What?

What was that?!

Among the more than forty City Lords in the group chat, not a single one could process what they had just seen.

Even Wen Huahua—Blue Sea’s most devoted cheerleader—and Jin Yu, who had always been trying to surpass Coriander Safe City, were rendered speechless.

After all, they were City Lords.

None of them were strangers to extraordinary events.

They had all, at one time or another, seen World Missions that were incredibly difficult yet completed by some exceptionally powerful individual.

Different civilizations had different populations and different levels of strength. Just because one Safe City couldn’t accomplish something didn’t mean another couldn’t.

But…

A World Mission that was incredibly difficult…

…being completed by someone in two minutes?

That was utterly absurd.

Fifty million flying snow beasts!

Even if they had been fifty million fat pigs, and tens of millions of residents joined the slaughter, it would still take at least five or six hours to kill them all.

Flying snow beasts certainly weren’t going to sit still and let Blue Sea mass*cre them.

They could even summon ground-based snow beasts!

Granted, according to the mission description, these flying snow beasts had not yet left their nests, so the number of reinforcements they could summon should have been limited.

But when fifty million snow beasts summoned help simultaneously…

Based on every City Lord’s experience, there should have been at least one hundred million, if not two hundred million, ground snow beasts answering the call.

And yet…

Blue Sea had wiped them all out…

…in just two minutes.

How was that even possible?!

How could that possibly be normal?!

The City Lords racked their brains, but none of them could imagine how Blue Sea Safe City had accomplished such a feat.

Their thoughts inevitably drifted back to Mianyin Safe City and Dihai Safe City, both of which had recently fallen at Blue Sea’s hands, as well as Mingxia’s City Lord, who had been forced to abandon territory and flee, only to be hunted down later through Blue Sea’s bounty.

A Safe City capable of taking on three rivals at once was obviously not to be underestimated.

Ever since that incident, no one in the group chat openly discussed Blue Sea anymore.

But privately, every single City Lord had already made up their mind—

It was best to stay as far away from Blue Sea as possible.

Dazzling Star’s frigid climate, combined with its unique way of life—where firearms couldn’t be used and residents were forced to live scattered across vast areas—meant that even Tier 4 Safe Cities had their overall strength greatly diminished.

For a Tier 3 Safe City like Blue Sea to be this formidable…

Many City Lords had long assumed there was only one explanation.

Perhaps extreme cold simply wasn’t a problem for Blue Sea’s civilization.

It was even possible that Blue Sea had originated from a world of perpetual frost.

Such cases weren’t unheard of.

Every civilization was different. Conditions that made survival nearly impossible for one race might be perfectly ordinary for another.

If that were true…

Then Dazzling Star was essentially Blue Sea’s home field.

Back when the Mingxia City Lord was fleeing for his life, he had privately contacted several other City Lords, hoping to sell information about Blue Sea—along with the inside story of how it had defeated three Safe Cities at once—in exchange for crystals, so that he could afford more relocation opportunities.

Not a single person had bought it.

Even Tier 2 City Lords could see the writing on the wall.

With so little territory remaining under his control, combined with Dazzling Star’s requirement that residents live spread out across the landscape, and with Blue Sea relentlessly chasing him from place to place…

There was absolutely no way Mingxia’s City Lord could gather enough residents to leave the world.

His death was inevitable.

The core mechanism behind a Confidentiality Contract was that it was guaranteed by the City’s Core.

Break the agreement, and the City’s Core would shatter.

Once the Core was destroyed, the City Lord would die as well.

But…

The Mingxia City Lord had been doomed from the very beginning.

So what if he signed a confidentiality agreement?

If someone who was guaranteed to die decided, “If I can’t survive, then neither can any of you,” what was stopping him from exposing his buyers before he died?

No one could predict what a man with nothing left to lose might do in his final moments.

No one was willing to gamble on whether the notoriously vindictive Blue Sea would hold a grudge against anyone who bought intelligence from one of its enemies.

Even civilizations that specialized in plundering others knew to pick their targets carefully.

When it came to a hard nut like Blue Sea Safe City…

None of them wanted to provoke it.

The other Safe Cities were much the same.

The Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities didn’t dare stick their necks out, while the Tier 4 cities felt that Dazzling Star wasn’t their home territory, so there was no reason to create unnecessary trouble.

At this moment, however, several Tier 4 City Lords were beginning to regret an earlier decision.

When Blue Sea had defeated three Safe Cities on its own, they had instinctively assumed it was because Dazzling Star happened to be Blue Sea civilization’s home ground.

But now…

Five million flying snow beasts had been annihilated in two minutes.

Even if this world truly favored Blue Sea, such strength was still terrifying beyond belief.

No matter how hard they thought about it, they couldn’t figure out how Blue Sea had accomplished it.

If they’d known things would turn out this way, they should have bought some intelligence on Blue Sea when they’d had the chance.

Then again…

Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered.

During Mingxia’s repeated attempts to flee before his death, he had inevitably abandoned some of his residents along the way.

His native race, the Four-Eared Civilization, was easy to identify, so the City Lords controlling those regions had all taken those refugees into their own Safe Cities.

They might have refused to trade with Blue Sea’s enemy.

But that didn’t mean they couldn’t collect intelligence from Mingxia’s former residents for free.

According to those Four-Eared survivors who had personally witnessed Blue Sea’s methods in battle, the intelligence they provided was fairly consistent.

Blue Sea civilization most likely belonged to a winged race.

Many of its residents could fly.

Many more, however, had no wings at all.

Its soldiers were undeniably powerful, and their numbers were considerable.

That was about all they knew.

For example, none of the Four-Eared survivors had ever seen any large-scale weapons from the Safe City marketplace that could operate in extreme cold.

Whenever they were questioned, the answers were things like:

“Most of their weapons were just sticks… you know, long spears with sharp tips.”

Or:

“I was hiding inside the inner city. Before long, someone shouted that the city had fallen.”

So…

Were Blue Sea’s people really supposed to have killed fifty million flying snow beasts armed with nothing but spears?

No.

Impossible.

Absolutely impossible.

Either Blue Sea was hiding some devastating superweapon…

Or the Four-Eared survivors had overlooked some crucial detail during the battle.

The City Lords frantically racked their brains, but the more they thought about it, the less any of it made sense.

The group chat fell into a long silence.

Some people were desperately trying to remember whether they had ever offended Blue Sea in the past.

Others were scrolling back through Blue Sea’s old messages.

Some wanted to say something, but seeing that none of the other City Lords were speaking up, they didn’t dare be the first to break the silence.

At last, Wen Huahua—Blue Sea’s number one loyal follower—finally stepped forward.

[Boss is awesome!! You’re way too powerful! I’m sending out a little lucky red packet to celebrate for my boss!!]

He sent out a red packet containing a crate of lumber.

The amount wasn’t much. Once it was divided among all the City Lords, each person only received a few pieces of wood.

But after everyone claimed the red packet, the tense atmosphere in the group naturally eased.

Messages immediately began flooding the chat.

[Congratulations, Blue Sea!]

[Congratulations! (Thumbs up)]

[Thanks for the red packet! Blue Sea is incredible! (Strong! Strong! Strong!)]

[Let me massage the boss’s shoulders and pound their legs! You’re truly a role model for all of us!]

As always, City Lords could lurk quietly most of the time, saying nothing while watching the chat.

But when the overwhelming majority of people were praising one particular City Lord…

Everyone else had to surface eventually and blend in with a few flattering remarks of their own.

Cheng Qisheng couldn’t help thinking:

This feels strangely familiar.

The previous world had been much the same.

She had to admit…

Being surrounded by smiling faces and endless compliments really wasn’t a bad feeling.

Truthfully, she herself had been a little stunned.

When the World Mission first appeared and she saw that there were fifty million flying snow beasts waiting to be killed, her immediate reaction had been one of pure delight.

Because it was obvious—

These flying snow beasts with summoning abilities were the Skywing Dragons.

The people of Blue Sea had already fought those Skywing Dragons continuously for an entire day and night.

The ground-based snow beasts they had summoned had piled up into mountains of corpses that were even taller than those of the Skywing Dragons themselves.

They had only just finished killing off one wave when another flock of Skywing Dragons appeared.

Cheng Qisheng was already preparing to issue orders for everyone to clean up the battlefield as quickly as possible before relocating to hunt down the second wave.

Then she checked the mission coordinates…

They were exactly where she was standing.

Cheng Qisheng: “…”

Well.

She’d thought they were about to earn another batch of flying wings.

Less than two minutes later, the residents had finished cleaning up the battlefield, the World Mission was marked as complete, and the reward of 150,000 crystals was deposited into her account.

Cheng Qisheng had become rich overnight.

Even she found it a little hard to believe.

But seeing that everyone in the group chat had assumed Blue Sea had wiped out the flying snow beasts in just two minutes, she had no intention of correcting the misunderstanding.

Why bother explaining?

It was much better to let everyone keep believing that.

At the very least, on Dazzling Star…

Absolutely no one would dare provoke her in the future.

…Well, to be fair, no one had really dared to before, either.

Blue Sea Safe City: [Thank you, everyone. =v=]

As usual, she distributed crate after crate of fine silk fabric as red packets.

After sending the gifts, Cheng Qisheng immediately turned her attention back to the people of Blue Sea.

From her bird’s-eye perspective, the land below had become a sea of corpses.

Snow beast corpses.

Even the people of Blue Sea were a little tired after fighting nonstop for an entire day and night.

Yet every pair of eyes sparkled with excitement.

Every face was filled with exhilaration.

They’d won!!

Everyone looked toward the towering mountain of Skywing Dragon corpses.

The pile was so enormous that, standing at its base, they could barely make out its peak.

It was finally time…

…to count the spoils of war!!!

After all—

There were fifty million Skywing Dragons here!

<< _ >>

The post Safe City Ch.77 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

What surprised Cheng Qisheng wasn’t just that.

It was also the newly “modified” train Toya had built. Behind the driver’s seat in the locomotive cab, several familiar lines of text had appeared.

[Facility Name: Mechanic-Modified Crude Train (Unranked)

Speed: 60 km/h

Trait: Functions normally even at temperatures as low as -80°C (derived from the traits of a certain type of exotic beast)

Recommended Load Capacity: 30 tons

Maximum Load Capacity: 60 tons (the train cannot start if this limit is exceeded)

Operating Duration: 480 hours 0 minutes 0 seconds (the operating time is paused whenever there are no passengers on board)

Mechanical Creation Evaluation: A Gu Insect Ability User converted the life of an exotic beast into the train’s operating time, while a Mechanic permanently stabilized and enhanced that duration. Together, they created a usable mechanical train with minimal resources. Though it remains unranked, it’s still fully functional. What an excellent partnership~]

Cheng Qisheng took another bite of her ice cream.

A Mechanic.

So their newest believer belonged to the legendary Mechanic class.

No wonder everyone coveted Mechanics—they could manufacture equipment directly!

Judging from the “Unranked” designation, the train Toya had built wasn’t of the same quality as the items obtained from Item Cards.

But it didn’t cost any crystals!

Besides, Cheng Qisheng had been on Dazzling Star for quite some time now, and she’d never seen an Item Card that could produce an entire train.

You had to kill snow beasts just to obtain Item Cards, and even then, whether you got something useful depended entirely on luck.

Yet Toya…

With nothing more than a single steel door, he’d built a modern train!

They’d struck gold this time!

Cheng Qisheng had long admired Song Xi’s snowfield train. It was incredibly fast and required almost no operating cost—because the snow beasts paid nearly all of it themselves. It was practically tailor-made for the apocalypse.

Even if it were taken to another world, it would probably still serve as an excellent means of transportation.

She had even considered capturing large numbers of snow beasts and bringing them to other worlds to use as locomotive engines.

The snow beasts were incredibly hardy. In theory, they could survive for a very long time by feeding on nothing but snow.

The problem was that snow beasts simply weren’t creatures that could be domesticated.

The people of Little Blue Sea had already tested it. Whenever they captured a snow beast alive and locked it in a pen, it would do nothing but hurl itself against the enclosure without stopping for even a moment.

The good news was that their exceptionally tough bodies kept them from killing themselves too quickly.

At that rate of nonstop ramming, a snow beast would usually take about a month to die.

As a result, every station along the snowfield railway now had soldiers stationed there, raising and guarding groups of reserve snow beasts while waiting for Song Xi to arrive and turn them into “locomotives.”

Now, however, Toya’s existence had completely freed Song Xi from that responsibility, meaning she no longer had to travel from place to place.

Song Xi couldn’t have been happier.

It wasn’t that she minded constantly being on the move. The difference was that choosing to travel and being forced to travel were two completely different things.

She jumped off the train, grabbed Toya, and spun him around in a circle. Then a torrent of questions poured out of her, one after another, like the endless line of Blue Sea residents waiting to challenge the Skywing Dragons.

“How did you do it? You’re an ability user, aren’t you? Or did our God grant you this ability? Wow! This train is so much better than the last one! It blocks the wind and rain, it’s fully enclosed, and it even has windows! Are you tired? Are you hungry? I know some ability users get ravenously hungry after using their powers!”

“It’s good that you’re not hungry. Can you modify more trains? Can you turn snow beasts into machines? If I caught a few dozen snow beasts right now and gave you a few dozen steel doors, could you convert all of them into machines too?”

“My God! If that’s possible, wouldn’t we become filthy rich if we captured every snow beast on Dazzling Star?!”

Cheng Qisheng had a few questions she wanted to ask Toya herself, but seeing Song Xi’s mouth firing nonstop like a machine gun…

Forget it. This worked just as well and saved her the trouble.

Toya, on the other hand, didn’t find Song Xi’s barrage of questions bothersome at all.

Because of his physical condition, he had spent most of his life confined to his home, which had given him a gentle, unhurried personality. Someone as enthusiastic and proactive as Song Xi talking to him so warmly actually made him feel comfortable.

He was even a little flattered.

In truth, after seeing Song Xi and the others’ reactions, Toya had realized that things weren’t as he’d imagined.

Even in the Divine Kingdom, there didn’t seem to be anyone else with abilities like his.

In the past, that realization would have thrown him into another panic.

But now, deep within his heart, there was an indescribable yet undeniable connection to the Great Creator God. That bond instinctively filled him with a sense of security.

Comforted by that feeling, Toya answered honestly.

“I don’t think I can directly turn snow beasts into machines. The reason I was able to convert the snow beast in this train is because, in my perception, it was already part of the train.”

Song Xi immediately understood.

If this had been before, her first instinct would have been to bring him back to Blue Sea, where the specialists could analyze Toya’s abilities.

But they were far from home now.

As the highest-ranking leader of Little Blue Sea, Song Xi turned to the soldiers and gave an order.

“Bring me a few snow beasts.”

To Toya, snow beasts were terrifyingly powerful creatures.

Yet the way Song Xi said it made it sound as effortless as, “Bring me a few basins of snow.”

For a moment, Toya instinctively felt a surge of admiration.

Then he remembered that he and Song Xi belonged to the same “family.”

That admiration immediately transformed into happiness.

Now he finally understood why his parents had been so joyful after becoming believers.

It felt as though he had joined a powerful yet warm and welcoming family.

It was an incredible feeling.

With the entire planet currently engulfed in a beast tide, finding a few snow beasts was hardly difficult.

Within moments, dozens of soldiers returned, dragging several snow beasts that had been caught with heavy lassos.

As they avoided the beasts’ snapping jaws, they forcibly hauled them forward with practiced ease. It was obvious that, after spending so much time with Song Xi and the others, they’d become quite experienced at capturing snow beasts.

With the “test subjects” in place, Song Xi looked at Toya expectantly.

“Come on! Let’s give it a try!”

Cheng Qisheng watched the entire experiment with great interest.

Everything she knew about Mechanic-class ability users had come from Gu Gaga.

There were many different branches within the Mechanic-class ability users.

The Mechanic-class ability users Gu Gaga had encountered specialized in enhancing themselves. Most of the information in its records described how they could strengthen specific parts of their bodies or even mechanize themselves.

As long as they had sufficient materials, a Tier 1 Mechanic Ability User could enhance themselves to the combat strength of a Tier 3 or even Tier 4 ability user.

As for the Mechanic branch that Toya belonged to, the records contained very little information. They only mentioned that Mechanics couldn’t strengthen their own bodies and instead possessed abilities more suited to support roles.

Gu Gaga had tried to investigate further, but aside from learning that Mechanics were exceedingly rare, it hadn’t uncovered anything else.

It had added a note at the end of the report:

Ordinarily, even if detailed information about a Safe City couldn’t be obtained, at least a few vague rumors would leak out.

But when absolutely no information could be found, there was only one likely explanation—

If word ever got out that a certain Safe City possessed a Mechanic, it might attract the covetous attention of every other Safe City.

For example, there was once a Safe City that discovered a flower capable of extending one’s lifespan in another world. The flower grew on a tree known as the Tree of Longevity. It bloomed once every ten years, and a single blossom could extend a person’s life by 300 years.

After news of it spread, that Safe City was wiped out in less than five days.

Although City Lords themselves became long-lived beings, and Tier-4 Transcendents could already live for three hundred years, who would ever complain about having too much time to live?

Besides, even if they didn’t need it themselves, everyone had family members, friends… or at the very least, beloved cats and dogs.

