Decaying World

Chapter 55 055 Exploration Three (Thanks to Alliance Leader Battle Tornado)

Looking at the back of his master in front of him, Lin Hui narrowed his eyes, paused, and followed behind.

As he stepped into the white light, his eyes were momentarily dazzled, but he quickly adjusted.

What came into his view was an endless plain, predominantly brown and white.

The spot where he stood appeared to be a shovel-shaped gray cliff.

Looking ahead from here, the plain below the cliff is composed of a dense cluster of brown and white buildings.

The pavilions stretched like weeds all the way to the far end of the field of vision, their number indistinguishable.

Between the buildings, neatly planned white driveways divide all the buildings into pieces resembling tofu.

"Go down this way," Master Mingde reminded us from the side. "Permission allows us to stay in the inner city for one hour. We must leave when the time is up, or our bodies will be harmed."

"Okay." Lin Hui followed his master, along with a line of delivery trucks, down the mountain road on the right.

“The inner city is divided into nine districts, each with nine towns. The closer a district is to the core, the greater the harm to ordinary people, and the fewer people live there. What we are seeing now is the outermost area, which is also the most densely populated and densely populated area, because the harm is the weakest,” Mingde said. “If you go further in, you will see the core residential area, mainly centered around the Moon Tower. I guarantee you will be amazed.”

"Why?" Lin Hui's gaze swept across the countless blocks in the distance below.

From a distance, he noticed that the people on the street seemed to be dressed very lightly, with many men wearing only trousers, shawls, and belts.

Many women wore only strapless tops and shorts, and some even wore only bikinis, their clothes barely visible, as they sat in carriages chatting and drinking tea lazily.

On some street corners, you can still vaguely see couples engaging in vigorous physical activity, without any attempt to conceal themselves.

In broad daylight, on the busiest street, they actually started doing it!
Lin Hui was dumbfounded.

“The inner city encourages childbirth; the more children you have, the more benefits you receive. Besides, the inner city itself has a way of stimulating people’s desires,” Mingde said. “Back to the previous topic, once you reach the Moon Tower and see those massive towers with thousands of stories soaring into the sky, you’ll understand how big the difference is between the inner and outer cities.”

"Thousands of floors!" Lin Hui's eyebrows twitched. He felt that the inner city was a completely different world compared to the outer city.

The outer city is like an abandoned old city, backward, dangerous, and desolate, while this is the real new era world.

They descended to the bottom of the cliff and followed the convoy into the streets between the large buildings.

The people on the streets are extremely polarized.

Most people walked hurriedly, and carriages moved swiftly, as if they were being driven by a whip.

A small group of people were incredibly relaxed, even their journeys were like a stroll. They were accompanied by pets such as cats, dogs, and foxes, some by car, some on foot, their expressions reserved and aristocratic.

"When the military horses are moving out, everyone else must make way!"

Suddenly, shouts came from the street ahead.

From afar, Lin Hui could see a group of exaggeratedly tall figures, two to three meters high, dressed in full silver armor and wielding sabers, slowly marching down the street.

Behind these tall figures was a gray monster that looked like a rhinoceros.

The monster was six meters tall and more than ten meters long, with pale red patterns on its skin that would light up and then go out from time to time.

Upon seeing this group, everyone stepped aside to the sides.

Master Mingde also pulled Lin Hui aside.

"Be careful, it's the government's peacekeeping troops patrolling," he whispered.

Lin Hui, the leader of the "Anmin Army," fell silent as he looked at the group of people who were much taller than the civilians.

Compared to them, the people on both sides were no more than two meters tall, like bean sprouts, and there was no comparison at all.

“Be careful in the inner city, otherwise you might accidentally cause trouble and it could be really dangerous. Although it’s safe here, with no fog at night and it’s an absolutely fog-free zone, the Summoners have immunity from killing, not to mention the original blood nobles,” Mingde whispered in admonition.

"In addition, besides the three major clans and the original bloodline nobles, the experts from the three sects and six gangs are also a major danger factor here."

"Because they practice extreme martial arts?" Lin Hui understood instantly.

"Exactly, it's all due to the circumstances. The inner city is safe, but the people here also need to go out to carry out various cleanup and collection tasks. These all require a lot of manpower. If they can't meet the requirements of the nobles, their status will gradually decline until they completely lose their value, are eliminated, and driven out of the inner city."

Mingde sighed, watching the Anmin Army pass by, “Once they are driven out of the inner city, it will be almost impossible for them to go back.”

"I feel that the outer city is not bad either, so why are the people here so afraid to go out?" Lin Hui asked in a low voice, expressing his doubts.

"Do you really think the outer city is so great?" Mingde glanced at his disciple. "Or do you really think that since you're not the one who disappears in the outer city every year, it doesn't matter? Or perhaps, that jade talisman hanging in your house will really be effective forever?"

"Master, what do you mean?!" Lin Hui instantly understood, and his expression turned extremely ugly.

“It’s just as you think.” Mingde’s voice lowered, and he bowed his head. “Whenever the inner city forces need living people for testing or something, they’ll just grab some people from our outer city. That’s what they call disappearances. And that jade talisman is also controlled by the three powerful figures. They can remotely control the talisman to activate or deactivate it at any time. Maintaining the population of the outer city is just a way for them to buffer the erosion of the fog zone and the night fog on the inner city.” “So, our outer city is just a buffer zone? It’s for testing the fog and the fog zone’s reaction with living people?” Lin Hui whispered.

