Above The Sky
Chapter 497 - 497 466 The Eternal and Unyielding Solid City 43 end of the Travel Arc taking a day off tomorrow!

497: Chapter 466: The Eternal and Unyielding Solid City (4/3, end of the Travel Arc, taking a day off tomorrow!) 497: Chapter 466: The Eternal and Unyielding Solid City (4/3, end of the Travel Arc, taking a day off tomorrow!) That’s what happened.

After the incident involving the disguised members of the Dragon Worship Cult launching a surprise attack on the scholars attending the Solitary Mountain conference in the Fiery Flame Land wrapped up, only a few noticed that Ian and his companions had suddenly disappeared.

Aside from Tres, who was privy to this affair, those who knew chose to keep silent.

They were not necessarily the elites of their respective departments, but having gone undercover for so long, they had learned how to control their curiosity… and to maintain a proper silence.

So, after a period of time.

Late at night, a light rain.

Riding a deep blue scaled steed, alongside another carrying luggage with crimson scales, Ian moved briskly along the tracks heading north.

Two fae twirled and danced beside the horses and the young man, emitting joyful laughter.

Around Shuan Li Town, the ground was covered with Moonfire Grass, a type of Sublimation Plant used to concoct alchemical potions related to light.

When raindrops struck them, they emitted a glowing fire-like radiance.

Speeding past this field, they seemed to be escorted by countless stars.

Smelling the faint scent of plants and flowers in the summer’s nighttime air, the young man smiled, side by side with the countless glimmers in the night rain.

Soon after, the rain gradually ceased.

In this starless and moonless dark night, the ground should have been enveloped in darkness.

Yet, on the distant horizon where the clouds overlapped, a beam of light as huge as if it pierced the heavens and the earth faintly lit up, standing at the end of one’s field of vision.

Colorful rainbows spread around the edges of the clouds, while the beam itself broke through the cover of cloud mountains, reaching straight up into the sky.

—What is this?

Where is this light coming from, so vast and bright?

The young man saw this and paused, instinctively pondering these questions.

But immediately after, he urged his horse forward.

He and the fae arrived at the top of a hill, gazing into the distance toward the very center of the vast Quinor Plains.

Then, Ian briefly forgot to think.

He listened to the sound of the wind.

The geography of the Setar Empire was very peculiar; the entire nation was surrounded by numerous mountain ranges, virtually sealed off.

Even with water vapor coming from the South Ridge, the Karan Mountain Range, and the Favette Mountain Range from south to north, and moisture from the Abyssal Sea and Mist Port moving from north to south, it still wasn’t possible for the heartland of the Empire to be moist and temperate enough for normal farming and comfortable living.

Even if all the towering peaks within the Empire’s borders were to be leveled, this would still be the case.

But now, he was beginning to understand.

In the summer of the Quinor Plains, the wind from the Yongji Ocean at South Ridge blew forcefully, sweeping past the vast forests beside the Bison Mountain Range, then over the endless Golden Prairie.

It crossed the Ground Hurricane Bridge, brushed past Black Ming Lake, and traveled through the wide hills and forests of the Jerol Region, moving straight along a long road.

This wind, coursing through the vast natural circle of heaven and earth, was not so persistent because of nature itself but because of a force, a power originating from Humans, yet surpassing the natural cycle, and that’s why it had come here, unwavering and ceaseless.

The cooling wind after the rain tousled the young man’s hair forward, but Ian had no energy to care about this triviality.

He narrowed his eyes, trying as hard as he could to focus on the grand structure that emerged before him.

It was a magnificent sight beyond the essence of this era.

Underneath a colossal beam of light that pierced the heavens and the earth, there lay a shadow darker than the undulating peaks, resembling a solitary mountain standing in the boundless plains, the only grand structure in this land with an unobstructed view that could block the sight of Humans.

Its majestic stature stood at the very center of the Quinor Plains, peerless in its grandeur.

Shadows enveloped it, yet there were layers upon layers, with tiny, luminous objects twinkling on its surface.

The wind flowed toward it as if attracted by a profound gravitational abyss, or as though it wished to become part of the beam of light that pierced the planet’s atmosphere.

This was a city.

A megacity built upon steel peaks and solitary mountains that soared ten thousand meters high!

Ian rode upon his steed, gazing from a distance at the enormous entity cloaked in shadows.

It resembled a volcano that had risen from the flatlands, reaching tens of thousands of meters high and over fifteen kilometers wide, but with even more massive foundations deep in the earth.

Metallic structures reflected the distant moonlight as they shone brilliantly, and the luminous column emanating from the vent ignited memories within the youth.

“How is this possible…”

Ian murmured softly, his gaze filled with bewilderment and desire, curiosity and confusion, as he observed the vast city’s outline.

He shook his head slightly, “Is this, a planetary engine?!”

“No…

is this, is this a Planetary Shield Generator?!”

No one answered his question, not even the Fae could.

Hua’an and the Frost Butterfly both gazed in awe at the magnificent spectacle in the distance, the Little Fairy overwhelmed by the majesty of the grandeur, while Fairy Miss felt it was not the time to speak.

Until they heard a roaring sound.

Rumble, rumble.

The roar of the Alchemy Furnace on the rail lines filled the air, the engine’s howl continuous, and the youth turned his head to look at the tracks beside the road.

An Alchemy Train traveled straight ahead, passing him, the towns and countryside, and racing toward the center of the plains.

And it wasn’t the only one.

Ian turned his head, surveying the Quinor Plains as a whole.

On the land veiled by the interplay of moonlight and darkness, numerous points of faint light were converging toward the colossal city.

Train after train, like droplets of steel joining a sea of steel, merging into it…

The dense mosaic of dark dots and light dots interwove slowly atop this solitary mountain wrought by human effort.

That was a city of Humans, the moss that clung to the outer shell of the mountains.

Indeed.

Such days on Terra had passed for years, decades, centuries, and millennia.

Time had etched its marks on the iron, and the earth repeated the cycle of fertility and barrenness until mushrooms and moss grew on the rocks, until seeds turned into towering trees.

Traces of human habitation, the cities of humans, were just like that moss, just like those trees.

The Imperial Capital could be seen here.

And this was the Imperial Capital.

“So that’s how it is.”

Gazing at the city, Ian murmured to himself.

He smiled gently, lifting his head to look up at the surging storm clouds, as if he had returned to that rainy night four years ago.

At this moment, there was no thunder in the sky, but there was a beam of light more dazzling than thunderbolts, reaching straight for the sky.

“Teacher, I understand now.”

The youth spoke softly with nostalgia to the sky, “Yes, that’s right.

This is what you told me, what you passed on to me.”

“What you wanted to teach me, to entrust to me…”

“The eternal and immovable, Solid City.”