Not everyone important to a City Lord could become a Transcendent and qualify for an extended lifespan.

Some City Lords lived alone with only a pet for company. If given the choice, they would naturally want that companion to live forever by their side.

The Safe City marketplace did sell life-extending items.

But they were outrageously expensive.

Unlike the Tree of Longevity…

…which you could simply seize by force.

How convenient.

Back then, the Safe Cities descended into a period of bloody conflict.

Every Safe City wanted to seize the Longevity Flower.

Yet every city that managed to obtain it would soon be defeated by another.

The cycle repeated itself over and over. Each new victor would become the next target, besieged by every other Safe City.

Dozens of Safe Cities were destroyed in succession.

Even if the current owner fled to another world, the others would simply follow. If they failed to catch them in one world, there was always the next one… or the one after that.

Everyone believed they were destiny’s chosen.

Everyone believed they would be the final victor.

The struggle over the Tree of Longevity lasted for more than fifty years. Although many Safe Cities chose to stay out of the conflict, there were always new City Lords eager to join the war.

In the end, the decades-long conflict came to an unexpectedly simple conclusion.

The final City Lord to obtain the Tree of Longevity was exceptionally powerful. Equipped with concealment items, they successfully evaded pursuit by the other Safe Cities.

More importantly…

They managed to cultivate seeds from the Tree of Longevity.

That City Lord immediately began selling the seeds wholesale, offering them in every world they visited.

Even the wholesale price was expensive.

But it was still a hundred times cheaper than buying lifespan-extending items from the Safe City marketplace.

And once you had the seeds, you had a renewable source of Longevity Flowers.

Although each person could only benefit from a Longevity Flower once, the flowers you grew could be sold to others.

If you cultivated the trees long enough, you could even sell the seeds themselves.

By the present day, among high-tier City Lords, Longevity Flowers had become one of the most common high-value trade commodities.

Of course, for lower-tier City Lords, they were still prohibitively expensive.

Cheng Qisheng had seen Gu Gaga’s recorded market price.

A single Longevity Flower sold for ten million crystals.

Just one glance was enough to know it was completely beyond her means.

And that was after several centuries, once the market had become saturated and prices had finally fallen.

She’d heard that hundreds of years earlier, when competition had been at its fiercest, a single flower could fetch as much as 300 million crystals.

And plenty of high-tier City Lords had actually bought them.

After all, an item in the Safe City marketplace that extended one’s lifespan by three hundred years cost 800 million crystals.

Ever since the Tree of Longevity incident, every City Lord had learned their lesson.

Whenever they found something truly valuable, if they could use it themselves, they guarded it with their lives.

If it was something that could be sold, they’d rather spend a fortune on an Anonymous Card and list it anonymously than reveal their identity.

After all, if you thought something was valuable, everyone else would think so too.

Revealing it was practically an invitation to be robbed.

Gu Gaga suspected that Mechanics fell into exactly that category.

According to all of its information channels, even after making indirect inquiries through high-tier City Lords, not a single one admitted to having a Mechanic in their Safe City.

The most likely explanation is that a Mechanic’s value is comparable to that of the Tree of Longevity. If a Safe City were to reveal that it had a Mechanic among its residents, it would likely attract the attention of other Safe Cities and trigger a war.

Fortunately, Gu Gaga thoughtfully added one final remark:

Safe Cities below Tier 5 don’t need to worry about this. Lower-tier City Lords probably aren’t lucky enough to possess such an extraordinary treasure in the first place.

In short—

Mechanics were a premium asset.

Competition over them would only occur among high-tier Safe Cities.

As for weak little Tier 3 cities like theirs…

There was nothing to worry about~

Cheng Qisheng, a Tier 3 City Lord who had just acquired a Mechanic:

“…”

She had now watched Toya’s entire ability test from beginning to end.

There was no doubt about it.

Toya really could manufacture equipment.

The only limitation was that everything he created had to be machine-related.

That said, Cheng Qisheng couldn’t help feeling that his ability was rather… metaphysical.

Take Song Xi’s version of the snowfield train, for example.

Because her Gu worms had completely overridden the snow beast’s will, turning it into the locomotive, Toya perceived that snow beast as part of the machine.

And because of that…

He was able to modify it.

Moreover, Toya revealed that a single modification wasn’t the limit.

As long as he was supplied with enough materials, he could continue upgrading the train, making it better and better.

Song Xi immediately opened all the Item Cards she’d accumulated along the journey. She piled everything onto the train—steel plates, power sources, and all sorts of miscellaneous materials—then used her Gu worms to control several snow beasts and harnessed them to the train.

“Come on, come on! Merge all these snow beasts into it and see if we can keep increasing its operating time!”

She finished excitedly, only to find Toya crouching in front of the small pile of “junk” she’d tossed aside, carefully sorting through it.

She blinked.

“…You can use this stuff too?”

The contents of twenty-five Item Cards were a complete hodgepodge. Wang Moning had even opened a yoga mat. Among the “trash” tossed to one side was a flattened plastic bottle.

That was simply the reality of Item Cards on Dazzling Star.

Two people could both open Food Item Cards. If one was lucky, they might get an entire case of self-heating hot pots.

If they weren’t…

They might end up with a single expired can of surströmming.

And that was still edible, at least.

Some Item Cards yielded even stranger things—rocks, rotten leaves, beast bones, broken glass, fish bones, tattered cloth, and all kinds of other bizarre odds and ends.

Whether they were people from Blue Sea or natives of Dazzling Star, everyone threw those useless items away without a second thought.

Clearly, though, Toya had never seen them that way.

He answered seriously,

“Some of these can be useful too.”

What everyone else regarded as trash…

Toya saw as materials with their own unique purpose.

He carefully sifted through the items from the Item Cards, selecting quite a few to place on the train.

(He even added a palm-sized rock.)

Shen Jinyang asked curiously how he knew what to pick.

After pondering for a few seconds, Toya replied,

“I just… go by instinct. I’ve been like this since I was little.”

Shen Jinyang silently closed her mouth.

All right.

That’s probably just how the world of ability users works.

Once every usable item from the Item Cards had been loaded onto the train, Toya placed his hand against its metal body once again.

The train began transforming once again—

The snow beasts were absorbed into the locomotive one after another.

If the previous upgrade had merely altered its appearance—like covering wood with a layer of silver—then this time, the transformation was complete.

Its overall length shrank slightly to around twenty-five meters, but its width expanded dramatically from two and a half meters to four meters. Its height also increased, now standing at five and a half meters.

The body had become visibly thicker, the undercarriage sat much higher off the ground, and the wheels had been replaced by wide caterpillar tracks.

The entire vehicle was now short, broad, and imposing, resembling a mobile fortress.

The interior had also undergone major changes.

The three torches obtained from the Item Cards had somehow taken effect. A thermometer had appeared inside the cabin, currently reading 21°C. Compared to the frozen wasteland outside, the warmth inside the train was nothing short of luxurious.

The materials had apparently been insufficient, however, as there still weren’t any passenger seats.

The engineer’s seat in the locomotive cab, on the other hand, had become noticeably more luxurious. The formerly stiff, hard chair had been replaced with a proper leather seat.

But the changes to the train’s appearance and facilities weren’t the most important part.

Before Toya’s modifications, the snowfield train had been powered by a Tier 2 snow beast.

Theoretically, its operating time should have been 240 hours.

After Toya’s first modification, that duration had doubled to 480 hours.

For the second modification, Song Xi had harnessed seven second-tier snow beasts and four first-tier snow beasts to the train.

In the end, six second-tier snow beasts and one first-tier snow beast were encased in metal and melted into the train itself.

Surprisingly, Toya didn’t look exhausted at all.

He merely shook his head slightly at Song Xi.

“I can tell this train has reached its limit. It can only take these few additional snow beasts. Any more won’t fit.”

The moment Cheng Qisheng heard that, she immediately checked the facility’s information.

Sure enough…

It was still classified as Unranked.

Just how incredible would a train have to be before the system finally recognized it as a ranked facility?

Yet even without reaching the ranked tier, the train’s operating time had increased to 1,500 hours.

One thousand five hundred hours!

Even if the train ran without stopping for a single moment, it could keep going for a full 62.5 days.

In an apocalyptic world, that kind of endurance was invaluable.

And Cheng Qisheng’s imagination immediately began running wild.

Toya had managed to transform a wooden train into its current form using nothing more than a steel door and a collection of miscellaneous materials.

So once this train was eventually retired…

Couldn’t he recycle its materials to build or upgrade something else?

Everyone knew that ability users could advance in rank.

If Toya eventually reached a higher tier, would he be able to build even more advanced trains—or perhaps entirely different kinds of machinery?

For example…

An airborne train?

They already had floating farms, floating roads, and even floating Safe Cities.

If those could exist, why couldn’t there be trains that ran through the sky?

For the first time, Cheng Qisheng completely understood why City Lords who possessed a Mechanic kept their existence an absolute secret.

This wasn’t just a Mechanic.

He was practically an equipment craftsman.

Not only could he create equipment—

He could upgrade it as well.

Having a Mechanic was practically the same as possessing an endless source of crystals.

If news ever leaked that a Safe City had a Mechanic, then given how valuable such an ability was, even Safe Cities that didn’t dare start an outright war might send undercover agents to lure the Mechanic away instead.

It was said that infiltration between high-tier Safe Cities was commonplace.

After all, once City Lords reached the higher tiers, they all cherished their lives.

Unless there was an overwhelming reason—such as fighting over the Tree of Longevity—few were willing to risk a full-scale Safe City war.

Although she herself was still only a low-tier City Lord, the Great Creator God was absolutely certain of one thing.

No one would ever be able to poach a citizen of Blue Sea.

Grinning from ear to ear, Cheng Qisheng reached out and gently patted Toya on the head.

Toya, who had been staring intently at the train while wondering what else he could improve, suddenly shivered.

So warm…

He didn’t even need to think about it.

His instincts had already told him—

This was a blessing from God.

What kind of feeling was this?

His frail body seemed to grow warm, as if he had returned to his mother’s embrace as a child.

It also felt as though an unshakable strength now stood behind him.

Toya felt overwhelming encouragement and praise.

It was a feeling unlike anything he had ever experienced before. The deep affection and reverence for the God in the depths of his heart made his entire body tremble with excitement.

“My God, I will serve You with all my heart!”

…

That night, the beast tide had only just receded.

After fighting nonstop for an entire day and night, the City Lords were utterly exhausted.

Just then, a notification from their Intelligent Terminal popped up.

[World Mission: A group of flying snow beasts has evolved. Their numbers are estimated at approximately 40 million. These flying snow beasts possess summoning abilities. All City Lords are requested to eliminate them. Warning: Act according to your own capabilities.]

Before the City Lords even had a chance to complain…

Another notification appeared.

Mission completed by Blue Sea Safe City.

<< _ >>

The post Safe City Ch.76 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

Because Toya hadn’t owned proper cold-weather clothing before, he had never been able to leave the house.

He hadn’t attended the family meetings.

He had never even ridden a snowfield train to exchange goods.

To him, the change in his parents was astonishingly sudden.

Not long ago, they had been saying,

“They’re definitely snow bandits. We have to stay on our guard.”

Now, they wore carefree, happy smiles as they declared that they had completely become part of the Little Blue Sea Nation.

And yet…

His parents really were happier than they had ever been.

They no longer spent every day with furrowed brows.

Instead, they enthusiastically discussed when they should move to the central district and what kind of jobs they could look for once they reached the Divine Kingdom.

They even began planning Toya’s future.

“My child, you’ll never have to worry about survival again. It turns out that your ability to repair objects and build machines has a special name in the Divine Kingdom. Better yet, you can use that skill to earn points.”

Toya’s eyes had lit up when he heard those words.

He longed to be acknowledged.

While every other member of his family supported themselves by fighting snow beasts…

He alone could only remain shut inside the house, tinkering with the little gadgets that none of his relatives could understand.

He heard his parents proudly tell him,

“The Divine Envoys have a name for your talent: Mechanical Repair and Manufacturing.”

“Toya, one of the Divine Envoys said there are many people in the Divine Kingdom just like you. They don’t have to leave the Divine Kingdom to fight, yet they still contribute to it and earn points through their own skills. My child, once we enter the Divine Kingdom, you’ll be able to live just like them.”

Toya was nothing more than an ordinary native of Dazzling Star.

Yet, at that moment, he felt a sense of anticipation and joy unlike anything he had ever experienced.

There were…

A lot of people just like him?

People who also loved studying these “strange little gadgets”?

People whose minds were likewise filled with circuits, mechanisms, and machines?

For the first time in his life, Toya looked forward to the day he would enter the Divine Kingdom.

But…

This area had been relatively safe for quite some time.

So why were there now three enormous snow beasts outside his family’s home?

They were tearing at the front door with their teeth.

Toya could hear the grating squeal of the reinforced steel door he had personally modified.

It was the sound of thick metal bending under the beasts’ relentless jaws.

His parents were powerful hunters.

Their home was a Tier 3 building, and Toya had reinforced every inch of it.

Once, in the middle of the night, a Burrowing Assault Rabbit had tried to tunnel inside.

After digging for ages, all it had managed to scrape off was a thin layer of the outer wall.

But now…

These snow beasts had deformed that sturdy steel door with frightening ease.

Toya’s entire body trembled uncontrollably.

He had never fought a snow beast.

In fact, until this year, he had never even stepped outside his home.

Even after his parents had exchanged points for a cold-weather suit not long ago, all he had done was put it on and, under their watchful eyes, walk a few laps around the house.

Toya, calm down.

He desperately tried to steady himself.

But the shaking wouldn’t stop.

The signal flare… Right… The signal flare…

With trembling hands, he dragged over the signal flare he had prepared, lit it, hurriedly opened the window, and threw it outside.

A plume of crimson smoke quickly rose into the sky.

Listening to the relentless bang… bang… bang… against the door, Toya tightened his grip around a long spike.

He was so frail that simply holding the weapon felt unbearably heavy.

Craaak…

Craaak…

A thin beam of light shone through the steel door where the beasts had finally bitten through it.

Toya could already see their sharp fangs…

And their blood-red eyes.

Craaak…

The tiny hole rapidly widened.

One of the snow beasts shoved its entire head through the ruined doorway, staring straight at Toya as drool dripped onto the carpet inside the house.

It was the rug his older sister had given their parents as a gift just last month.

Toya tried to charge forward with the spike.

Only then did he realize…

…that at some point his legs had already given way beneath him.

He was sitting collapsed on the floor.

He struggled to stand.

But his legs seemed to be fighting against him.

Every time he managed to get up, he immediately fell again.

At last…

Toya forced himself to his feet.

His legs trembled violently as he gripped the spike with both hands and staggered forward.

Don’t be afraid.

Don’t be afraid.

He kept shouting those words to himself.

Yet the instant he swung…

His eyes squeezed shut on their own.

The spike cut through empty air.

Toya collapsed to the floor once more.

His whole body shook uncontrollably.

His mind went blank.

He wanted nothing more than to curse his own uselessness.

He could already picture himself…

Being swallowed whole by the snow beast.

But after waiting more than ten seconds…

Nothing happened.

His eyes red with panic, Toya slowly looked up.

Only the gaping hole in the steel door remained.

The snow beast…

…was gone.

Whoosh!

Another head suddenly poked through the opening.

This time, however…

It wasn’t a snow beast’s.

It belonged to a person.

Song Xi quickly looked Toya over from head to toe.

“You okay?”

After asking, she watched the young man shake so violently that he looked like a bobblehead.

It was obvious he wasn’t capable of answering.

So Song Xi inspected him herself.

No wounds.

“Mhm! You’re fine then.”

“Stay inside for a while. The door’s broken now. If you’ve got cold-weather gear, put it on. If you don’t, get under the blankets and keep warm. Don’t let yourself freeze.”

After giving those rapid instructions, Song Xi immediately withdrew her head through the hole in the door.

Toya was still trembling, but he could hear the mysterious person—who had appeared just as suddenly as she had left—shouting outside.

“Calling it now! This one’s mine!”

“Roar!!”

“It doesn’t have a tail! Stab it from behind!”

“The eyes! Aim for the eyes!”

“ROOOAR!!!”

“Go, go, go! Cut it off! Don’t let it escape!”

“Woohoo!!!”

Still shaking, his legs weak as jelly, Toya crawled beneath his blankets.

Listening to the voices outside, his panic gradually subsided.

He had no idea how much time had passed before everything suddenly fell silent.

Knock. Knock.

A gentle knock came at the door.

Toya flinched violently and instinctively burrowed deeper into the blankets.

“Hello, little guy. The snow beasts have all been dealt with. Would you like to come out and take a look?”

The people of Dazzling Star were already shorter than those of Blue Sea, and Toya was especially thin and frail. Song Xi had assumed he was only thirteen or fourteen.

Even if she’d known he was actually sixteen, though, someone that age still counted as a kid by Blue Sea standards.

Thinking he was fairly young, she became a little more patient.

“Did your family ever tell you about us? We’re from the Little Blue Sea Nation. That means you’re one of our citizens too. I’m the president, so you have to listen to me. Open the door so we can check whether you’re hurt. We’ll leave once your family comes back.”

The door had already been destroyed.

The home’s heating system almost certainly wasn’t working anymore.

She was worried the kid inside might freeze to death.

Song Xi poked her head through the hole in the door again.