"Yes, it's said to have some other functions, I'm not sure, but that's its main purpose. It's said that the outer city was even abandoned more than a hundred years ago." Mingde sighed, and after Anmin Army left, he continued to lead the way.

"Let's go, time is limited. I'll take you to the local market, where some small items from other ethnic groups sell well."

The two continued forward, turning left and right, and after crossing two streets, they arrived at an exceptionally bustling and crowded commercial district.

In the center of this block are several circular stone platforms. On one of these platforms stands a lion-headed man who is over two meters tall. He wears a gray robe, his golden mane flows in the wind, he has a black belt around his waist, and he wears a blue jade scholar's hat. He is spreading his arms wide and giving a speech.

Passersby would stop to listen from time to time at the foot of the stone platform. Some were ordinary passersby, while many others were lizardmen dressed as weary monks, carrying wooden canes.

Lin Hui carefully examined the lion-headed man and found that the man was loudly proclaiming how all living beings should band together and help each other under the fog, interspersed with some superstitious doctrines, urging everyone to worship a god named Pan.

"This is the general market, a special area that every district and town has, specifically for people of all races and ethnicities to trade and conduct business. Nothing you do here is regulated or illegal," Mingde explained softly. "That's why it's also the best place to strike it rich."

"What about these foreigners?" Lin Hui looked at the lion-headed people and lizard people with curiosity, which he rarely saw in the outer city.

“That’s how the Lionmen are. They’re a small group, but everyone is eloquent and a chatterbox, so they’re often hired to spread their doctrines here. That’s how it is in the inner city. You’ll get used to it after observing them for a while,” Mingde explained.

"What about the others?" Lin Hui asked, looking at the group of lizardmen.

These lizardmen wore tattered robes covered in dust, but each of them had a clear-eyed understanding of the ways of the world.

“Those are ascetic monks from the Xi clan. They come here every year with merchant caravans to purchase supplies and take them back,” Mingde said.

"It's easy to encounter other races in this junk street, but there are fewer further in. This is because the original bloodline nobles of Tu Yue are pure-blooded humans, so pure-blooded humans are respected here. If other races go too far in, they may be attacked and captured as slaves, which is not safe."

Lin Hui followed Mingde past from the side, the lion-man's booming voice still echoing in his ears.

"Then why do we rarely encounter them in the outer city?" he asked in a low voice.

"It's alright, we do run into them occasionally, but they don't enter the outer towns. They always enter and exit the inner city through other gates, so we don't see them often. For them, only the inner city is the real Tu Yue City. The outer city is desolate, backward, and dangerous. It's the wilderness, so naturally no one would go there to wander around." Mingde smiled. "Lion people, Xi people, and python people are all groups that you can often see in Tu Yue. You'll get used to it after seeing them more often."

The two wandered around the shops on one side of the miscellaneous street. Most of the shops sold all sorts of monster materials and local specialties from other tribes, such as snake molts from the Python tribe, handmade woven products from the Xi tribe, and consecrated amulets.

Lin Hui spent money to buy a few as collectibles, and then, led by his teacher, they circled back from another exit of the junk street.

Looking at the people of the inner city hurrying along the street, 99% of them are normal-looking humans, and there are very few non-human races. They seem to be outsiders passing by, and most of them have a strong local flavor. Some of them are looking around with an expression of amazement and shock at everything they see.

Teacher Mingde said that among these non-human groups, only the Python Clan, Lion Clan, and Xi Clan were relatively developed. The rest were still in the tribal era and were very backward. Naturally, the contrast with the inner city was very shocking.

Aside from these normal people, Lin Hui also noticed some unusual details.

As he sat down to order at a cold drink stall, he noticed that in a dark corner to the right of the stall, a gaunt young man was kneeling and prostrating himself in worship, facing a stone wall.

The man was dressed in tattered clothes, his gray robe was full of holes and stains, and he only had one shoe on. The skin on his wrist was so dark that his original skin color could not be seen.

"Teacher, what is he doing?" Lin Hui, sitting on the bench, pointed in the direction of the man to the teacher.

"He's just a madman, ignore him. He'll disappear on his own in a few days. Don't worry about him." Mingde remained calm, took out the jade permit, and examined its color.

"Disappeared automatically?" Lin Hui narrowed his eyes, keenly sensing something hidden within.

“Without permission, without Feather Blood, with invalid identity documents, and with bloodlines declining to a certain level, those who lose their eligibility for the inner city will find themselves in this situation within a few days. The Three Sects and Six Gangs, along with the government officials, will quickly eliminate them and drive them to our outer city,” Mingde replied. “These are the so-called eliminated people.”

"What will happen to them in the end?" Lin Hui asked in a low voice.

“Those with mild erosion can remain normal and live a normal life in the outer city. Those with severe erosion may develop the disease. The blood bodies of those infected people you killed before were them,” Mingde said.

He sighed, about to say something, when suddenly a large, hairy hand patted him on the back.

puff.

The blow was heavy enough that Mingde felt a sudden, jarring weight on his body, almost causing him to lose his ability to use his internal energy for protection.

He was about to explode when he stood up and turned around, only to be hugged tightly by a big hug.

"Mingde! When did you get into the inner city? Why didn't you tell me?"

The one who was holding him was a large, strong, black-haired lion-man.

The lion-man, carrying a long sword and wearing a black bodysuit that accentuated his strong muscles, had a look of obvious surprise in his eyes.

"You are, Ouyang Kai?" Mingde's voice also revealed a hint of surprise. "I thought you had gone back."

(End of this chapter)