Chapter 1120 Outer Area
The sculpture group standing quietly in the darkness was left by the earliest builders of the Twilight City. When they finally stabilized the urban structure inside the barrier and were able to smoothly control the opening and closing of the barrier, the past was divided into The people in the city left these things outside the gate. Now that two thousand years have passed, these sculptures have been rebuilt and replaced countless times, but they still maintain 100% of their original appearance. They stand in the darkness, always reminding the survivors of the Twilight City to remember them. Everything that was once gone - the whole world beyond the barrier.
There are many versions of stories circulating about these sculptures, but even if he doesn't understand these stories, Hao Ren can still tell a lot from the faces of the sculptures with different expressions. It is said that each of these statues is a real person, and they are the last batch of ancestors who fell outside the gate when the twilight barrier was raised. Wendell is familiar with the stories of these sculptures.
So during Wendell's narration of the sculpture group, the group of people stepped through the halo door.
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. When he walked over, he could hardly feel the thickness of the thing. The moment he passed through the barrier, he felt that the hot breath and harmful radiation that filled the air were completely isolated from the outside, and a not-so-pleasant smell of smoke and dust hit his face.
He looked up and looked around, and found that the entrance to the city was even more desolate and dilapidated than he had imagined. It was obviously an important gate to the shelter, but there was not even a decent sentry around, and there were even fewer people. Everywhere you look here are dilapidated and tall gray-black buildings. Two crooked towers stand symmetrically on both sides. The outer walls of the towers are mottled and peeling off, revealing the uneven metal structure inside. A wide slope slopes upward. The road stretched out in front of us. Both sides of the ramp were filled with scrapped facilities and buildings with sparse lighting. Metal pipes and steel cables were criss-crossing the buildings like spider webs, and smoke and dust were swirling among these "spider webs". It looked foggy.
And extending the line of sight along the slope that slopes upward, one can see that the Twilight City is piled up like a spiraling mound, with layers of buildings stacked up infinitely, as if the buildings are too crowded. So much so that the entire city's terrain was squeezed into a swollen mass. Between those stacked buildings, you can see clouds of white smoke rising from time to time. Where the white smoke rises, you can vaguely see huge mechanical devices operating. The sound of booming and booming echoes throughout the city, which is monotonous and exciting. irritable.
"That's a big boiler," Wendell couldn't help but smile after returning to his hometown. Although he embarked on a journey to find the light with the intention of never returning, human emotions cannot be avoided after all. , he was filled with joy to be able to return here again, "There is the largest steam boiler there, and half of the power in the entire city is provided by several large boilers."
"Steam boiler?" Hao Ren suddenly reacted at this moment, "Are you using steam power?"
"Yes, great steam technology," Wendell said with emotion, "It is said that this thing was originally created by the giants in ancient times. The Fire King Shirter is the controller of all steam power, but when the gods fell, , after the collapse of the world, the power of steam dispersed in the world, and gradually became something that humans can control. I once had a workshop, and I was good at making gear mechanisms - but the workshop closed a long time ago."
Hao Ren groaned and looked around. He noticed that even though the entrance was desolate and dilapidated, it was not deserted. Many figures emerged one after another from the dilapidated buildings that seemed to be a hundred years old. These people were wearing tattered clothes, slovenly, and had strange expressions. They were surprised to see someone coming in from outside the city, lingering in the distance and not daring to get close. Then someone finally recognized Wendell as a "Light Seeker" "", so the man exclaimed, turned around and ran away quickly.
Several others ran away with him.
"Don't worry about these people," Wendell said as he walked forward on his own. "They are 'miners' on the outer edge of the city. They have been exposed to the radiation environment outside for a long time. These people are somewhat neurotic. They deserve respect. , but still can’t integrate into the society in the inner area, so they all gather here.”
"Miners", as the name suggests, are people responsible for collecting resources. But in this twilight city, miners' work means paying a heavier price.
They are responsible for collecting resources outside the city - outside the twilight barrier.