“Kid, if you don’t open up, I’m coming through this hole.”

“I-I’m coming right away.”

Toya had actually wanted to get out of bed earlier.

But his body had been so cold and weak that it had taken him a long time just to regain control of his limbs.

He answered in a shaky voice, hurriedly climbed out of bed, and, with trembling hands, unlocked the damaged door.

The moment Song Xi stepped inside, she behaved like a bandit raiding a house.

Her eyes immediately locked onto a set of insulated winter clothing hanging on the wall.

Without a word, she took it down and started helping Toya put it on herself.

Toya’s face flushed bright red.

He wanted to say, “I can do it myself,” but his throat refused to cooperate. All he could do was let her help him into the insulated coat.

The moment he put it on, the color returned to his deathly pale face.

Only then, through the wide-open doorway, did he notice the three snow beasts lying dead outside.

Beyond them stood a train of snow-beast-drawn sleds—a long caravan roughly thirty meters in length and two meters wide, covered by a wooden roof.

“Hey! Tell me, when do the adults in your family usually come back?”

Song Xi asked him twice. Seeing the child simply stare blankly outside without saying a word or moving an inch, she began to suspect the fright had left him completely numb.

After a moment’s thought, she turned to Wang Moning and held out her hand.

“Let me borrow your precious treasure.”

Wang Moning hesitated, reluctant to part with it. But she’d once been through something similar herself, and she couldn’t help sympathizing with the terrified child. Carefully, she handed Song Xi the little ice sculpture of the Creator God that she always carried with her.

She had carved it herself during breaks on their journey!

Ever since she had this little statue to keep her company, she wasn’t afraid of the dark anymore.

Song Xi gently placed the ice sculpture into Toya’s hands.

The frigid temperature inside the cabin kept it perfectly intact, with no sign of melting.

“Don’t be afraid.”

She patted Toya on the head.

“Our God will protect you.”

Toya looked up at her, then down at the little sculpture in his hands.

It depicted the same deity as the wooden carving his parents had once brought home—a gentle smile on the divine face, as though embracing everything in the world with boundless compassion.

“…Is God… really real?”

Song Xi thumped her chest confidently, wearing an expression that practically said, If you don’t believe me, who else would you believe?

“Of course our God is real!”

“It was our God who sent us here to save you!”

—Actually, that wasn’t true.

They had simply been nearby, leading a group of soldiers to wipe out a dozen or so Tier-2 snow beasts. They were happily looting the corpses when they suddenly spotted the red distress flare rising into the sky.

When one of their own citizens sent out a distress signal, the three leaders naturally gathered their soldiers, boarded the snow train, and raced across the snowy wilderness to the rescue.

But Song Xi had her own way of looking at things.

Our God is omniscient. Every good thing that happens in this world is a gift from Our God!

It was under the Creator God’s blessing that Dark Star came to be, that the Blue Sea Civilization was born, and that Song Xi herself existed.

So if they had saved this child, then it must have been the Creator God’s will!

Hehe, flawless logic!

Song Xi did her best to comfort the frightened child. And in Blue Sea, the greatest comfort anyone could think of was to involve the Creator God.

She urged him, “Go on, thank Our God. Once you do, Our God will continue watching over you.”

Encouraged by Song Xi’s unwavering confidence, Toya looked at the little statue in his hands and softly whispered,

“Thank you, great God.”

…

Meanwhile, Cheng Qisheng was at home, putting a newly delivered batch of ice cream into the freezer while casually watching Blue Sea’s battle against the Skywing Dragons.

She suddenly paused.

She had sensed the formation of a new faith chain.

Normally, every new faith chain began as a dull, matte thread. Only after someone had lived in the Safe City for some time would a portion of those new believers’ faith chains gradually become luminous, signifying that they had awakened as ability users.

But this brand-new faith chain had appeared already glowing.

And not just glowing—it was dazzlingly bright.

What’s going on?

Had this new believer already become an ability user before ever placing his faith in me?

Curious, Cheng Qisheng directed part of her attention toward the new believer, Toya.

By then, the trio had already led him out of the house. Noticing his fascination with the snow train, Song Xi was enthusiastically introducing it to him, her face brimming with pride.

In truth, there wasn’t much to explain.

A snow train was simply a team of snow beasts pulling a series of sled cars.

The only special feature was the roof built over the sleds, which provided a bit of shelter from the wind and snow.

“But it’s really fast!”

Toya gazed silently at the long train stretching out before him.

Toya was still a little afraid of the snow beast standing at the front of the train.

Yet, for some reason, although it still looked exactly like a snow beast, his instincts no longer saw it that way.

To him, it was the locomotive.

A sudden thought surfaced in his mind.

I can make it better.

“I… I can make it stronger,” he murmured.

His voice was so soft it was almost inaudible.

But Song Xi had exceptionally sharp ears.

“Oh? Really? You’re that amazing?”

She was delighted. The frightened child was finally willing to talk normally.

Imitating the way her own parents always encouraged her, she praised him without a second thought.

“That’s great! Do you want to give it a try?”

Toya hadn’t expected such an enthusiastic response. He turned his head toward the steel door that several soldiers were examining.

“But I’ll need some materials. Could you have them bring that door over?”

Most people would have asked why.

Isn’t the door supposed to be repaired? What do you need it for?

Cheng Qisheng was already prepared. If Song Xi asked anything along those lines, she intended to send down a divine message telling her to simply go along with Toya and see what this new believer was trying to do.

Instead, Song Xi agreed without the slightest hesitation.

“Sure!”

Since she considered herself to be humoring a child, she generously spared the soldiers the heavy lifting—though, in truth, none of the people from Dazzling Star could match her strength anyway.

She strode over, effortlessly removed the steel door from its hinges, carried it back, and held it out to him.

“Here. The door.”

She was only one sentence away from adding, ‘Go ahead and play with it.’

Standing nearby, Wang Moning couldn’t help thinking that if the door were propped against the side of the train, it really would make a neat little slide.

The high school student found herself oddly tempted.

If it actually turns into a slide, I’m definitely giving it a try!

But Toya didn’t ask Song Xi to lean the door against the train.

Instead, he had her place it on top of one of the train cars.

Truthfully, even he didn’t understand why so many ideas kept appearing in his head.

It was as if, despite never having seen a train before in his life, he instinctively knew it should be larger, should have more control consoles, and should be much more stable than it was now.

It was just like before. He had never seen a record player, yet he had repaired one purely by instinct.

More often than not, Toya felt completely out of place among his own family. But his parents had always told him that this was called Mechanical Repair and Manufacturing, one of the most common specialties among the Divine Envoys.

And now, the people who had saved him claimed that they, too, came from the Divine Kingdom.

The Divine Kingdom…

‘In that land blessed by the Creator God… there must be many people just like me.’

The thought filled Toya with anticipation.

He slowly raised his trembling hands.

Then, steeling himself, he pressed them against the snow beast serving as the train’s engine.

The next instant, before the stunned eyes of President Song, Marshal Shen, and Pope Wang, the steel door… melted.

The crude wooden train—little more than a collection of sled cars—began to change, as though guided by an invisible giant hand.

Its frame expanded.

Its shape warped and shifted.

Molten steel flowed across its surface, coating the exterior.

Even the snow beast under Song Xi’s control was enveloped in a thin layer of liquid metal. Wherever the steel passed, its beastly form rapidly transformed, as though countless invisible hammers were forging it again and again, until it was reshaped into the unmistakable form of a locomotive.

At last—

A brand-new metal train stood before them.

Its entire body radiated a cold, understated sheen, looking as though it had just rolled out of a factory.

The lines of the train were crisp and clean, its metallic surface gleaming faintly. There wasn’t a single visible seam anywhere on its body; every inch was flawlessly engineered with meticulous precision.

The makeshift passenger cars had transformed as well.

Each carriage was now tightly connected to the next. The wheels, once prone to breaking, were spotless and free of rust, firmly mounted beneath the chassis.

But the most unbelievable change was the snow beast.

It had become a locomotive in every sense of the word.

Its body had taken on a streamlined, rounded nose. A large windshield now occupied the front—

Where had the glass even come from?

—and below it sat two perfectly round headlights.

Through the windshield, they could see the driver’s seat inside.

It, too, was made entirely of metal, firmly welded to the floor, with a simple yet elegant design.

Judging by its appearance alone, no one would have questioned it if they were told this train had been meticulously manufactured in a pre-apocalypse factory.

Song Xi’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

Tentatively, she opened the cab door and climbed inside.

The driver’s compartment contained a complete control console.

There was a throttle lever, a brake lever, and a master control switch.

Song Xi had never driven a train before.

But she had plenty of courage.

She sat down and casually pushed one of the levers.

The train… actually started moving.

Without any fuel.

Without any external power source.

Well, not exactly.

It did have a power source.

That Tier-2 snow beast had evidently become the train’s sole engine.

Song Xi immediately hit the brakes, hardly daring to believe such an incredible thing was possible.

“Our God!!!”

The God she was calling was just as astonished.

Blinking in disbelief, Cheng Qisheng thought,

A living train…

A perfectly healthy, perfectly useful snow beast…

…had just been transformed into a cold, metal locomotive that was somehow even more useful?!

<< _ >>

The post Safe City Ch.75.3 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

Within the territory of the Little Blue Sea Nation—

Ever since a new batch of clergy had arrived, the three leaders, who all came from the “priesthood”, had happily handed over all domestic affairs to them and gone right back to hunting snow beasts.

In truth, the three of them spent their days wandering all over the country for one simple reason.

Song Xi constantly had to deliver Gu worms to every relay station, while Wang Moning and Shen Jinyang were practically inseparable from her.

As a result, the trio had become the biggest wanderers in the entire Little Blue Sea Nation.

To put it another way, imagine the snowfield trains as buses.

Then Song Xi was the person responsible for recharging those buses.

She had to travel nonstop between stations, replacing each train’s new “engine.” Since those stations were scattered across almost the entire Little Blue Sea Nation, her daily routine consisted of either traveling…

…or traveling to continue traveling.

She might be at the castle today.

Three days later, she could be at the very edge of the nation’s territory.

The cycle repeated endlessly, with hardly a moment to rest.

The three hundred soldiers assigned to accompany them were utterly worn out by the constant marching. Every time the trio returned to headquarters, the escort had to rotate out and be replaced by fresh troops.

Yet the three leaders themselves remained endlessly energetic.

They even hunted snow beasts for fun while traveling.

After all, they had plenty of experience covering long distances.

This little bit of travel was nothing to them.

The three leaders had just killed two snow beasts and were about to collect the Item Card that had materialized from their corpses.

Then another dozen or so snow beasts slowly emerged from the snow.

Wang Moning narrowed her eyes.

“Are these all newly arrived?”

This area lay on the newly claimed frontier of the Little Blue Sea Nation.

Because the frontier was so far from the nation’s central region, any emergency there would be difficult to reinforce in time.

For that reason, whenever the Little Blue Sea Nation acquired new border territory, it always organized a thorough sweep of the area first, reducing the local snow beast population to a manageable level.

Each of the dozen-odd snow beasts stood nearly three meters tall and more than two meters wide. They looked anything but manageable.

They were obviously newcomers.

Shen Jinyang drew her saber.

“Who cares? Let’s kill them first.”

Song Xi was already grinning with excitement.

“The one in front is mine!”

She charged forward at full speed and slashed downward with her blade.

Her eyes narrowed slightly.

…That doesn’t feel right.

Song Xi instantly leaped backward, narrowly avoiding the massive claw sweeping toward her, and shouted a warning,

“They’re Tier 2!”

Wang Moning drew her own saber as well.

“All of them are Tier 2?”

A grin slowly spread across her face.

“Then that’s… even better!”

She and Shen Jinyang rushed into the fray together.

The accompanying soldiers also charged into battle, their faces filled with excitement.

Imitating their leaders’ favorite catchphrase, they shouted at the top of their lungs,

“Woohoo!!!”

The snowfield trains were excellent in every respect…

…except that a single snow beast could pull one for only five days and five nights before dying.

As a result, a snowfield train could travel continuously for no more than two and a half days.

Any farther than that, the passengers could be transported out—but there would be no way to bring them back.

That was why Song Xi had to spend every day traveling across the nation, constantly “recharging” the transportation network.

But snowfield trains pulled by Tier 2 snow beasts were a completely different story.

Tier 2 snow beasts were stronger and far more enduring.

They could run without rest for ten days and ten nights.

The problem was that Tier 2 snow beasts were nowhere near as common as Tier 1s.

Having more than a dozen of them suddenly appear…

…was practically the same as having a dozen perpetual-motion engines with a ten-day battery life drop out of the sky.

On top of that, after the Divine Envoys arrived, many of the nation’s regulations had been revised.

The old, chaotic barter system—and the practice of using Castle Residence Day Passes as currency—had been replaced with a formal points system.

As long as someone had enough points, they could exchange them for anything in the national warehouses.

If they accumulated enough, they could even redeem a Lifetime Snowfield Train Usage Pass.

Granted, the price of that card was so astronomical that most people felt they wouldn’t be able to save enough points for it even after ten years.

If a squad of soldiers managed to pin down even a single Tier 2 snow beast, then regardless of whether it dropped an Item Card after death, the value it could create simply by serving as the “engine” of a snowfield train would be enough to make them a fortune.

Even if it took several people working together to subdue one and they had to split the reward points among themselves, it would still be a tidy profit.

After all, those points…

…could be spent in the Divine Kingdom as well.

After years of battling snow beasts, the people of Dazzling Star had developed a fear of them that was etched into their very bones.

Faced with snow beasts that were not only more numerous but also more powerful than before, they should have been afraid…

Anxious…

Hesitant…

But—

The faith engraved into their very souls continuously filled them with courage.

Snow beasts were terrifying.

Yet at this moment, in the eyes of the citizens of the Little Blue Sea Nation, they had become something else entirely.

Points.

Food.

Warm homes.

And…

The hope of reaching the Divine Kingdom and living a happy life.

On a snow-covered plain, a family that had been out on a routine hunt gripped their weapons tightly beneath the rising plume of a lit signal flare.

“Mom…”

The eldest son, who had just turned twelve and was on his first hunting trip, was shielded behind his mother.

Already fair-skinned, his face had now gone deathly pale.

As the five snow beasts drew closer, he could hear their low growls and catch the crimson gleam in their eyes.

Nervously, he pinched a tiny corner of his mother’s winter coat.

He didn’t even dare hold on too tightly, afraid that he might somehow become a burden to his parents.

“Rooaar—!”

These five snow beasts were clearly different from the ones the people of Dazzling Star usually fought.

Instead of charging in recklessly, they advanced cautiously, probing with occasional attacks.

Every arrow the couple fired was deftly avoided.

The parents’ expressions darkened.

“They’re intelligent.”

“They know our arrows can hurt them.”

“They also know we’ll eventually run out of arrows.”

“They’re trying to wear us down.”

Damn it.

When had these beasts become so clever?

Just as the family cautiously retreated, only to find themselves slowly being surrounded…

…a distant rumbling sound echoed across the snow.

A snowfield train, pulled by a snow beast and packed with passengers, happened to be passing by along its regular route.

“There’s a signal flare over there!”

One of the hunters was the first to spot it.

The hunters aboard the train immediately jumped off and sprinted toward the family.

If this had happened in the past, they would have preferred to mind their own business.

After all, the family wasn’t related to them.

But now…

They were all children of God.

The hunters charged fearlessly into battle against the five Tier 2 snow beasts.

The family’s deathly pale faces quickly regained their color.

With so many allies joining the fight, the snow beasts could no longer dodge every arrow with ease.

Amid furious roars, one massive beast after another crashed to the ground.

The twelve-year-old boy remained safely behind the adults throughout the battle.

He stared at these unfamiliar uncles and aunts who had come to save his family.

When the fighting was over, he quietly said,

“Thank you…”

One of the men ruffled his hair.

“Hahaha, no need to thank us. We’re all believers of our God, so that makes us one big family!”

Similar battles were unfolding all across the Little Blue Sea Nation.

Large numbers of clergy had begun patrolling the territory.

Whenever they discovered a battle, they would hover overhead, watching the fight.

If any citizen began to lose ground—or was in danger of being killed—the white-robed, black-winged clergy would dive from the sky and pull them to safety.

These people of Dazzling Star, once so timid…

…were now displaying astonishing courage as they fought against the beast tide.

They had been forced to live in isolation for over a century.

And because of that, they longed for companionship more than any other civilization.

Now, however, they lived beneath the protection of the Great Creator God.

Behind them stood countless compatriots who shared the same faith.

So what was there left to fear?

They had endured this kind of life…

For decades.

They had long since had enough of it!

Another squad of soldiers encountered more than a dozen snow beasts.

The captain at their head raised the long spike in his hand.

This was the twenty-first day since he had joined the Little Blue Sea Nation.

The eleventh day since he had enlisted.

The fifth day since he had devoted himself to the Great Creator God.

And the second day since he had become a squad captain.

He thought of his parents, who had long since passed away.

He thought of his eldest son and eldest daughter, both killed by snow beasts in battle.

He thought of his partner, bedridden by illness and now receiving treatment in the castle.

He remembered that night two years ago when snow beasts had torn apart their home in the dead of night.

He and his partner had managed to flee with their children.

The two of them survived.

So did some of the children.

