.
So, while Wendell was narrating the sculptures, they stepped through the Halo Gate.
Hao Ren felt as if he had passed through a vague wind wall. The light shield that protected the entire city was actually only a thin layer. He could hardly feel the thickness of the shield when he walked through it. The moment he passed through the barrier, he felt that the scorching breath and harmful radiation in the air were completely isolated, and an unpleasant smell of smoke and dust hit him in the face.
He looked up and found that the entrance to the city was more desolate and dilapidated than he had imagined. It was an important gate of the sanctuary, but there was not even a decent sentry post around it, let alone people. There were dilapidated and tall gray-black buildings everywhere. Two crooked towers stood symmetrically on both sides. The outer walls of the towers were mottled and fell off, revealing the jagged metal structure inside. A wide upward ramp stretched out in front of him. On both sides of the ramp were abandoned facilities and sparsely lit buildings. Metal pipes and steel cables intertwined over the buildings like a spider web. Smoke and dust hovered between these "spider webs".
Extending along the upward slope, Hao Ren could see that Twilight Capital was piling up like a spiraling mound. Layers of buildings piled up infinitely, as if the buildings were so crowded that the entire terrain of the city was squeezed into a swollen mass. From time to time, white smoke could be seen rising from the stacked buildings. Huge mechanical devices could be seen operating at the places where the white smoke was rising. The rumbling sounds echoed throughout the city, monotonous and irritating.
"That's the big boiler." Wendell could not help but smile after returning to his hometown. Although he embarked on the light-seeking journey with the thought that he would never return, human feelings were unavoidable after all. He was filled with joy to be back here again. "There are the largest steam boilers there. Half of the city's power is provided by a few big boilers."
"Steam boiler?" Hao Ren suddenly realized at this time. "You use steam power?"
"Yes, the great steam technology," Wendell said with emotion. "It is said that this thing was originally created by the giants in ancient times. Surtr, the King of Flames, was the master of all the power of steam. But when the gods fell and the world collapsed, the power of steam spread to the world and gradually became something that humans could control. I used to have a workshop, and I was good at making gear mechanisms. But the workshop closed a long time ago. "
"Oh," Hao Ren replied and looked around. He noticed that even though the entrance was desolate and dilapidated, it was not uninhabited. There were many figures coming out of the dilapidated buildings that looked like they had been around for a hundred years. These people were dressed in tattered clothes and had a weird look on their faces. They were surprised to see someone coming in from outside the city and patrolling at a distance, not daring to approach. Finally, someone recognized Wendell as a Lightseeker. The man exclaimed, turned around, and ran away quickly.
There were also a few people who ran away with him.
"Don't worry about these people," Wendell said as he walked forward. "They are the 'miners' on the outer edge of the city. They have been exposed to the radiation environment outside for a long time, and these people are a little neurotic. They deserve respect, but they still can't integrate into the society of the inner zone, so they all gather here. "
'Miners', as the name suggested, were people responsible for collecting resources. But in this Twilight Capital, the miners' work meant paying a heavier price.
They were responsible for collecting resources outside the city — outside the Twilight Shroud.
These people had to wear heavy protective gear every day, leave the city by steam locomotive from another exit, and go to the mining field in the vast darkness. The mining field had a low-power protective device, but it was nothing compared to the powerful Twilight Shroud. These miners were therefore exposed to the deadly magic radiation and toxic gas for a long time. These deadly harmful environments constantly eroded their bodies and minds, and eventually caused these people to look haggard and slow down, becoming what Hao Ren saw. The Steam Assembly provided the families of these miners with the best rations and housing in the city, but these miners themselves …
Their blood was poisonous, their hair and nails were poisonous, and even their breath was poisonous. They could only live in the outer zone.
However, in order to let their families and descendants enjoy a superior living environment, there were still many people who volunteered to come to the outer edge of the city to become a miner. Of course, there were also people who were not willing. They were the criminals who were exiled here, but they could not show up usually.
Wendell took Hao Ren and his team away from the main road and walked into an alley hidden in the shadows of buildings. Hao Ren thought that Wendell was deliberately avoiding something. "Are you hiding from the Steam Assembly? In fact, we are just not interested in the assembly, and we don't intend to hide from them … "
"I'm not hiding from them," Wendell shook his head helplessly. "It's just that to go to the inner zone of the city from this gate, you have to take this road. The broad road has been in disrepair for a long time. Since the Lightseeker team shrank, that road has almost been abandoned, and the other roads are more difficult to walk. I'll take you to an old friend. He is the manager of the mine's locomotive. He can take us to the inner zone of the city. When we get there, I can get in touch with the Lightseeker headquarters. "
Hao Ren nodded and said nothing. He just followed Wendell silently into the depths of the dark, dirty building complex that looked like a dormant steel monster. At the same time, he curiously observed the strange closed city along the way.
Obviously, after the Twilight of the Gods, the survivors of this world did not let civilization completely stagnate. Although their development route had become very strange, and the city inside the shroud was deformed and distorted everywhere, their society still developed tenaciously. Two thousand years ago, the humans of Midgard were the experimental subjects and playthings of the Norse gods. They lived a primitive and rough life like other humans of the same period. Today, two thousand years later, they built a steel city powered by machinery and steam power in the Twilight Shroud, which surprised even Galazur.
Under such circumstances, their technology tree was still developing!
Wendell led them along the winding path, passing through many old buildings that looked abandoned, but there were still sounds coming from the inside from time to time. Judging from the slope of the road under their feet, Hao Ren thought they were moving all the way to higher ground.
Finally, they arrived at an open place.
This was an enormous steel platform, supported by shockingly thick pillars, completely suspended in the air above several tall buildings, and the edge of the platform extended out several parallel steel rails. One end of these rails extended straight to the Twilight Shroud in the distance, through the halo gate on the shroud, and disappeared into the darkness: they were obviously leading to the mines. The other end of the rails extended all the way up the city's terrain to the top of the cone-shaped city.
This was a major artery.
When Hao Ren and his team arrived on the platform, they saw the "steam locomotives" that Wendell had mentioned.
They were two heavy but powerful mechanical monsters, bigger than any train in Hao Ren's memory, including the old steam locomotives he had seen in the movies. The cylindrical locomotive traction section was covered with thick pipes and rivets, and the dark steel machine looked particularly heavy. Behind the powerful traction head were several dirty carriages.
Many men in greasy overalls were busy around the two locomotives. They were busy greasing the machine, calibrating the gears, tightening the valves, and writing sacred runes on the front of the locomotive with white paint to bless the steel body to return safely in the darkness outside the Twilight Shroud. A large number of miners were waiting to board the carriages at the back. These miners were wearing heavy protective suits, and their dirty clothes were inlaid with some kind of soft metal wire. Each miner also had an ugly spherical helmet hanging from their waist. The helmet was made of leather and metal, and it was connected to their clothes by two pipes.
These heavy protective suits were slightly similar to those worn by Wendell, but obviously more crude and clumsier. Although they looked heavy, their effect was quite limited. The equipment and amulets of the Lightseeker could allow the wearer to cross the ruins of the Nine Worlds, but the protective suits and helmets of the miners could only allow them to survive safely under magic radiation for ten hours. After that time, they must come back to replace some key parts and recharge the runes.
Therefore, the most important lesson for every miner before they first started work was to catch the steam locomotive in time for the return journey.
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