These people have to wear heavy protective gear every day and take a steam locomotive to leave the city through another exit and go to the quarry in the darkness. There are low-power protective devices in the quarry, but they are completely incomparable to the powerful twilight barrier: these miners are therefore exposed to deadly magic radiation and toxic gases for a long time. These fatal and harmful environments continued to corrode their bodies and spirits, eventually causing these people to become haggard and mentally slow, becoming what Hao Ren saw. The Steam Council provided the miners' families with the best rations and housing in the city, but the miners themselves...
Their blood is poisonous, their hair and fingernails are poisonous, even their breath is poisonous - they can only live in the Outer Rim.
However, in order to allow their families and descendants to enjoy a superior living environment, many people still voluntarily come to the outer edges of the city to become miners. Of course, there are also unwilling people, that is, criminals who have been exiled here, but they usually have no way to show their faces.
Wendel led Hao Ren and his entourage off the avenue and walked into an alley hidden in the shadow of a building. Hao Ren thought that the other party was deliberately avoiding something: "Are you hiding from the people of the Steam Council? In fact, we are just not interested in that council, and we have no intention of avoiding them..."
"I didn't hide from them," Wendell shook his head helplessly, "It's just that if you want to go from this gate to the inner city, you must take this road. The broad road is in disrepair. Since the team of light seekers has been reduced, that The road is almost abandoned, and the other roads are more difficult to walk. I will take you to find an old friend. He is the administrator of the mine locomotive. He can take us to the inner city. Once there, I You can contact the Lightseeker headquarters."
Hao Ren nodded and said nothing. He just followed Wendel silently and walked towards the depths of the dark, dirty buildings that looked like dormant steel monsters. At the same time, he curiously observed the building as he walked. A strange city in a closed state.
Obviously, after Ragnarok, the survivors of this world did not allow civilization to completely stagnate. Although their development route became very weird and the cities within the barrier appeared deformed and twisted everywhere, their society still developed tenaciously. . Two thousand years ago, the humans of Midgard were experiments and playthings kept in captivity by 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 world within the Twilight Barrier. A steel city powered by machinery and steam power was built - Galadra was astonished by this.
In this case, their technology tree is still developing!
Wendel led the group along the path that meandered deeper and passed through many ancient buildings that looked abandoned but still had sounds coming from inside from time to time. Judging from the slope of the road under his feet, Hao Ren thought he was walking along the road. Head towards higher ground.
Eventually, they reached an open area.
This is a huge steel platform, supported by surprisingly thick pillars, completely built in the air on top of several tall buildings, and several parallel steel rails extend out from the edge of the platform. One end of these rails extends straight to the twilight barrier in the distance, passes through the halo gate on the barrier, and disappears into the darkness: they are obviously leading to those mines, and the other end of the rails follows all the way. The city's terrain continues upward toward the top of the cone-shaped city.
This is a major artery.
When Hao Ren and his party arrived at the platform, they saw what Wendell called the "steam locomotive."
They were two heavy but rough and powerful mechanical monsters. They were larger than any train in Hao Ren's memory (including the old steam locomotives he had seen in movies). The cylindrical locomotive traction section was covered with cloth. Covered with thick pipes and rivets, the dark steel machine looked particularly thick and heavy, and behind the powerful tractor head, it towed several dirty carriages.
Many men in greasy overalls were busy around the two locomotives. They were busy greasing the machines, aligning gears, tightening valves, and writing sacred runes on the fronts of the locomotives with white paint to bless the steel. The body can return safely in the darkness outside the twilight barrier. A large number of miners are waiting for the ride next to the carriage at the back. These miners are wearing heavy protective clothing, and their dirty clothes are inlaid with runes on some kind of soft metal thread. Each miner also has an ugly helmet hanging on his waist. A spherical helmet made of leather and metal, held together by two tubes and clothing.
These heavy protective suits are slightly similar to those worn by Wendell, but are obviously more rough and clumsy. Although they look thick, their effect is quite limited. The Lightseeker's equipment and amulets can allow the wearer to cross the ruins of the Nine Kingdoms, but the protective clothing and helmets worn by the miners can only allow them to survive safely under the magic radiation for ten hours - after this time, they must come back to replace something. some key components and recharging the runes.
Therefore, the most important lesson that every miner must learn before joining the job for the first time is that he must catch up with the return steam locomotive in time.