But their youngest son, only two years old…

…was left behind forever that night.

His partner had also been injured during their escape.

Those injuries had become the root of a lingering illness. For the past two years she had been confined to her bed, no longer the strong woman she once was.

Night after night, he would wake with a start.

He would reach out to check whether she was still breathing.

Then lie awake in the darkness, staring into the night, terrified that she might quietly slip away before morning.

But now…

She lived in a warm, comfortable castle, cared for by the Divine Envoys.

She no longer coughed.

She no longer burned with fever.

Their only two surviving children no longer wore fearful, timid expressions.

They could run and play freely through the castle’s residential corridors every single day.

He had drifted through more than thirty years of life in a daze.

Yet only during these twenty-one days…

…had he truly felt alive.

He would never—

Never again run away!

These damned snow beasts…

They would never be allowed to destroy his home again!

The captain fixed his eyes on the snow beasts before him and charged first.

“Our God watches over us!”

The soldiers behind him roared in unison,

“Long live Blue Sea!!!”

…

Toya was an utterly ordinary native of Dazzling Star.

Unlike the rest of his family, however, he had been frail since childhood.

Even at sixteen years old, he was still incapable of fighting a snow beast on his own.

Because of this, his parents had decided they would continue caring for him.

The family had even held a meeting to discuss his future.

After his parents eventually grew old and passed away, his surviving brothers and sisters would take care of him.

If they too died one day…

Then his nieces and nephews would assume the responsibility.

In short, as long as there was still someone left in the family…

Toya would always have relatives who would lovingly look after him.

When he was little, Toya didn’t understand what that meant.

But as he grew older, he gradually realized the truth.

He had become a burden.

His family refused to abandon him, and he himself lacked the courage to end his own life.

So Toya began searching for other ways to help the people he loved.

For example, he experimented with the odds and ends that came out of Item Cards, tinkering until he could make simple little toys.

Over time, whenever something from an Item Card was damaged, his family would simply hand it to him and let him take it apart however he pleased.

By now, Toya had truly become useful to them.

Whenever an electronic device from an Item Card broke, he could painstakingly repair it using the assortment of tools he had accumulated over the years.

Last year, he had even cobbled together what he claimed was a record player—a machine that had existed only two hundred years ago—using a bizarre assortment of parts that no one else in his family could make sense of.

When the record player was connected to the rechargeable battery Toya had built, and his older sister placed on it a vinyl record she had obtained from an Item Card the previous year…

The whole family gathered around and listened together as beautiful, melodious music filled the room.

This year, through nothing but trial and error, Toya had gone a step further.

He built an electric heater that consumed very little power while providing exceptional warmth.

His relatives praised him endlessly for it.

His parents’ faces were filled with pride.

For the first time, Toya felt he had found a purpose in life.

Even though his body was weak…

He could still help his family.

He could still make their lives better.

Some time ago, a stranger had arrived at their family settlement.

The visitor introduced himself as a representative of the Little Blue Sea Nation and invited Toya’s family to join the country.

The elders discussed the matter for a long time.

In the end, they announced their decision.

“We’re joining the Little Blue Sea Nation.”

“It’s still expanding. They have a huge population, powerful weapons, and incredible means of transportation.”

“We’re simply not in a position to refuse.”

Indeed, the biggest reason Toya’s family joined the Little Blue Sea Nation…

…was because they knew perfectly well they couldn’t beat them.

And if you couldn’t beat them—

You might as well join them.

What if they refused and the other side turned hostile?

Before joining the Little Blue Sea Nation, Toya’s entire family had already braced themselves to be extorted.

In their eyes, the Little Blue Sea Nation was nothing more than a band of snow bandits.

A powerful group gathered together…

Armed with superior weapons…

Possessing strange means of transportation—the snowfield trains…

And demanding that unrelated families join them.

Wasn’t that exactly what snow bandits were?

Yet after joining the Little Blue Sea Nation, the entire family found themselves utterly bewildered.

Not only were they not extorted…

They were taught, free of charge, how to make signal flares.

They were also told that if they ever encountered danger they couldn’t handle, all they had to do was light one, and nearby citizens would come to their rescue.

At the same time, the nation dispatched large numbers of people to sweep through the surrounding area, eliminating every powerful snow beast that posed a serious threat to the local residents.

“Incredible!”

After secretly watching the operation, Toya’s parents returned home in amazement.

“They didn’t ask us for a single Item Card! They only said that because our home is on the nation’s frontier, they were clearing out the dangerous snow beasts to keep us safe.”

After the powerful beasts in the area had been wiped out, only comparatively weaker snow beasts remained.

Hunting became far safer for Toya’s family.

Ever since Toya could remember, bad news had periodically reached their household.

Relatives would lose against particularly powerful snow beasts…

Leave to hunt…

And never return home.

Now, however, the chances of a loved one failing to come back had been reduced to the absolute minimum.

Because of that, Toya felt genuine gratitude toward the nation that called itself Little Blue Sea.

His parents returned home one day after another with exciting news.

“My goodness, Toya! The Little Blue Sea Nation actually has a Tier 8 building! It’s just like the Divine Kingdom from the old legends. It’s warm inside, there’s endless hot water, and soldiers guard it outside. As long as we save up enough Item Cards, we’ll be able to move in someday!”

—”Toya, do you remember the stories about the gods that we used to tell you when you were little? No wonder the Little Blue Sea Nation is just like the Divine Kingdom from those legends. It has the blessing of a god. The one who founded it came from the Divine Kingdom.”

—”This is a wooden statue of the Great Creator God. As long as we become one of Her believers, we’ll be able to return to the Divine Kingdom together with the Little Blue Sea Nation. We’ll never have to fear the cold again.”

—”Toya, look! The electric heater you made is incredibly popular. We’ve earned a lot of points! We exchanged them for this insulated winter suit. From now on, you’ll be able to go outside like everyone else.”

—”Toya, we’ve become believers of our God. My dear child… this feeling is wonderful. Since the day I was born, I’ve never experienced warmth like this. It’s as though our God’s light is constantly shining upon me. My child, I hope you’ll be able to experience this same happiness.”

<< _ >>

The post Safe City Ch.75.2 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

Cheng Qisheng watched as the Skywing Dragons were dragged into the abyss of war by the people of Blue Sea.

The snow-white basin had become a basin of blood. The mournful cries of the Skywing Dragons echoed without end.

One after another, Blue Sea citizens—each barely a fifth the size of a Skywing Dragon—threw themselves at the black, winged behemoths, hauling them down from the sky with all their strength.

If this scene were filmed and released as a movie back in Blue Sea, the visuals and sound effects alone would make Cheng Qisheng a fortune.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t After Traveling Between Two Worlds, My Real War Footage Became a Blockbuster. As the Great Creator God—cautious to the point of bordering on paranoid—she was the only audience fortunate enough to witness this epic battlefield spectacle.

After the Safe City expanded, the Blue Sea government wasted no time on its first major construction project: city gates.

This Safe City now covered more than 40,000 square kilometers, and it already boasted 2,890 gates, with more still under construction.

The frigid environment of Dazzling Star severely limited Blue Sea’s construction speed. Otherwise, they would have built even more.

Cheng Qisheng had read Aether’s report. Blue Sea’s target was a total of 6,700 city gates.

Why did they need so many?

The answer was right before her eyes.

After more than six hours of fighting, the battlefield had become a sea of blood so gruesome it looked as though it had been censored into a crimson mosaic. The number of Skywing Dragons had dropped dramatically, yet endless streams of Blue Sea citizens were still pouring out from gate after gate, rapidly reinforcing the front lines.

That was why Blue Sea needed so many gates.

Ever since Blue Sea Safe City arrived in this world, it had never once been able to deploy its full military strength.

It couldn’t be helped. Every location where Blue Sea had descended had been a case of too many monks competing for too little porridge.

A battlefield could only accommodate so many soldiers. Pack in too many people, and it would devolve into a chaotic crush. At that point, if someone threw a spear and it fell back into the crowd, even the nimblest Blue Sea citizen wouldn’t have enough room to dodge.

—Don’t ask Cheng Qisheng how she knew.

Back in the Primitive Era, Old Eighth had personally demonstrated the lesson with their own bodies:

On a battlefield, people must never be packed shoulder to shoulder.

A lot of people had been cooped up for far too long.

Take this elementary school teacher, for example. He wore a gentle smile, but with his face splattered in blood, he looked more like a deranged serial killer.

Since he wasn’t a frontline combatant and had to look after the children, he had spent every single day since Blue Sea Safe City arrived on Dazzling Star living in the school’s heated greenhouse.

With. A. Bunch. Of. Blue. Sea. Kids.

Only someone who had worked in Blue Sea’s education system could truly appreciate how utterly maddening that was.

Originally, the government had planned to let the teachers out today to blow off some steam, even if there hadn’t been this many Skywing Dragons.

Who could have guessed that the dragon population here would be so abundant—or that the Great Creator God would issue a divine decree ordering everyone to be deployed?

Our God is merciful!

The people of Blue Sea soon noticed something.

The smaller Skywing Dragons were obviously smarter than the larger ones.

The last time they had attacked a Skywing Dragon flock at the coordinates provided by Puya Safe City, the dragons had stubbornly fought until only a dozen or so remained before fleeing in panic.

But these smaller Skywing Dragons were different. After just six hours of battle and the loss of a little over ten million of their kind, the remaining twenty million or so had already begun to hesitate, circling high overhead instead of diving in to attack.

The endless stream of Blue Sea citizens pouring out of the city gates collectively cried out in despair.

No! Don’t leave! We just got here!

Fortunately, the smaller Skywing Dragons didn’t leave.

“Screee!”

“Screee!”

Their piercing cries rang across the sky.

Soon, countless snow beasts came charging across the endless white plains toward the battlefield.

Every single one of them was Tier 2.

The blood-soaked citizens already standing in the middle of the battlefield…

The citizens who had just reached the edge of the battlefield, rushing excitedly toward the basin…

The citizens who had finally made it out of Safe City after waiting impatiently in line…

Every last one of them lit up with excitement.

Wonderful!

The Skywing Dragons hadn’t fled—they’d even called over more Item Cards…

No, wait—they’d called over more snow beasts!

The countless Blue Sea citizens, who had been itching for a fight, enthusiastically rushed forward to welcome them.

“Move!”

“Drag the Skywing Dragons down first! Don’t let them get away!”

“Here I come! Watch my giant net attack!”

Even with 2,890 city gates, people were still pouring out in an endless flood.

…

Meanwhile, high above the city, inside one of the school’s heated greenhouses, a group of tiny children stood obediently in their uniforms, pressing against the fogged-up windows as they tried to make out the battle outside.

“Wow! It looks so fun! Teacher, I want to go play too!”

“Teacher! Teacher! I’m a Skywing Dragon! Screee! I’m flying! I flew to the left, now I’m flying to the right! Come catch me! Hahaha!”

“Zhang Zhimiao, you’re not a Skywing Dragon! Skywing Dragons fly—they don’t crawl on the ceiling! Look at me! I’m the Skywing Dragon!”

A little boy had somehow climbed onto the three-meter-high ceiling. He suddenly spread his arms and leaped downward.

“Screee! Here comes the Skywing Dragon!”

His target was the teacher’s back.

The teacher, who was looking down at her phone, didn’t even bother to raise her head. She simply extended one hand and, with flawless timing, caught the child in midair.

The little boy instantly ended up sprawled across her palm like a tiny turtle.

“Tian Xiaodou,” the teacher said calmly, “is that how your PE teacher taught you? Tell me, when diving from above onto an enemy, what are you supposed to do?”

The boy wriggled for a moment, but realizing there was no escaping her grip, he answered obediently,

“Protect your vulnerable areas, like your abdomen and your head and neck. Use a weapon to attack first whenever possible. Strike before the enemy can.”

Only then did the teacher look up, forcing a gentle smile.

“Very good. Where are you trying to go?”

The boy excitedly pointed at a desk about five meters away.

With a light flick of her wrist, the teacher tossed him through the air.

He landed lightly on the designated desk.

His eyes sparkled with excitement.

“Woohoo! I can fly!!!”

He thrust one arm into the air, imitating the adults’ battle cry.

“Our God watches over us! Long live Blue Sea!”

Then he immediately resumed scrambling around the classroom, climbing over everything in sight and play-fighting with his classmates.

His behavior wasn’t unusual in the slightest.

Because every child in the classroom was doing exactly the same thing—climbing everywhere, roughhousing with one another, never staying still for even a second.

The Little Long-Tendril was climbing around too.

Its bucket had long since been upgraded to a fish tank, now filled more than halfway with water. The tank had a narrow opening, allowing it to tuck all of its tendrils inside and seal the mouth completely. That way, it could drag the tank around wherever it went without worrying about running out of water.

It crawled over to the teacher’s feet and pressed one of its tendrils against her skin.

“I’m a Skywing Dragon! I’m biting Teacher! Bloop bloop!”

Still wearing her gentle smile, the teacher picked up the Little Long-Tendril.

“Such a good child. Skywing Dragons need sharp teeth, you know.”

The Little Long-Tendril proudly raised its tendrils, indicating that it had sharp tendrils instead.

“Mmm, I suppose those work too. Very nice. Now then, where would you like to go?”

One whisker pointed toward the elastic safety net stretched across the back of the classroom. It had been specially prepared as its “landing pad,” so it could play the game of “Teacher Toss” with the other children without risking its fish tank cracking.

“All right, get ready.”

The teacher lifted the Little Long-Tendril, took careful aim…

Whoosh!

She tossed it through the air.

It landed squarely on the net and let out a series of delighted bloop bloop cries.

The teacher maintained her warm smile as she threw more than thirty students in succession. Finally, the classroom door opened from the outside.

Ji Anze hurried in.

“Ms. Li, I’m here to take over.”

The smile that had seemed welded to Ms. Li’s face instantly turned into one of genuine joy.

“Thank you! Thank you so much! I’m off!”

She dashed out like a gust of wind, silently praying to their God.

Please, don’t let all the Skywing Dragons be dead already… Please leave some for me!

Ji Anze took the seat the teacher had just vacated.

The moment the Little Long-Tendril saw that its “Mama” had arrived, it excitedly climbed down from the elastic net. Weaving around its classmates—who were all running wild like a pack of little demons—it used its tendrils as legs and scampered rapidly across the classroom before climbing onto Ji Anze’s lap.

Ji Anze lowered his head slightly in practiced cooperation, allowing his child to press its interface tendrils snugly against his cheek.

He heard the child exclaim excitedly,

“Fight! Fight the Skywing Dragons!”

“That’s right,” Ji Anze replied. “Everyone outside is fighting the Skywing Dragons. When you’re a little older, you’ll be able to fight them too.”

The Little Long-Tendril chirped,

“Bloop bloop! Mama fights Skywing Dragons!”

Ji Anze—a man in every sense of the word—didn’t even blink.

“Mama has already fought them before. Your teacher has been staying at the school this whole time and never got the chance, so Mama came to take over for the teacher.”

The teachers were heading out to fight, but someone still had to look after the children.

So the government and the schools had jointly recruited volunteers from across Blue Sea to substitute for the teachers for a day.

Officially they were volunteers, but the government was offering very generous substitute pay. Even so, relatively few people had signed up.

After all, it was a day off.

Nobody wanted to spend their holiday supervising a classroom full of Blue Sea children during their time off.

In the end, most of the volunteers were parents like Ji Anze.

They all shared roughly the same mindset:

The teachers have been suffering on our behalf all this time. Now that it matters, it’s our turn to make the sacrifice.

Ji Anze didn’t actually think looking after the Little Long-Tendril was suffering.

But he knew the little one loved being with its family, so he had signed up to spend the day with it.

Something poked his calf.

Looking down, he saw a little girl with sparkling eyes.

“Baby’s mama! Let’s play Chase Battle! You be the Skywing Dragon, and we’ll chase you, okay?!”

Behind her stood a whole crowd of children with equally sparkling eyes. Some were hanging upside down, some were standing on top of their classmates, and others were crawling across the floor. Every one of them was eagerly waiting for his answer.

The Little Long-Tendril slid down from his lap and “stood” together with its classmates.

Though its face was unreadable, Ji Anze, as its parent, could easily sense its anticipation.

Ji Anze: “…”

Imitating Ms. Li’s warm, gentle smile, he forced one onto his own face.

“Of course. Let’s play.”

…All right.

Ms. Li had only just left, and he was already starting to miss her.

…

After confirming the number of Tier 2 land-dwelling snow beasts that had been summoned, Cheng Qisheng posted a message in the City Lord group chat.

Blue Sea Safe City: [Everyone, be careful. The snow beasts may be evolving. I’ve discovered a large number of Tier 2 snow beasts. There are a lot of them, and they may have already broken free of their reproductive lock.]

The previously casual, chatty group instantly fell silent before erupting.

[Huh?!]

[A huge number of Tier 2 snow beasts?! Damn it! Tier 1s already give my residents enough trouble. Are Tier 2s seriously supposed to let us live?]

[Thank you, Boss Blue Sea! You’re such a good person, sharing information this important with the rest of us!]

[Thanks, Boss! My boss is the kindest!]

[Is that really true? I can believe the snow beasts evolving, but if they’ve broken their reproductive lock, then how are we supposed to fight them?]

