Chapter 16.1 - Unknown
Steel Gate is a city that dependent on a mountain. A small half of the city was constructed on the hillside, relying heavily on the terrain. The mountain region was rich with coal and iron, the thermoelectric power plant and steel mill left behind from the olden era becoming the foundation for the current enormous military factory system. Close to a hundred thousand people lived within Steel Gate, with most of them relying on this arms and armor producing colossus for survival. The various factories needed large amounts of manpower, and the number of people needed in the mines were even greater. Even though these individuals toiled from morning to night, the reward was nothing more than something to eat, yet these people still felt peaceful and fortunate. Compared to the refugees in the wilderness, they undoubtedly lived in heaven, because they could eat their fill, and their lives were stable. Even the residents of large inhabited areas would envy this type of lifestyle.
Regardless of whether it was the new or old era, a job that allowed one to sell their energy was a blessing. As for the reward and how great of a blessing it was, they were all things that had to be viewed at from different perspectives.
When he first saw the hundreds of lively and thriving chimneys reaching high up into the skies, Su also felt a sense of amazement. This was a true modern era great factory system, its awe-inspiring power completely originating from its seemingly endless size.
The large regions densely packed with tents were the clearest representation of how many people relied on Steel Gate for survival.
Su didn’t want to smash apart these peoples’ lifestyle, but there was no way the war against Steel Gate will end just like this. That was why he first had others send Schneider’s corpse back to Steel Gate, as well as give Steel Gate a set amount of time to surrender. Even though they lost most of their military strength, Steel Gate who still had close to a thousand armed soldiers and more than ten mobile armors were not willing to surrender. While admiring the resoluteness and willpower of the people here, under the cover of night, Su entered Steel Gate alone.
When the sky brightened again, Steel Gate’s soldiers suddenly discovered that all of their leaders had already become corpses.
The following matters became much simpler. Victor hurried over with Sinking Blade’s army, and he began to assume control over things here. Those iron-blooded soldiers might stand against Su, but they were much more willing to accept Sinking Blade. In a state where their lives were at stake and without any leadership, they finally lowered their weapons.
The five membered committee were all skilled at management, but if they wanted to occupy a colossus like Steel Gate, it would still take close to a week of time.
Victor broke up Steel Gate’s soldiers, assigning them separately into his own army. At the same time, Sinking Blade transferred a batch of elite soldiers over to Li. These soldiers could be considered a gift that would become a part of Su’s core armed forces.
Upon seeing the corpses of all of Steel Gate’s leaders, the faces of all five members of the committee became unpleasant to look at. They originally thought that they understood the power of high level abilities well, but when they saw these cleanly arranged corpses, all of them understood that they had still underestimated Su. Since Su could, in one night’s time, completely wipe out the higher level figures of Steel Gate under the city’s tight defenses, then wiping out these five committee members in a similar amount of time wouldn’t be too difficult either.
During the process of occupying Steel Gate, news came from Kelan City expressing their complete willingness to cooperate. For reasonable prices, all types of medications, including the prototype medications Douglas hadn’t completed his research on yet, could be sold to them with priority. This was the same as a disguised type of surrender, but still maintaining a fixed amount of independent position to avoid being uprooted like how Steel Gate was. The most important assets of a biochemistry technology was people, so this made them completely different from Steel Gate who relied on resources and equipment. What Su needed was large amounts of medications, not a city or people, so Kelan City’s compromise was naturally the best result.
Perhaps in this battle won with overwhelming power, the one that received the greatest benefits wasn’t Su, but rather Victor and his Sinking Blade. In the entire region west of the great lakes, Su was still an outsider, and his time here was too short, short to the extent where not many people could develop fear towards him. Victor noticed this point, so he became Su’s agent in this entire region. Meanwhile, all of the territory Su seized would be under Victor’s management.
Unlike Steel Gate’s dark and heaviness, and unlike Midnight City’s frivolous noisiness, Kelan City was clean, tidy, and meticulous, but there was a bit of strange gloominess. Kelan City had less than twenty thousand people, the smallest of the three major cities. Almost everyone in the city served the biochemistry laboratory, directly or indirectly.
Kelan biochemistry laboratory was situated at the easternmost corner of the city. It was called a laboratory, but it was a building complex that occupied an entire square kilometer of land. Within this area was the central laboratory, more than ten branch laboratories, as well as more than ten biochemistry factories. Close to five hundred researchers were here researching medications of all different types. Among these researchers, most of them carried out various basic types of research, such as human or other mutated creatures’ genetics. This place had already formed a complete system, the research and market production forming an integrated operation, and there was enough military force to protect themselves. The entire layout of Kelan City reflected the wisdom of its founder, Douglas.
In the most recent ten years, Kelan City’s complete industry was starting to display its power, the genetic modification medicines that it was able to research, regardless of whether it was variety or amount, steadily rising. If they were given another ten years, Dr. Douglas might very likely produce an eighth level ability formulation, to the extent where a ninth level ability formulation wasn’t completely impossible. Of course, this was on the premise that Dr. Douglas could live that long.
No one knew just how old Dr. Douglas was exactly, only knowing that he was someone from the olden era, someone that completely experienced the war that forever changed human history.