Chapter 959: Chapter 170
When Perfikot stepped into the survivor camp under the escort of the head of the Missionary Group and the Steam Knights, the entire ruins seemed to have been cast with a Silence Spell.
Everyone lowered their heads before this esteemed Regent of the Victor Empire, the Lord of the Northern Territory, and even their breathing became cautious.
The old aristocrats, who once prided themselves as the heritage of Romulus, were now humbly clutching their tattered cold-resistant cloaks, as if the worn-out fabric could conceal their long-lost glory.
Among them, some were once proud of the bronze brooches of their ancestors, now those brooches were dim and rusty.
Some stubbornly wore the rusted family crest rings on fingers resembling dry branches, as if those rings could still prove their once-noble bloodline.
But when the shadow of the Floating City module covered the camp like a canopy, these remnants of a bygone era simultaneously hunched their backs like reeds bent by an invisible hand, no longer able to stand straight.
An impoverished merchant with a gold-rimmed monocle even staggered to his knees, his lens casting a twisted reflection on the icy surface.
The shadowy reflection was no longer the tycoon who monopolized the trade routes of Seven Hills City, but merely dust groveling beneath the gears of a new era.
Yet as Perfikot crossed the ruins covered in black ice, she bent down to lift up a wandering child whose knee had been cut by sharp stones while kneeling. As her fingertips brushed the wound, the gentle glow of alchemy smoothed the torn flesh, silencing the child’s sobs and replacing them with gasps of astonishment.
In the newly built prefab housing area, she lightly waved the Golden Touching Rod, and a crimson glow traveled like lava, welding the drafty metal seams into a seamless metallic barrier, blocking the cold wind from invading this modest shelter.
As she passed the greenhouses built by the immigrant group, she paused to gaze at the hardy crops thriving within the greenhouse environment, a slight upward curve on her lips: "To cultivate crops in such conditions, you have exceeded my expectations."
When the head of the missionary group nervously reported that some survivors were still hostile towards the Empire, Perfikot merely stroked the warm metal shell of the Energy Tower, her voice calm and firm: "Instead of reproaching ignorance, let the heat of the steam core teach them what survival means."
At dawn the next day, the supplies unloaded by three transport airships completely transformed the camp’s ecosystem.
Tons of compressed biscuits filled the stomachs of every survivor, and those once hunched by hunger could finally straighten up a bit; modular houses sprang up under the precise mechanical arms of large engineering autonomous robots, the sound of metal frameworks being assembled echoing like the chimes of a new era.
An old aristocrat who once wore the emblem of the Romulus Senate trembled as he touched walls with constant temperature runes, the warmth at his fingertips faintly recalling the fireplace in his family’s banquet hall.
Murky tears crashed onto the rusted family crest ring, melting the ice crystals accumulated in the cracks of the family emblem into a meandering trail of water.
That ring now could only witness the rise of a new era, just as the worn family emblem was destined to become relics of the past.
Yet the glimmer of hope had not yet dispelled the shadows; it flickered like a dying candle in the wind amid the darkness, ever at risk of being consumed by deeper darkness.
Above the ruins of Seven Hills City, lead-gray clouds rolled like an iron curtain, the low rumble of thunder akin to the blasphemous prayers chanted by followers of the Old Gods in caverns, the sound seemingly emanating from the core of the earth, carrying an eerie echo.
Perfikot stood in the command room of the Floating City module, her slender figure reflected on the cold metal floor.
The sand table in front of her displayed a miniature model of the ruins and survivor camp of Seven Hills City, every piece of building debris precisely reproduced.
The areas marked in blue represent the survivor camp, those tiny sparks representing the innocents still struggling to survive.
While those Evil God believers lurked in the underground areas outside the camp and further in the ruins, coiling like serpents in the shadows, waiting for the full moon night to tear everything apart.
"My lord, the Godslaying Armor has been fully deployed. Shall we proceed with the purge of those Evil God believers now?" The Knight Commander of the Steam Knights reported respectfully behind Perfikot.
Following Perfikot’s instructions, he had deployed all Godslaying Armor at critical positions identified as areas of Evil God believer activity, those steel behemoths lying in wait, ready for the time to strike.
Perfikot did not turn around; she only gazed at the sand table in front of her, her slender fingers gently gliding over the position of the survivor camp as she casually remarked, "Let them make a ruckus, the bigger, the better."
Her plan was simple, almost brutally so.
The Evil God believers believed the sacrificial night of the full moon would be their victory, expecting the whispers of blood and madness to tear open reality and bring the power of the Ancient Gods into the world.
They anticipated the wave of despair to drown the survivors, expecting mortals to kneel in fear, becoming the sacrifices of a new era.
But Perfikot wanted them to understand—true despair never stemmed from the abyss, but from the moment when the destiny they thought they controlled was crushed.
When the rituals of the Evil God believers peaked, when frightening entities reached out tentacles from the void when the screams and cries of the survivors echoed through the ruins—the steam cores of the Godslaying Armor would thunder to life, and the guns of the Floating City modules would blaze with blinding brilliance.