Normally, when City Lords discovered information this important, they would keep it under wraps for a while. At most, they’d drop a vague hint in the group chat, attach a purchase link, and earn themselves a tidy sum of crystals.

Blue Sea Safe City, however, had completely ignored the unwritten rules and dropped such explosive news without asking for anything in return.

It was the first time anyone had seen something like this.

Since she had already shared the most crucial piece of information outright, the other City Lords stopped worrying about secrecy as well.

[Damn, damn, damn! It’s true! A whole bunch of Tier 2 snow beasts have appeared near my Safe City!]

[A beast tide! It’s a beast tide! How is this possible? Beast tides are only supposed to attack small villages with low populations!]

[Danger! I see them too!]

[No, that’s not right. The beast tide isn’t attacking Safe Cities specifically—it’s attacking the entire world! The world’s difficulty has increased!]

[I’ve got to go! I need to command my troops! Good luck, everyone! I hope we all survive!]

As soon as Cheng Qisheng sent out the warning, Safe Cities across the world immediately went on high alert, rapidly mobilizing their residents to prepare for battle.

Thanks to the advance notice, many Safe Cities were able to respond in time to the sudden worldwide beast tide instead of being caught completely off guard.

Only a handful of messages remained in the group chat—mostly words of thanks. The vast majority of the City Lords had already shifted their full attention to fighting the beast tide.

<< _ >>

The post Safe City Ch.75.1 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

Looking through the screenshots she had sent, Cheng Qisheng could tell that she was genuinely well educated and highly competent.

After mentally reviewing the information she’d gathered from her various contacts, she messaged one of her university classmates.

A short while later, she returned with a screenshot of a company recruitment notice.

[A university classmate of mine works at this company. He shared this job posting a few days ago. I think you’re qualified for the position they’re hiring for. He also mentioned that the company offers pretty good benefits, and it’s a large, well-established firm. If you’re interested, I can introduce the two of you so you can talk directly.]

That meant the referral was arranged.

There was no guarantee it would work out, but her classmate was delighted all the same. An internal referral skipped a lot of the usual application process and made everything much easier.

[Thank you so much, Qisheng! I really appreciate it! If I get the job, I’m definitely buying you a little gift!]

[No need, really. I hardly did anything, and there’s no guarantee it’ll work out anyway. Forget the gift—we’re classmates. Helping each other out is only natural.]

Meanwhile, Cheng Qisheng’s university classmate was thanking her as well.

His company offered cash bonuses for successful employee referrals.

Otherwise, why would he be so enthusiastic about posting job openings on his social media? He wasn’t even in Human Resources.

The two classmates happily continued chatting with each other in private.

Cheng Qisheng, meanwhile, stared at the thirty-three pieces of information she had compiled and slowly rubbed her forehead.

Bad news: Blue Star was heading toward destruction too.

Good news: There were still at least three hundred years left.

Bad news: The first stage—the Dormant Phase—had probably already begun two or three years ago.

Good news: The Dormant Phase lasted a full century, meaning there were still more than ninety years of relatively peaceful life ahead.

For the current generation, life would certainly become more difficult.

But they would never have to face zombies or snow beasts.

As for Cheng Qisheng…

She was already a Tier 3 Transcendent.

She had unlocked her lifespan limit.

Based on a Tier 3 Transcendent’s lifespan, barring any accidents, she would live to at least one hundred and fifty years old.

And as she continued advancing through the ranks, her lifespan would only grow longer.

She would almost certainly live to see the day Blue Star reached its end.

Expressionless, Cheng Qisheng scooped up a large spoonful of ice cream.

It was rich and velvety, smooth on the tongue, with an intense creamy flavor. The nuts mixed into it were the perfect finishing touch.

Ice cream this delicious…

Three hundred years from now—

No.

Even one hundred years from now—

It probably wouldn’t exist anymore.

Cheng Qisheng had never been someone who accepted fate.

The ultimate evolution of a Safe City was to become a planet.

A complete planet that had fully broken free from disaster…

That would be a true new world.

How large that planet would ultimately become—and how many planets she would one day possess—would depend entirely on her.

But first…

She had to save her home.

By then, she would be far stronger than she was now, and she would have developed many more abilities of her own.

Cheng Qisheng quickly finished the entire tub of ice cream.

The calm expression she usually wore returned to her face.

There was still plenty of time, wasn’t there?

Then…

Within these next three hundred years…

She would become the Lord of a Planet.

…

Blue Sea Safe City descended upon a new set of coordinates.

The Skywing Dragons at the location provided by Jin Yu Safe City had already been wiped out once again.

This time, the coordinates came from Moonspirit—the very place where Mianyin Safe City had once been stationed.

When Mianyin called it the Skywing Dragons’ nest, it hadn’t been an exaggeration.

The instant the Safe City arrived, a vast swarm of Skywing Dragons burst into the air and charged straight toward it.

The very first wave alone numbered at least five hundred thousand.

Any other Safe City would probably have started cursing on the spot.

But this was Blue Sea Safe City—

The people of Blue Sea had always been the ones taking the initiative to hunt Skywing Dragons. This was the first time they’d encountered prey considerate enough to deliver itself to their doorstep.

The Blue Sea residents, who had long been poised for battle, lit up with excitement.

“Woohoo!!!”

One lasso after another shot upward like vines sprouting from the earth, looping neatly around the necks of the charging Skywing Dragons.

By now, the people of Blue Sea had become seasoned veterans at hunting Skywing Dragons.

One inventor had even developed a weapon specifically designed to deal with them: the Dragonlock Net.

It was an enormous net with weighted corners for traction. At first glance, it looked rather like an ordinary fishing net—and in practice, it wasn’t all that different.

People on the ground would hurl the Dragonlock Net into the sky. The moment it touched a Skywing Dragon, the tension in the net triggered its self-locking clasps. The harder the dragon struggled, the tighter the net cinched around it.

Once trapped inside a Dragonlock Net, a Skywing Dragon had nowhere to escape. It couldn’t fly left, right, up, or down. Even if its razor-sharp teeth managed to bite through part of the mesh, its wings remained hopelessly tangled together, leaving it no choice but to plummet heavily to the ground.

And once it hit the ground, the battle became entirely Blue Sea’s domain.

The Dragonlock Net was an instant sensation, embraced throughout the city.

The inventor who created it earned a fortune from patent royalties alone, while the many Blue Sea residents equipped with flight wings—who had helped him test the invention over countless trials—also struck it rich alongside him.

Yes—the inventor had recruited a large number of winged Blue Sea residents to help test the Dragonlock Net during its development.

By now, the rags-to-riches story of the “Pie from the Sky” Hunter Squad had spread throughout Blue Sea.

They had previously gone around “investing” in researchers, and one of those researchers had been Director Ruo, the genius who invented the Flight Wings.

The Flight Wings had since become the number one luxury item every Blue Sea resident dreamed of owning. No matter how expensive they were, that did nothing to diminish people’s desire for a pair of wings.

A small number of people had poured all of their accumulated contribution points into buying Flight Wings, even taking on massive loans to do so.

Most people wanted to do the same, but unfortunately, they hadn’t managed to secure any wings during the great Skywing Dragon campaign. They weren’t even qualified to bankrupt themselves buying Flight Wings because there simply weren’t any available.

If someone were to rank the wealthiest people in the nation now, Director Ruo Buyan would undoubtedly place among the top hundred.

As for the “Pie from the Sky” Hunter Squad, they had instantly become homeowners. Better yet—they had even been able to buy Flight Wings outright, paying the full price in one lump sum.

With the Hunter Squad’s success story right in front of them, Blue Sea’s researchers suddenly discovered that they had become surrounded by “angel investors.”

No matter what project they proposed—or how absurd it sounded—there were always people willing to contribute their time and labor in exchange for the chance of striking it rich someday.

The Dragonlock Net had been developed in much the same way.

When the inventor declared, “I want to create a weapon that can perfectly trap Skywing Dragons. The moment one touches it, it’ll fall straight out of the sky,” the number of people eager to invest in his project was nothing short of overwhelming.

Even more people volunteered to play the role of Skywing Dragons during the testing process.

The reason the Dragonlock Net could now completely seal off every avenue of escape—preventing trapped Skywing Dragons from breaking free no matter how desperately they struggled—was because the Blue Sea volunteers caught in the test nets had attempted every escape method imaginable.

Collectively, their escape attempts were so varied that they could have filled an entire book.

In one test, the Blue Sea resident helping with the experiment was completely wrapped up in the net. Using only the strength of their core, they began spinning rapidly in midair as they fell. By continuously twisting their body, they managed to alter the direction of the net’s tension, eventually slipping free.

In another test, the volunteer contorted into an incredibly awkward position inside the net. Spreading both their limbs and Flight Wings, they propped the net open like a spider supporting its web, maintaining that posture all the way down. Just before hitting the ground, they suddenly tucked their body in, creating a brief opening—and shot out through it in a flash, making a successful escape.

The most unforgettable experiment, however, involved a resident who was pretending to be a Skywing Dragon.

First came the desperate struggle.

Then the realization that struggling wasn’t working.

Then the frantic flapping of wings.

Which only made the wings even more hopelessly entangled.

With a suitably ferocious expression, they plummeted to the ground—

Landing safely on the prepared crash mat.

Everything seemed perfectly normal until the inventor walked over to retrieve the net.

The “Skywing Dragon,” who had managed to poke their head out through the mesh during the struggle, suddenly opened their mouth and bit the inventor’s hand.

Then, with complete confidence, they declared,

“I’m a Skywing Dragon right now. My head got out, so of course I’d bite someone.”

Tilting their neck, they added,

“Actually, a real Skywing Dragon has a longer, narrower head. Judging by the distance between us, I should’ve bitten your head instead.”

“Unfortunately, you’ve been bitten to death.”

The inventor, nursing a bite mark on his hand, fell silent.

Only afterward did he learn that this particular resident had been an actor before the apocalypse.

Fortunately, they had remembered to hold back and hadn’t actually broken the skin. The inventor was left with nothing more than a clear set of teeth marks on his hand.

After that incident, he hurriedly redesigned the Dragonlock Net.

The revised version ensured that even if a Skywing Dragon managed to bite through the netting, the numerous small inward-facing barbs woven into the mesh would snag its head, preventing it from pushing its entire head through the opening to attack anyone.

By the end of the testing phase, the inventor had become absolutely certain of one thing:

These residents pretending to be Skywing Dragons were far more difficult to deal with than actual Skywing Dragons.

At the very least, real Skywing Dragons didn’t rely on core strength to spin themselves through the air!

The inventor endured countless small-scale tests with these enthusiastic “volunteers.” Sleeping only two hours a day, fueled by coffee and starfruit juice, he worked around the clock—testing, revising, then testing again—until the Dragonlock Net finally became the version everyone knew today.

One Dragonlock Net after another soared into the sky.

The moment a Skywing Dragon was caught, there was nowhere left for it to escape.

Blood once again soaked the earth.

Overlooking the battlefield below, Cheng Qisheng shared the vision of her believers and saw an endless sea of Skywing Dragons.

Flying alongside the adults were noticeably smaller juvenile Skywing Dragons.

As the Blue Sea forces pushed deeper into the area, a massive basin came into view. Inside it, countless young Skywing Dragons—each only about two-thirds the size of a full-grown adult—shrieked and screeched incessantly.

No wonder there were so many Skywing Dragons here.

This really was their nesting ground.

Cheng Qisheng quickly estimated the number of juveniles.

There were at least thirty million of them.

Something wasn’t right.

Snow Beasts could only reproduce after consuming enormous amounts of flesh and blood.

Yet there were no ruins of other Safe Cities here, nor were there any corpses of native inhabitants.

Even if they had reproduced by devouring flesh, raising more than thirty million Skywing Dragons under the Snow Beasts’ original reproductive mechanism would have required them to consume at least one hundred million people.

There was no way this region had ever held a population of a hundred million.

There was only one possible explanation.

Moonspirit’s speculation had been correct.

This world really had undergone a major change.

The Snow Beasts had evolved.

They were no longer bound by their previous reproductive limitations. They had entered a phase of explosive reproduction.

The only question was whether this reproductive evolution was unique to Skywing Dragons and other flying Snow Beasts, or whether every type of Snow Beast had acquired it.

Had Blue Sea Safe City not descended upon this place, these thirty million Skywing Dragons would have matured and dispersed across the world, becoming the nightmare of everyone on Dazzling Star.

But now…

The people of Blue Sea had become their nightmare instead.

Cheng Qisheng: Thanks for the offer. We’ll be taking these instead.

The wings of all thirty million Skywing Dragons belonged to Blue Sea now.

Thirty million!!

If she let them get away, she definitely wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight.

The Great Creator God sent a divine decree to all her followers, calling even more people into battle.

My good children.

You no longer need to hold back your strength.

Reduce this Skywing Dragon nest to rubble.

Their blood and bone wings shall become Blue Sea’s strongest foundation.

Who cared whether the Snow Beasts of Dazzling Star had evolved?

First, they were going to clean up the enormous windfall that had practically delivered itself to their doorstep.

—

The people of Blue Sea went absolutely wild.

Skywing Dragons!

So many Skywing Dragons!!

Covered in blood, everyone brandished their lassos and Dragonlock Nets as they charged straight into the basin.

“All thanks be to our God for this divine blessing!!!”

It didn’t matter that these Skywing Dragons were smaller!

Their bodies might be undersized, but their wings only looked a little smaller.

As long as they could still fly, they were perfectly usable!

A great tide of Blue Sea residents surged into the basin like a flooding sea.

The juvenile Skywing Dragons had yet to fully mature. They were vicious enough, but compared to the battle-hardened Blue Sea fighters—who had accumulated extensive experience hunting Skywing Dragons and had even adapted their combat tactics specifically for them—they simply weren’t much of a challenge.

The basin that had once belonged to the Skywing Dragons was almost instantly engulfed by the Blue Sea army.

High above, Blue Sea residents equipped with Flight Wings spread out oversized Dragonlock Nets and dove straight down from the sky, trapping as many Skywing Dragons as they could in a single pass.

Below, countless chains shot upward.

Spears were hurled in perfect unison, creating a barrage that looked more like a rain of arrows than thrown weapons.

The ability users also unleashed their abilities throughout the battle.

A Skywing Dragon swooped down from above, only to have an iron wall materialize out of thin air before it. Its head punched straight through the barrier—then became hopelessly stuck inside it.

Another Skywing Dragon suddenly began flying as though intoxicated, wobbling unsteadily through the air and roaring at empty space before a spear effortlessly pierced its heart.

Another Skywing Dragon opened its jaws to bite a Blue Sea resident during a close-quarters struggle—

Only to shatter its own teeth.

Elsewhere, a Skywing Dragon found itself facing a Blue Sea resident whose hands crackled faintly with blue arcs of electricity.

The fine web of pale-blue lightning instinctively put the beast on guard.

It circled cautiously overhead, screeching as it abandoned its original attack route and swooped down from another angle instead.

“Lightning, please come out!!”

“Please, lightning!”

“Please… come out?!”

“Please strike?!”

The Lightning-type ability user condensed a bolt of electricity roughly ten centimeters long in his palm and aimed it at the Skywing Dragon.

He shouted until his voice was nearly hoarse.

The lightning still refused to fire.

“…Not good. Looks like it’s still not fully under control.”

The Blue Sea resident, whose day job had been that of a teacher, had only awakened his powers two days earlier. He still hadn’t mastered his supernatural ability.

He had a gentle temperament. Even in the middle of a battle, he didn’t forget to speak politely.

After all, he taught students.

If he didn’t make a habit of using courteous language in everyday life, he worried he’d accidentally start cursing in class one day.

The young teacher looked up at the Skywing Dragon, which was clearly eager to attack.

“Hello. I’m ready now. We can continue.”

The lightning in the human’s palm faded away.

With the threat gone, the Skywing Dragon lunged forward and bit with all its might.

A loop suddenly tightened around its neck.

A tremendous force yanked backward.

Before the beast could even struggle free, a sharp-tipped spear punched straight through its heart.

“Screeeech—!!!”

The Skywing Dragon crashed heavily to the ground.

The Lightning-type ability user calmly retrieved both his spear and his lasso.

Forget it.

I only awakened two days ago, and I’m just Tier 1.

My supernatural ability is still too unreliable.

I’ll just rely on my own strength instead.

The teacher rolled his shoulders and turned toward the nearest Skywing Dragon on his right, wearing the same warm, textbook-perfect smile.

His combat ability was naturally exceptional.

After all…

He taught Blue Sea students.

And anyone from Blue Sea knew exactly what that meant.

At that moment, he felt a warm current rise through his body.

It was a familiar sensation—

The blessing bestowed by the Great Creator God.

He tilted his head slightly upward, basking in divine grace.

He heard the voice of God.

The divine decree had been issued.

Wipe them all out.

He could feel it.

Their God was showing them the way.

A path toward even greater strength lay ahead for Blue Sea.

If that was what their God desired…

Then they would accomplish it, no matter what.

All around him, every Blue Sea fighter became visibly more exhilarated.

“Our God!!!”

“We’ll make it happen!!!”

They charged at the Skywing Dragons in a frenzy, their already soaring fighting spirit climbing to an even greater height.

“Kill every last one of them!!!”

On the treacherous, snow-covered ground, the young teacher deftly wove around the charging Blue Sea warriors.

His feet sank unevenly into the snow, yet he maintained impeccable balance as he sprinted forward and leaped onto the Skywing Dragon he had picked out long ago.

The beast had just broken free of the lasso that had dragged it to the ground and was straining to climb back into the sky.

The young teacher didn’t let go.

He clung tightly to its body.

No matter how violently it rolled and twisted, he remained plastered against it, driving his daggers into different parts of its body and climbing over it as though scaling a mountain.

At last…

He reached the spot he wanted.

The altitude was just right—around fifteen meters.

Even if he fell from here, he could land safely with his grappling hook.

Both of the daggers he had used for “mountain climbing” were embedded in the Skywing Dragon’s abdomen.

He pulled one free.

Blood splashed across his face.

The young elementary school teacher blinked as the blood instantly froze into crimson frost upon his skin.

He raised his right hand high.

The blood-turned-frost didn’t leave him with so much as frostbite.

The blessing of the Great Creator God protected him well.

“Please.”

“Offer your life to our God.”

He spoke with perfect politeness as he drove the dagger straight into the Skywing Dragon’s heart.

<< _ >>

The post Safe City Ch.74.2 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

Although Cheng Qisheng now had a 1,100-square-meter cultivation zone and technically no longer needed to buy vegetables, she still cautiously maintained roughly the same online grocery-shopping routine as before.

After advancing to Transcendent Tier 2, she had also carefully selected a highly reputable traditional Chinese medicine clinic. There, she underwent acupuncture to “treat” the “muscle stiffness” she claimed to have. After several sessions, she was “pleasantly surprised” to find that her condition had “improved.”

On Blue Star, traditional Chinese medicine had always carried an air of mystery.

Search almost any related keyword online, and you’d find countless stories such as “Man Recovers from Cancer After Taking Herbal Medicine” or “Terminal Illness Cured with Traditional Chinese Medicine.”

Truth and fiction were hopelessly mixed together in those reports. Other than the people directly involved, probably no one could tell which stories were genuine.

After all, even cancer can sometimes go into spontaneous remission.

The odds are extremely low, and the reasons aren’t fully understood, but there are undeniably documented cases of cancers disappearing on their own.

If even cancer can heal spontaneously, then who can say with absolute certainty that traditional Chinese medicine can’t cure it?

There had never been a documented case of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) going into spontaneous remission.

Strictly speaking, the nerve damage caused by ALS is completely irreversible. It was like a book slowly being burned to ashes—with current medical technology, there was simply no way to reconstruct those ashes back into a complete book.

But that didn’t matter.

Cheng Qisheng didn’t need people to believe her ALS had been cured.

She only needed them to believe she had been misdiagnosed.

When she had first fallen ill, she had obsessively researched everything there was to know about ALS. All that information was still firmly stored in her mind.

In its early stages, ALS was actually fairly prone to false-positive diagnoses. There was still no universally accepted diagnostic standard for the disease, and quite a few other conditions presented with similar symptoms.

Late-stage ALS, on the other hand, was almost impossible to misdiagnose.

But ever since Cheng Qisheng had obtained Dark Star, she had placed all her hopes in it and never once returned to the hospital for a follow-up examination.

That gave her plenty of room to maneuver.

She could simply claim that the original ALS diagnosis had been mistaken. Her symptoms could just as easily have been caused by cervical spondylosis, myasthenia gravis, or CIDP—all illnesses whose early symptoms closely resemble those of ALS.

In short, what the actual illness had been wasn’t important.

What mattered was that she had gone to the traditional Chinese medicine clinic seeking treatment for “muscle stiffness,” and the practitioners had treated exactly that complaint. As a result, she had genuinely begun to “recover.”

What a perfect case of a misdiagnosis.

—Even if, admittedly, it felt a bit like playing an elaborate game of chess against thin air.

After all, Cheng Qisheng had been nothing more than an ordinary person on Blue Star.

As long as she didn’t suddenly lose her mind one day, run into the streets, and start shouting, “I’m a Transcendent! Watch me punch a skyscraper to pieces!” no one on Blue Star was likely to pay her any special attention.

Even so, she carefully maintained her cover.

The lesson she had learned from caring for Dark Star over the course of hundreds of billions of years was simple:

Never gamble on “what if.”

Because anything could happen.

Just look at what had happened.

She used to think it was impossible for a rogue black hole to appear beside Dark Star.

And yet, it had.

In short, until Cheng Qisheng possessed enough power to effortlessly overwhelm every armed force on Blue Star, she had no intention of exposing anything unusual about herself.

—In fact, even if she one day acquired the strength to crush all of Blue Star with ease, she still wouldn’t want to reveal herself.

After witnessing the destruction of seven civilizations, anyone’s heart would become as still as water.

Aside from the butterfly chrysalises she had purchased early on, Cheng Qisheng had been extremely careful with everything she bought online afterward.

She certainly didn’t want anyone piecing together her shopping history and realizing she had assembled an entire ecosystem.

Someone who stayed home all day, lived in a fifty-square-meter apartment, yet kept buying enough supplies to completely fill that apartment…

That was practically the same as exposing herself.

Many of the plants and animals now living in her cultivation zone and artificial lake had actually been “picked up” during her walks.

After all, she was a Tier 3 Transcendent.

Although the limitations of her mortal body syndrome made her slower than an ordinary person, if she truly wanted to conceal her presence, avoid surveillance cameras, and quietly “pick up” a few things, it was an effortless task.

Take, for example, the two waterbirds that had comfortably settled into the trees beside the artificial lake.

As for how they got there—

Eight words summed it up:

Sharp eyes, swift hands—bagged in one smooth move.

A Tier 3 Transcendent, blessed with extraordinary hearing and razor-sharp perception, using those abilities to ambush a pair of little birds…

Even Cheng Qisheng found it amusing.

—The little wooden boat floating on the artificial lake had also been built by her own hands.

The lumber had come from the cultivation zone.

While the woodworking tools had to be purchased online, it wasn’t all that unusual for someone who spent most of their time at home to suddenly develop an interest in woodworking.

To make sure her cover story held up under scrutiny, she had even ordered beginner woodworking lumber online and searched for things like:

“Where should beginners start with woodworking?”

“Is it easy to build your own table?”

“Can beginners make a chair?”

“How do I know if I have talent for woodworking?”

…along with a whole series of similar search queries.

Before all that, Cheng Qisheng had even carefully chosen the timing.

Two days in advance, she searched online for things like “Skills you can use to make money from home” and “What freelance jobs can you teach yourself?” She kept browsing until she came across “Learn woodworking on your own,” and only then did she stop.

It perfectly established the image of someone who, unable to work outside because of illness, earned money by taking online freelance jobs while actively looking for new ways to support herself. Eventually, she had decided to learn woodworking and planned to make wooden crafts as a side business.

Not once did she search Blue Star’s internet for instructions on how to build the little boat.

Instead, she simply had the Blue Sea government prepare “a beginner’s guide to building a small boat so detailed that even a complete novice could follow every single step without making a mistake.”

Being a Creator God certainly had its perks.

The people of Blue Sea never questioned why their great Creator wanted something.

Old Eighth’s only thought was that whatever their divine Creator desired, they should provide—and provide the very best.

The boat-building guide Old Eighth presented was so unbelievably detailed that even a child could follow it and reproduce the boat exactly.

She had to admit, woodworking was surprisingly addictive.

Especially beside the tranquil lake, where time no longer seemed to matter. She could run a power saw as much as she pleased without worrying about disturbing the neighbors or wasting too much lumber.

After all, the cultivation zone had no shortage of trees.

At worst, the next time Safe City expanded, she would simply enlarge the cultivation zone as well.

Cheng Qisheng was incredibly strong. Although her movements were slow, she possessed boundless stamina and an exceptional ability to learn. She never found the work tiring.

After finishing the little boat, she even found herself considering whether to build a small wooden cabin by the lakeside. Every now and then, she could spend a night there—it would feel just like going camping.

To the people of Blue Sea, Cheng Qisheng was the great Creator God.

To the other City Lords, she was an exceptionally formidable Tier 3 City Lord.

But on Blue Star, Cheng Qisheng was nothing more than an ordinary person recovering from an illness, making a living by taking freelance work online, living in her own apartment, occasionally exchanging phone calls with relatives, and, as her condition gradually improved, slowly reconnecting with former classmates and old online friends.

And now—

Because vegetable prices had gone up by thirty percent…

She had suddenly realized that her own homeworld might also be standing on the brink of destruction.

Cheng Qisheng: “…”

She desperately wanted to reassure herself.

No. It can’t be.

Yes, rising food prices are one possible sign of an approaching apocalypse… but that doesn’t mean every increase in food prices signals the end of the world.

But for the great Creator God who had nurtured civilization after civilization, only to watch every single one perish until only Old Eighth—her one well-behaved child—remained alive…

It was very difficult to think optimistically.

Cheng Qisheng’s mind raced.

Well… this does explain something.

It answered the question of why Aether had been able to choose her as a City Lord.

After bringing Safe City to two different worlds, she had realized that its core operating mechanism clearly followed some kind of resonance-based rule.

It would only travel to worlds whose “frequency” matched its own—in other words, worlds that had already entered the Extinction Phase of their apocalypse.

If that was the case, then it made perfect sense that it could only bind itself to an intelligent lifeform whose own world was already on the path to destruction.

Realizing her own homeworld had been caught in the same fate left Cheng Qisheng’s head buzzing.

Using the excuse,

“I’ve never heard of these three phases before. Could you explain them to me in more detail?”

she obtained a much more comprehensive explanation of the three stages of planetary destruction from Moonspirit.

Moonspirit was more than happy to do Blue Sea this favor.

She had her subordinates quickly compile all the records documenting her homeworld’s descent into ruin and sent the entire archive over.

Moonspirit Safe City: [This contains everything my homeworld experienced, including written records and video footage. It should give you a more intuitive understanding of the three phases of planetary destruction. I hope it helps.

I’m leaving now.

If fate allows, we’ll meet again someday.]

Cheng Qisheng accepted the files.

She had expected Moonspirit to elaborate through private messages at most.

Instead, Moonspirit had simply handed over a complete record of her world’s destruction from beginning to end.

She was remarkably generous.

Wanting to return the goodwill, Cheng Qisheng made a small promise.

Blue Sea Safe City: [Thank you. If fate brings us together again someday and you ever need help, just call for me.]

With that promise in hand, Moonspirit finally relaxed.

Having witnessed Blue Sea spare Jin Yu solely because of Coriander’s connection to him, she understood better than anyone just how much weight Blue Sea’s promises carried.

When Moonspirit departed Dazzling Star ahead of schedule, she no longer felt nearly as despondent.

Blue Sea really is an extraordinary City Lord.

I hope that one day, I can become someone like her—always so powerful, always so composed.

—

Meanwhile, the “powerful and composed” Cheng Qisheng was frantically combing through the files.

Please don’t let it be true…

She had already experimented with the world beyond the Door and knew that it was unaffected by the outside environment. Even if Blue Star really did descend into apocalypse, then in theory, as long as she retreated into the world beyond the Door, she would remain perfectly safe.

But spending the occasional night camping in the mountains or by the lake was one thing.

Living there permanently…

Other than Old Eighth, probably no one would enjoy that.

She still wanted to stay comfortably in her homeworld, living a life where she could drink milk tea, eat hot pot, and, whenever inspiration struck in the middle of the night, tap a few buttons on her phone and have takeout delivered to her door within half an hour.

This was where her powerful spiritual sense proved its worth.

While using her spiritual sense to sift through Moonspirit’s materials, Cheng Qisheng simultaneously searched the internet on Blue Star with her computer, looking into the reasons behind the rising vegetable prices.

She quickly discovered that she was far from the only person who had noticed.

After all, most people were ordinary citizens. If vegetable prices rose by thirty percent, then a family’s daily food expenses would also increase by thirty percent.

Who could afford to ignore that?

Cheng Qisheng first looked through the news reports.

The official explanation was that this year’s prolonged rainfall in southern regions had caused crops to become waterlogged, leading to widespread root rot and greatly increased losses.

In the north, temperatures had suddenly dropped. Naturally grown crops had been hit the hardest, and even greenhouse produce had suffered. Reduced sunlight and strong winds had lowered yields by around twenty percent.

There were also several contributing factors layered on top of that:

Heavy rains had increased outbreaks of crop diseases and pests, urban expansion had reduced the amount of farmland, and wholesalers at produce markets had spotted a business opportunity and joined forces to raise prices.

—The news anchor sternly condemned a handful of merchants for hoarding produce and driving up prices, stating that the relevant authorities had already documented and verified those illegal practices.

At the same time, viewers were assured that as temperatures rose, summer field-grown vegetables would soon enter peak harvest season, and market supplies would gradually return to normal.

Cheng Qisheng then browsed through online discussions.

People certainly complained, but they weren’t especially distressed.

A thirty percent increase in vegetable prices did mean higher living expenses, but in this day and age, no one was actually going to starve because of it.

Urban office workers might not earn enough for extravagant spending, but buying staple foods, vegetables, and meat was still well within their means.

As for rural households, although their cash income was generally lower, they owned homes and farmland. At the very least, they could feed themselves.

Netizens grumbled that “Vegetables are getting expensive again,” and “Are these vegetables made of gold?” Then they cursed the profiteering merchants who had driven up prices…

…and went right back to their daily lives.

Everyone believed this was simply the result of several unfortunate factors overlapping. Given a little more time, prices would naturally come back down.

—

At first, Moonspirit’s civilization had believed the same thing.

[Archive Record: Only later did we realize that the warning signs had been there all along.

There’s nothing unusual about a single country experiencing a few minor natural disasters that don’t significantly affect the overall situation.

But what if every country starts experiencing small-scale natural disasters more frequently than before?

Their effects are subtle. They may not even kill anyone directly.

Perhaps it’s a torrential rainstorm.

Or a night of severe frost.

A drought.

A volcanic eruption.

These seemingly insignificant disasters quietly erode our homeland day after day, month after month. Before anyone realizes what’s happening, they have already become the key that unlocks the curtain on the apocalypse.]

Cheng Qisheng couldn’t help thinking that whoever had written the summary of Moonspirit’s civilization’s downfall had a real talent for telling ghost stories.

Even so, the message it conveyed was unmistakably clear.

During the Dormant Phase of an apocalypse, people all over the world would gradually find life becoming more difficult than before.

Gathering information on living conditions in every country wasn’t exactly easy.

But for Cheng Qisheng, it was surprisingly simple.

She opened her social media feed and started scrolling through what her former classmates had been posting.

As mentioned before, she had always been an outstanding student. From childhood onward, she attended top schools and earned scholarship after scholarship.

Naturally, her classmates weren’t ordinary people either.

Back then, Cheng Qisheng had a very clear life plan.

Graduate.

Become an exceptionally hardworking corporate employee and earn a high salary.

Accumulate enough capital and experience to start her own business.

Then build that company into a major success, buy a villa, drive luxury cars, and reach the pinnacle of life.

Someone planning to become an entrepreneur would never neglect building a network in advance.

Whether she ended up needing those connections or not, having them was always better than not.

Cheng Qisheng had never had particularly close friends.

Before being diagnosed with a terminal illness, she had always felt there simply wasn’t enough time. Every available moment had to be spent getting ahead, seizing opportunities, and pushing herself further.

Investing the time required to cultivate deep personal relationships had seemed… inefficient.

Even so, she had always gotten along well with her classmates.

She was the type of person who was easy to talk to. They could strike up a conversation anytime, yet even if years passed without speaking, neither side would bother deleting the other from their contact list.

Back in elementary school, before children even had mobile phones, Cheng Qisheng had already been copying down her classmates’ contact information by hand before graduation.

Once she finally got her own phone, she added them one by one.

From elementary school to university, she had kept adding people every step of the way.

Her contact list and social media network were about as complete as anyone could hope for.

Most of her classmates had remained in China.

But the rest were scattered all over the world—studying abroad, immigrating, working overseas, traveling…

Just a few days ago, Cheng Qisheng had even seen a post from one of her middle school classmates announcing that they had opened a convenience store in the Cook Islands.

Not everyone enjoyed sharing their daily lives online, of course.

Even so, thanks to her extensive network of contacts, Cheng Qisheng managed to piece together thirty-three relevant accounts.

One of her high school classmates, who was studying in Country A, complained that an outbreak of avian influenza had sent meat prices soaring. Even eggs had become ridiculously expensive.

An elementary school classmate who had settled down in Country B and recently become a father grumbled that premium infant formula now cost three times what it had the previous year.

A middle school classmate traveling through Country C complained that the place was nothing like the beautiful photos online. The grasslands were barren and ugly, sandstorms were everywhere, and local residents were shamelessly overcharging tourists to make money.

Although it sounded like an ordinary travel complaint, Cheng Qisheng could easily reconstruct the reality behind it:

The grasslands in Country C were undergoing desertification, local incomes had plummeted, and residents had begun exploiting tourists to survive.

Another university classmate uploaded a video of a wildfire in Country D, complaining that in just three months since moving there, they had already witnessed four separate wildfires. Many people had watched their homes burn down over and over again.

“This is absolutely insane.”

Another middle school classmate was still in China, but the company she worked for specialized in imported seafood.

The business had established overseas aquaculture bases in two different countries.

Unfortunately, both countries were struck by typhoons.

The company suffered devastating losses, its cash flow nearly collapsed, and this classmate—who worked in operations—ended up being laid off.

“I’ve definitely learned my lesson,” she said.

“Next time I’m applying for jobs, I’m only targeting large companies with production spread across multiple regions worldwide. At least then there’s some risk diversification. A single typhoon won’t throw the whole company into chaos.”

She had been feeling miserable and desperately wanted someone to vent to.

When Cheng Qisheng reached out to ask what had happened, she immediately poured everything out, like beans spilling from a bamboo tube.

Ironically, the post she had actually shared on her timeline had simply read:

[Officially joining the ranks of the laid-off. Thanks to my parents for cheering me up. Time to recharge and start over! ]

She hadn’t expected Cheng Qisheng to message her first.

Back in school, Cheng Qisheng had been the quintessential “other people’s child”—the teacher’s favorite. She had an exceptionally gentle personality, and whenever someone asked her a question, she would patiently explain it without the slightest impatience. She excelled in academics, character, athletics, arts, and practical skills alike. Anyone could tell she had a bright future ahead of her.

And that’s exactly how things had turned out.

Cheng Qisheng was admitted to a prestigious high school and later to the best university in the country.

Although she moved away from her hometown and therefore never attended class reunions, people still saw her pop up in the class group chats from time to time.

Whenever someone asked for advice, she would offer insights far more mature than those of most people their age.

Anyone who had once been Cheng Qisheng’s classmate inevitably viewed her through a slightly flattering lens.

It was only after graduating from university and entering the workforce over the past two years that she no longer had time to chat in the group as actively as she had during her school days.

So seeing a private message from her came as quite a surprise.

The moment they started chatting privately, the classmate dropped the composed attitude she’d shown in her social media post and launched into an endless stream of complaints.

The gist of it was:

[The company was terrible.]

[The warning signs had been there all along.]

[They laid off all the people who actually did the work and kept a bunch of useless employees with connections.]

[One coworker tried to sabotage me so she wouldn’t be fired… and in the end, both of us got laid off anyway.]

[The only consolation is that that idiot of a manager got fired too.]

Having learned everything she wanted to know, Cheng Qisheng gently comforted her classmate.

<< _ >>

The post Safe City Ch.74.1 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

Cheng Qisheng received a private message from Moonspirit.

She said that she had already gathered her residents and had them more or less settled. She would be leaving this world shortly.

Moonspirit Safe City: [You know how it is. I have to leave as soon as possible. I don’t want another incident where my residents misjudge the situation because of their past experiences.]

Cheng Qisheng understood.

After working together this time, the two of them couldn’t exactly be called friends, but they had at least built a certain rapport. At the very least, Moonspirit had developed a favorable impression of Blue Sea.

Whether it was admiration for Blue Sea’s strength or respect for Cheng Qisheng’s character, Moonspirit had decided it was worth maintaining a good relationship with her.

She offered a piece of intelligence that might prove useful.

[That blizzard was only the beginning. Things are definitely going to get worse from here.]

[I know your residents are physically very resilient, but don’t let them underestimate the temperatures they’ll face in the future.]

[Trust me. What’s coming will be far colder than it is now.]

While they had been dividing up the rescued residents, quite a few people from Blue Sea Safe City had taken on translation work, giving Moonspirit the chance to observe just how resistant Blue Sea’s residents were to the cold.

In the frozen wasteland, residents from the other Safe Cities either wore heavy cold-weather gear and forced themselves to stay awake through the night—because falling asleep meant their body temperature would drop, potentially freezing them to death—or sheltered inside item-based buildings, or hurried back to their Safe City before nightfall.

But the people of Blue Sea?

They simply dug themselves snow caves and went to sleep.

The way they casually hollowed out snow shelters and settled in for the night was so natural that residents from several Safe Cities came to believe Blue Sea’s homeworld had always been a land of endless ice and snow.

It wasn’t until someone finally couldn’t help asking that a Blue Sea resident answered matter-of-factly,

“Not at all. This is our first time seeing an extreme-cold world too.”

“At first, it was unbearably cold. But after getting used to it for a while… it didn’t seem so bad anymore.”

Moonspirit was astonished to discover that the people of Blue Sea weren’t actually resistant to the cold.

What they were resistant to was damage—and they possessed astonishing regenerative abilities.

It wasn’t that they didn’t feel cold. They did.

But after enduring the cold long enough, they gradually adapted to it. At first, their bodies would develop frostbite and go numb, yet they would recover with remarkable speed.

It was like a character in a game whose HP kept dropping, only to be constantly replenished, until the health bar eventually reached a perfect equilibrium.

And if their health dropped even faster?

A Blue Sea resident’s first reaction wasn’t, I should recover.

Instead, it was, My damage resistance isn’t high enough. I need more desensitization training.

For example, they might deliberately spend an entire night sleeping in a snow cave.

To an outsider, it looked almost like self-inflicted torture.

The problem was… it actually worked.

With the naked eye, Moonspirit could see that more and more Blue Sea residents were becoming less afraid of the cold.

Moonspirit’s feelings were complicated.

Moonspirit Safe City: [The constitution of your civilization’s people is practically tailor-made for the apocalypse. I don’t mean their physical strength—I mean this incredible ability they have to adapt perfectly to every new environment.

Give them enough time to grow, and your civilization will only become stronger and stronger.

But in the early stages, you still need to be careful. Don’t underestimate the apocalyptic world. It’s already passed its dormant phase and its decay phase. Now that it’s entered the Extinction Phase, it’s at its most dangerous. It’ll always catch us off guard when we least expect it.]

Cheng Qisheng understood what Moonspirit was trying to say.

The residents of Blue Sea genuinely disliked living in item-based shelters.

Part of the reason was that those Tier 1 buildings were simply too cramped. Blue Sea’s people were, on average, quite tall, so staying inside them felt unbearably confining.

The other reason was that storage-type items had only ever appeared once before—in the hands of the trio. As far as the people of Blue Sea were concerned, it was far better to make do in a snow cave while wearing cold-weather gear than to waste a building card. They would rather bring the item card back and offer it to their god.

But that was only at the current temperature.

The world of Dazzling Star would only become colder from here on out.

The people of Blue Sea were tough, but they weren’t truly immune to freezing to death.

It was time to make sure they took better care of themselves.

While making a mental note to issue a divine decree later, Cheng Qisheng also caught the key terms in Moonspirit’s message and asked,

Cheng Qisheng: [What do you mean by the “Decay Phase” and the “Extinction Phase”? Could you explain them? I’ve never heard those terms before.]

Moonspirit readily agreed.

Moonspirit Safe City: [Sure. I don’t actually know who came up with this classification, but you know that apocalyptic worlds generally fall into two categories, right?

One is the sudden type, like viral outbreaks or beast tides. The other is the gradual natural-disaster type. Dazzling Star is an example of the latter. Although it also has snow beasts, they only appear during the Extinction Phase. They didn’t exist during the first three hundred years after the planet began to succumb to the cold.]

Moonspirit briefly explained the differences between the two types of disasters. She didn’t dwell much on the sudden type, since it was more or less the same as what Cheng Qisheng already knew about Velvet Star.

Natural-disaster worlds, however, could be divided into distinct stages.

Moonspirit Safe City: [During the first hundred years, life isn’t all that difficult yet. It might just be a blizzard, or crops suddenly producing smaller harvests for no apparent reason. People don’t start dying en masse. They simply feel that survival is becoming harder. Things that used to be plentiful gradually become scarce, and everyone’s quality of life slowly but steadily declines.

Moonspirit’s homeworld had been a natural-disaster world, so she was describing everything from her own civilization’s experience.

As all kinds of minor natural disasters become more frequent and each year grows colder than the last, people complain about it, but it still doesn’t severely disrupt most people’s daily lives. That’s known as the Dormant Phase.

Then come the next two hundred years—the Decay Phase. People realize that every single year is worse than the one before, and there’s nothing they can do to stop it. Deaths begin to occur among the population. That’s the Decay Phase.

Cheng Qisheng noticed something.

Moonspirit’s timeline for a planet’s demise didn’t match Coriander’s.

According to the information Coriander had gathered from the local inhabitants, Dazzling Star’s crisis had begun two hundred years ago.

But Moonspirit was certain that for worlds facing natural-disaster apocalypses, the entire process from the onset of the catastrophe to the planet’s destruction generally lasted around three hundred years.

That actually made sense.

If the first hundred years were merely the Dormant Phase, who would look at vegetables costing two dollars more than they did yesterday and conclude that their world had officially entered the apocalypse?

For the people of Dazzling Star, the true apocalypse only began when the cold started threatening human lives.

Moonspirit Safe City: [And finally, we arrive at what we’re seeing now—the Extinction Phase.]

Moonspirit honestly couldn’t understand why someone as powerful as Blue Sea was still unfamiliar with all of this.

Could it be that Blue Sea had only experienced four or five worlds?

…Wait.

If that were true, then Blue Sea’s potential was downright terrifying.

After traversing only four or five worlds, they had already reached Tier 3 and possessed this level of combat strength. If they made it through ten worlds, wouldn’t they be racing straight toward Tier 5?

Cheng Qisheng had no idea what Moonspirit was thinking.

She was thinking about something entirely different.

Come to think of it… when I bought groceries yesterday, vegetable prices seemed to have gone up by about thirty percent across the board.

<< _ >>

The post Safe City Ch.73 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

Cheng Qisheng realized that the clergy hardly needed to preach at all.

As the White-Robed Bishops flew across the territory of the Little Blue Sea Nation, every Dazzling Star native who caught sight of them—and had already heard that the Divine Kingdom would soon send down divine messengers—became a believer on the spot.

As mentioned before, the people of the Little Blue Sea Nation had only half believed in the Creator God’s existence.

What did “half believed” mean?

It meant that part of them believed, while their rational minds insisted, This can’t be real. They could only suppress that believing half of themselves, trying not to sink into what seemed like a beautiful but illusory fantasy.

—But now the divine messengers had truly descended.

They were taller and more graceful than ordinary people, with enormous black skeletal wings spreading from their backs. Their hair was not silver-white either, but vivid, eye-catching colors—colors that, in this snowy world, signified overwhelming strength and complete confidence that they had nothing to fear from the snow beasts.

Whenever a divine messenger swept across the sky, their shadow glided over the pristine white snow. Even the oldest and most experienced hunters would instinctively feel the hairs on the backs of their necks stand on end beneath the crushing aura that accompanied them.

The snow beasts clearly felt the same way.

Of course, the clergy still had to eat.

But where did their food come from?

That’s right—from the snow beasts!

Killing the snow beasts they encountered along the way gave them a chance to obtain food item cards.

And even if no card dropped, a single snow beast was enough to feed four or five members of the clergy.

So ever since receiving the revelation of the great Creator God, the clergy had been traveling nonstop, attacking every snow beast they came across.

They flew swiftly, faster than almost all land-dwelling snow beasts could run. Coupled with their overwhelming combat prowess, and with more and more clergy joining together as they traveled, the expedition eventually became nothing less than a snow beast meat grinder.

Snow beasts possessed an exceptionally keen sense of smell. Even when the clergy stopped to rest before reaching the Little Blue Sea Nation, changed into spotless white holy robes inside snow dens, and carefully tidied their hair…

It made no difference.

From a great distance away, the beasts could still smell the overwhelming stench of blood that had accumulated around them, so thick it was almost tangible.

It was the blood of their own kind.

The scent warned them.

Those unidentified creatures flying overhead…

…had slaughtered countless snow beasts before them.

Danger!

Danger!

Most snow beasts lacked intelligence, but the instinct to seek safety and avoid danger was ingrained in every living creature. Almost immediately, they chose to flee.

From the Dazzling Star natives’ perspective, however, the sight was astonishing.

The terrifying snow beasts that normally lunged at humans on sight were now fleeing across the snow as though they had encountered their natural predators.

It was the first time they had ever seen so many snow beasts stampeding together.

Compared to the panic-stricken beasts below, the divine messengers in the sky remained utterly composed.

Not a single one spared the fleeing snow beasts a second glance. Their skeletal wings remained spread wide as they continued beating them at the same unhurried rhythm, without anyone lowering their gaze.

The divine messengers flew straight over the leading snow beasts and soon disappeared beyond the horizon.

So these… are the messengers of the gods?

The Dazzling Star natives trembled.

They longed to keep looking toward the direction where the divine messengers had vanished, yet they dared not stare for too long, afraid that their overly fervent gaze might profane the envoys who had descended from the Divine Kingdom.

“The divine messengers… They really are divine messengers…”

“The Divine Kingdom is real! The great Creator God of Blue Sea is real as well!”

“Then… does that mean… the land of eternal warmth… is real too?”

The silver-haired, pale-eyed people of Dazzling Star became followers of the Creator God after nothing more than a fleeting glimpse of the clergy.

Cheng Qisheng could feel the number of faith chains growing.

The clergy flew at tremendous speed, so to her, the total increased almost every second.

She didn’t need to deliberately count the faith chains. Just as a person doesn’t need to look at their own hand to form a finger heart, she instinctively knew exactly how many faith chains she possessed and how many new ones had just been added.

She could clearly sense that, as more and more clergy converged on the Little Blue Sea Nation from every direction, the number of newly formed faith chains continued to rise without pause.

While standing on the boat fishing, Cheng Qisheng silently counted the number of new believers in her mind.

556… 1,987… 4,490… 14,532… 57,821… 113,452… 297,321…

The closer the clergy drew to the Little Blue Sea Nation’s capital, the faster the number of believers increased.

Which was only natural.

After all, the Creator God’s ice statue—dozens of meters tall—was still standing outside the castle.

Cheng Qisheng gazed at the fishing float not far away.

It bobbed gently a few times.

—The number of new believers had reached 380,000.

The float suddenly dipped experimentally before quickly rising back to the surface.

—The number of new believers had reached 440,000.

It trembled a few more times before being violently yanked underwater.

—The number of new believers had reached 510,000.

Although Cheng Qisheng’s movements were slow and couldn’t keep up with the fish’s pace, she was more than strong enough. Keeping a firm grip on the rod, she followed the fishing tutorials she had watched online, patiently working the fish little by little.

—The number of new believers had reached 630,000.

The fish was a powerful one, thrashing relentlessly beneath the water in a tug-of-war against the rod.

With an ordinary fishing rod, it might well have snapped under such strain.

But Cheng Qisheng was using a custom-made titanium alloy rod paired with a braided steel-wire fishing line.

She had commissioned this set of equipment specifically for her current situation—someone with tremendous strength but slow reflexes, a novice angler whose gear needed to make up for her shortcomings.

No matter how desperately the fish struggled beneath the surface, Cheng Qisheng simply continued the contest at her own pace, slowly… steadily…

—The number of new believers had reached 710,000.

The fish burst out of the water.

Rather than being reeled in, it looked more as though it had simply been lifted straight out.

Cheng Qisheng slowly removed the hook, placed the fish into a bucket, washed her hands clean, picked up the paddle, and began rowing.

Her movements remained leisurely, but fortunately the paddleboard was large enough, and the little boat steadily made its way back toward shore.

Aether floated curiously over to the bucket and “sat” on its rim while scanning the City Lord’s catch.

“Crucian carp detected. Suitable dishes include winter melon crucian carp soup, braised crucian carp, sweet-and-sour crucian carp, and spicy douban-braised crucian carp.”

“Would the City Lord like Aether to provide detailed recipes?”

Cheng Qisheng slowly paddled the boat.

“No need~ I’ll just use the air fryer~”

As her mental strength continued to increase, the effects of her Mortal Body Syndrome had worsened once again, leaving her movements even slower than before. She found herself facing the same old problem in the kitchen—being too slow to flip food in time and ending up with burnt dishes.

Fortunately, technology improved lives.

Cheng Qisheng had bought an air fryer, an electric slow cooker, a steam convection oven, and other convenient appliances for lazy cooks. As long as she prepared the ingredients and put them in beforehand, all she had to do was wait for the timer to go off before eating.

Two white waterbirds flew overhead.

She stopped paddling and quietly watched them fly to the opposite shore of the lake before settling into the branches of a tree.

Just thinking that this lake, the fish swimming in it, and even those two waterbirds were all just beyond a single door inside her home filled Cheng Qisheng with contentment.

The existence of this lake was the result of an experiment.

She had wanted to test whether rooms with the same property could be merged together.

Before preparing for war against the other Safe Cities, Cheng Qisheng had deliberately left the interior layout of the City Lord’s Residence unchanged, keeping its aquatic area as a small pond.

As expected, after the Safe City’s territory expanded to 41,299 square kilometers, her home did not gain an extra room. Instead, the original 2,400-square-meter pond expanded seamlessly into a 14,789-square-meter body of water.

In other words, this latest expansion had increased her private domain by 12,389 square meters.

Previously, it had only been a small pond.

Now, after the expansion, calling it a private artificial lake would hardly be an exaggeration.

The experiment also confirmed her earlier hypothesis:

Rooms with the same attribute could indeed be stacked together.

That meant that whenever the Safe City expanded in the future, Cheng Qisheng could allocate the additional area of her private domain to whichever “room” she wanted.

Take this artificial lake, for example.

With each future expansion of the Safe City, she could continue enlarging it again and again—until one day it grew so vast that its far shore disappeared beyond the horizon.

The 1,100-square-meter cultivation area was the same.

As long as Blue Sea continued expanding, Cheng Qisheng could gradually transform it from a modest family garden into a true woodland.

Or perhaps…

Once the Safe City grew large enough, she could even try having an entire ocean inside her home.

The boat reached the shore.

Carrying the bucket with ease, Cheng Qisheng slowly stepped onto land.

The place looked just like an ordinary artificial lake. Trees lined the bank, the water was crystal clear, birds chirped cheerfully all around, and a trail of ants marched busily up and down a tree trunk.

At first glance, it was no different from the lakes found in a public park.

The only unusual sight was an utterly ordinary wooden door standing by itself a short distance away.

Cheng Qisheng opened the door, changed into her indoor slippers in the hallway, then carried the bucket into her kitchen and leisurely began preparing lunch.

To make crispy air-fried crucian carp, she needed scallions.

So she slowly returned to the hallway and opened another door.

Thirty minutes later, Cheng Qisheng came back carrying freshly picked scallions, a bundle of vegetables, and a bowl of cherries before making her way back into the kitchen.

The moment she officially began cooking, the number of new believers suddenly took another enormous leap.

—The number of new believers had reached 860,000.

Looks like the clergy have entered the capital of the Little Blue Sea Nation.

The first group of clergy to arrive at the castle hovered skillfully in midair.

Looking down at the enormous castle, the expressions they had kept impassive throughout the journey finally relaxed ever so slightly.

We’ve finally arrived.

The land our God has guided us to.

The people here would, under their guidance, become new members of Blue Sea—subjects of the great Creator God.

As the first to arrive, they were the pioneers, breaking new ground ahead of everyone else.

Perhaps the task would prove more difficult than expected.

But they had come fully prepared.

For the sake of their God, they were willing to make any sacrifice.

Hovering in the sky above, the clergy wore calm, compassionate expressions as they lowered their gazes toward the people below.

The crowd on the ground had gradually gathered together.

Dozens of clergy looked down upon them with the same gentle, benevolent eyes.

So these are the people we have come to guide?

Pitiful lambs who had lived alone in this frozen world without a god’s protection, their souls left without a place to belong.

Perhaps now was the perfect time to begin observing them.

First, according to the missionary manual compiled by His Holiness the Pope, they were supposed to instill the concept of Blue Sea into the people. Once they accepted Blue Sea, they would gradually come to understand that everything Blue Sea had become was thanks to the great Creator God’s protection over Her people…

Silently reciting the various evangelizing passages they had memorized, the clergy maintained their graceful composure as they slowly descended—

“Our God reigns above!!”

Suddenly, someone in the crowd below shouted at the top of their lungs.

The leaders of the Little Blue Sea Nation had already passed Blue Sea’s slogan on to their people.

Back then, however, they had regarded it as nothing more than a slogan.

But now…

The moment those words were cried out, nearly everyone erupted into the same fervent chant.

“Our God reigns above!!”

“May Blue Sea endure forever!!”

They were practically roaring the words, as though pouring every ounce of strength they possessed into those two declarations. Every single person trembled with overwhelming excitement.

The voices below swelled louder and louder, until they nearly drowned out the howling wind and snow.

The expressions on the clergy’s faces remained as serene and gentle as ever.

But some of them had already begun wondering whether they had somehow arrived at the wrong place.

These people…

…didn’t look like they were without faith at all.

The sea of people surged, their voices merging into a single thunderous chorus throughout the Little Blue Sea Nation.

“Our God reigns above!!!!”

“May Blue Sea endure forever!!!!”

—Ding!

Cheng Qisheng took the crispy fried crucian carp out of the air fryer. Its skin was golden and crisp while the flesh inside remained tender and juicy. She placed it on the table alongside a plate of freshly stir-fried greens.

After serving herself a bowl of rice, she sat down.

—The number of new believers had reached 930,000.

There was no longer any need for missionary work.

The Little Blue Sea Nation had a population of just over a million. The clergy had done nothing more than make a brief appearance, yet 930,000 people had become Cheng Qisheng’s followers.

She had every reason to believe that the remaining seventy thousand or so simply hadn’t encountered the clergy on their journey or had never heard the legends of Blue Sea’s Creator God.

But from this point onward, more and more Dazzling Star natives would hear that legend.

—As always, let’s begin with a mass blessing.

As Cheng Qisheng watched the newly converted believers bask in the happiness and tranquility of the divine blessing, tears glistening in their eyes as they gazed toward the heavens, she sent them a divine message.

Live on, my people.

Perhaps yours is not a civilization that I raised from the beginning, but as long as you place your faith in me, you are all welcome into the Blue Sea family.

I will lead you through many more worlds.

Together… we will survive.

The snow-white-haired, pale-skinned people of Dazzling Star felt the overwhelming warmth of the blessing, and the emotions in their eyes swiftly transformed into fervent devotion.

“Our God!!!”

“Our God reigns above!!!”

“I felt it! The God has blessed me! Thank you, my God! Thank you, great Creator God!”

The clergy, who were usually the first to be swept up by the passionate faith of fellow believers, found themselves unusually silent despite the deafening cheers surrounding them.

What’s going on?

Why does every single one of these people look like a fanatical believer?

Weren’t we supposed to be the ones preaching to them?

The clergy were genuinely bewildered.

Only when they themselves felt the divine blessing descend did the warmth of the great Creator God’s embrace instantly fill them with happiness.

“Our God! Thank You for Your blessing!”

The will of God was beyond question.

Surely, their God had simply judged that the number of believers in the Little Blue Sea Nation was not yet great enough.

Perhaps the great Creator God’s true intention was for them to remain here—to strengthen the Little Blue Sea Nation and cultivate even more believers.

Bathed in the joy of their God’s blessing, the clergy looked at the enormous castle before them, already making plans in their hearts.

This Tier 8 structure could still be upgraded further.

And the population of the Little Blue Sea Nation still had plenty of room to grow.

Five million believers, for example.

With the routine blessing complete, Cheng Qisheng shifted her attention away from the Little Blue Sea Nation and back to the meal in front of her.

Gaining over 900,000 new believers in one go definitely called for a celebration.

After lunch, she’d take a look at the new interior building designs for the Safe City.

As for the development of the Little Blue Sea Nation…

She would leave all of that to the Blue Sea government and the clergy.

Cheng Qisheng poured herself a glass of ice-cold cola and clinked it against a tiny virtual cup that Aether had projected onto one of its jellyfish tent*cles.

She drained the cola in a single gulp.

Refreshing!

After a busy day’s work, the Creator God picked up her chopsticks.

Time to eat!

<< _ >>

The post Safe City Ch.72 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

Not everyone in the Little Blue Sea Nation lived near the castle.

Most citizens still kept to their old way of life, scattered among their own wooden cabins. Every day, they ventured out to hunt snow beasts—or ended up being hunted by them.

The difference from before was that they now had another option. On any given day, they could head to the nearest Snow Beast Train Station, board a train, and travel to the massive Frost Castle.

The people of Dazzling Star had little concept of what a nation truly was. To most of them, the Little Blue Sea Nation simply meant a large gathering of people. As long as they agreed to join, if a powerful snow beast threatened the area where their family lived, they could call upon the “nation” for help.

The enormous castle also served as an excellent marketplace. When they or their loved ones fell ill, they no longer had to endure it in silence.

They could simply board the Snow Beast Train, travel to the warm castle, and receive treatment.

If they wanted to obtain more item cards, they could also take the train to larger hunting grounds and hunt alongside others. The Little Blue Sea Nation carefully regulated the size of each hunting party, so there was no need to worry about having too many hunters and scaring away the snow beasts.

Those were merely the ordinary benefits of joining the Little Blue Sea Nation.

For the people of Dazzling Star, who placed great importance on family, the greatest benefit was that once they had accumulated enough residence tax credits, they could send their elderly, sickly, or frail relatives to live permanently in the warm castle.

Had their civilization not suffered such a long period of decline, they would have realized that, in the minds of its citizens, the castle resembled less a national capital than a retirement home—or perhaps a bustling trade center.

But their civilization had been fractured for far too long. They had no concept of a retirement home, so they simply assumed that this was what a “nation” was supposed to be.

In truth, most citizens had yet to develop any real sense of national identity toward the Little Blue Sea Nation. To them, it was more like a massive population center—something that could genuinely improve their lives when the need arose (especially since it demanded very little from them), while in everyday life, everyone simply continued living as they always had.

As for the people inviting them to join the Little Blue Sea Nation, with all their talk of a divine kingdom and a Creator God, most people simply listened without taking it too seriously.

After all, when so many people gathered together, no one assumed that the trio’s ability to communicate with anyone was a gift from the gods.

Translation-type item cards existed, after all.

As for gods, every region on Dazzling Star had its own legends.

The deities differed in appearance and name, but the powers attributed to them were remarkably similar.

They could banish the eternal frost, rule over a land of everlasting warmth, and bring those they chose to a place where they would never again fear the cold or the snow beasts—a place with endless food and an inexhaustible supply of hot water…

Every child on Dazzling Star grew up believing those stories.

As they pressed against the windows of their little cabins, gazing out at the endless white wilderness, and as their parents returned empty-handed because they had failed to obtain food-related item cards, leaving the family to alternate between hunger and a full stomach, they dreamed that one day the gods of legend would descend and take them and their families to a warm land.

But once they became adults, they came to realize that those stories were nothing more than comforting tales their parents had told themselves.

Yet when they had children of their own, and there wasn’t enough fuel for the fireplace, causing the temperature inside the cabin to drop, they would watch their children huddle beneath the blankets, shivering. Without enough cold-weather clothing, the children couldn’t even go outside. They could only stay home alone while the adults ventured out to hunt.

Those same adults, who had long since seen through the myth of the gods, would nevertheless repeat to their own children the very stories their parents had once told them.

The gods did not exist.

Neither did a place of eternal warmth with an endless supply of hot water.

But the legend itself made things a little easier for the children.

Left alone in their cabins, they could spend the long day sustained by dreams of the gods, enduring the loneliness and cold a little more easily until their parents returned with the day’s hunt.

Then they would grow up, realize that the gods didn’t exist, move out with their partner, and start a family of their own. And when they saw the pitiful, reluctant look in their children’s eyes before leaving to hunt, they would do exactly what their parents—and their grandparents before them—had done.

They would tell the old story of the gods.

Except now, there was something new they could add.

The legend of the Little Blue Sea Nation’s god was more complete, more detailed, and included an additional promise:

As long as the nation’s people remained devout enough, the entire nation would one day ascend to the Divine Kingdom.

The Divine Kingdom would carry them away from this world of everlasting winter.

No wonder they managed to gather so many people together, everyone thought. They’re simply much better at making up stories than the rest of us.

Yesterday, while out hunting, Yor had run into an older relative from his clan—someone he should have addressed as his Fifth Aunt.

She was highly capable. Having recently paid enough residence tax, she had already sent her elderly parents to live in the castle.

She had spent the night there, heard this new version of the divine legend, and shared it with Yor when they met.

Entertainment was virtually nonexistent on Dazzling Star, so stories like this—especially ones that could keep children happy—were always popular.

And so today, Yor told it to his own three children.

Life on Dazzling Star was unimaginably harsh, yet every family usually had at least three to five children.

There were many reasons for that.

For one, each family was forced to live in isolation within its own territory. That naturally bred loneliness, as well as a constant sense of insecurity. A house filled with several children felt entirely different.

At the very least, it eased the emotional emptiness.

Those who never found a partner, chose not to seek one, or lost all of their loved ones rarely survived more than a year living alone before choosing to end their own lives.

Children changed that.

Even if a person’s spouse died, having children gave them a reason to keep going. They would devote themselves to raising those children into adulthood.

There was another reason as well.

The people of Dazzling Star reproduced with remarkable ease. Newborns were extremely small, and pregnancy was relatively gentle. A mother carried a child for only five months, and even shortly before giving birth, her belly showed only a slight swell.

As a result, childbirth was not especially painful.

These tiny children were astonishingly resilient. They needed only a little milk each day to survive, and they almost never cried.

Whenever their parents went out to hunt, the infants would lie quietly in their swaddling blankets without making a sound. Only after their parents returned would they let out soft coos and babbles.

The civilization of Dazzling Star had long since collapsed, so no one knew whether the increasingly smaller newborns—and their uncanny tendency never to cry, as though they instinctively understood they had been born into a dangerous world—were survival adaptations that had evolved over the past two centuries.

Yor’s three children were all old enough to understand what he was saying. The oldest was seven, the youngest three.

The three-year-old little sister and the five-year-old little brother listened happily to their father’s story, but it didn’t leave much of an impression on them.

They were still too young, still exploring the world around them. Their understanding had yet to fully develop.

The seven-year-old, however, listened with shining eyes, peppering his father with one question after another.

“When can we move to the Divine Kingdom?”

“Will there be flowers there? Grandma told me that a long time ago, Dazzling Star had lots of flowers.”

“Does the Divine Kingdom really have endless hot water? Don’t they ever run out of fuel?”

Holding the boy in his arms, Yor wore a rare expression of ease.

He remembered asking his own mother the very same sort of questions when he was little—asking when the Spring Titan would finally defeat the Frost Titan, and whether that meant people would no longer need cold-weather clothing to go outside.

“All right, all right, my little Garian,” Yor said with a chuckle. “You’ve asked so many questions. Where should Daddy even begin? How about this? Tonight, when I’m free, I’ll answer them one by one.”

The truth was…

He didn’t know the answers either.

Maybe today he’d run into Fifth Aunt again and ask her for more details about the story.

And if he didn’t…

Well, he’d just have to make the rest up himself.

Knock. Knock.

His wife, Lovis, tapped on the door.

That was their signal that she had finished checking the surrounding area, and it was time for them to head out and hunt.

Yor kissed each of his children on the forehead.

“Be good while your mother and I are out hunting. And if you hear anything unusual, what do you do?”

The three children answered in unison,

“Hide in the chest!”

“Good.”

Every Dazzling Star household had one or two enormous storage chests. They had all come from item cards, appearing together with the items they contained.

Snow beasts possessed an incredibly keen sense of smell, but children carried a much fainter scent than adults. If they hid inside one of those large chests, there was a ninety-nine percent chance the beasts would never notice them.

Whether that almost nonexistent body scent was yet another evolutionary adaptation the people of Dazzling Star had developed in order to survive was something no one could answer.

Yor put on his cold-weather gear and picked up his weapon. Before leaving, he made sure all three children had burrowed beneath their blankets and were completely covered.

Only then did he quickly crack open the door. As the icy wind had barely begun to blow inside, he darted out and immediately shut it behind him.

If there was one thing that had changed the most since joining the Little Blue Sea Nation, it was Yor’s attitude toward snow beasts.

The numb resignation he used to feel had gradually faded, replaced by steadily growing enthusiasm.

The castle really was an incredible place.

Because so many people lived there, snow beasts deliberately avoided the area. Unlike the old clustered villages, which often attracted packs of snow beasts, the castle was rarely threatened.

Originally, people had worried that if snow beasts avoided the castle altogether, they wouldn’t be able to hunt them for item cards and would lose the means to sustain their lives.

But the existence of the Snow Beast Train had solved that problem.

If only we could move there ourselves…

Recalling the information his Fifth Aunt had shared, Yor silently calculated how many item cards it would take for his entire family to earn enough residence tax credits to live in the castle.

It was incredible.

How could humans possibly control snow beasts?

Maybe they obtained some rare item card that lets them command the beasts?

His Fifth Aunt had said yesterday that the President herself claimed it was a divine blessing.

Yor didn’t believe that.

If the three leaders of the Little Blue Sea Nation really had come from the Divine Kingdom, where warmth, endless hot water, and limitless food awaited them…

Then why would they ever come to this frozen wasteland to suffer?

If it were him, once he got into the Divine Kingdom, nothing in the world could make him leave—let alone bring his family out with him.

Lovis was just as fascinated by the stories of Blue Sea’s Creator God.

The couple took turns telling bedtime stories, one parent each day, and tomorrow would be her turn.

Yor grinned.

“Don’t worry. I deliberately saved part of the story for you.”

“Fifth Aunt said the Divine Kingdom is very pleased with the Little Blue Sea Nation. They’ve already sent a divine messenger, who’ll judge which citizens have the strongest faith and take them to the warm Divine Kingdom.”

Lovis blinked.

“That’s it? No details?”

Yor shrugged.

“Couldn’t help it. We hadn’t been talking long before a snow beast showed up yesterday. We didn’t have time to keep chatting.”

“Oh! I just remembered something!” he suddenly exclaimed.

“Fifth Aunt also said the divine messenger will descend from the sky.”

Lovis immediately frowned.

“That’s too far-fetched. There are flying snow beasts up there. If the children hear that story, what if they mistake one of those flying snow beasts for the divine messenger?”

Yor nodded in agreement.

“You’re right. We’ll leave that part out. Looks like the people in the Little Blue Sea Nation aren’t quite as good at making up stories as I thought. Such an obvious plot hole, and they never noticed it.”

The two continued chatting as they walked through the snow.

Then—

They heard the sound of wings beating overhead.

Both of them looked up.

Silhouettes swept across the sky.

They had human bodies…

…and wings spreading from their backs.

The divine messengers…

had descended.

<< _ >>

The post Safe City Ch.71 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.