Castle of Black Iron

The Kalay Mountain Range was the natural north-south watershed of Blackson Humans Corridor and the loftiest mountain range in the Corridor. This mountain range undulated tens of thousands of miles from east to west. It extended to the endless black or grey wild regions on the map in the west and reached the seaside in the east.

After a few days of heavy rain, more than 1,000 sq miles of the Kalay Mountain Range was covered with a mist. Numerous people who evacuated from the north were gathering in the north of such a natural watershed. At this moment, the north of Kalay Mountain Range was covered with refugee tents. In the most crowded place, the grey refugees’ tents lasted over 100 miles in length. Before the earlier refugees left, new ones poured in...

Deaths occurred everyday. Some of them died of natural disasters, some died of human reasons. Starvation, disease, coldness, murder, robbery and rape were raging across the refugee camp...

Two days ago, the garrisons at the Kalur Harbor of Ungava Federation had just suppressed a civilian riot in the westernmost part of the Kalay Mountain Range, causing a casualty of over 50,000 people.

As they had stagnated in the harbor for a long time, being driven by hunger and fear, a great batch of refugees started to pour into Kalur Harbor to grab the steamer tickets two days ago, namely, August 27. Nobody knew when the riot started. When the basic orders collapsed, the refugees started the abduct steamers violently, causing the tragedy.

Policemen who maintained the order were covered by the flooding refugees, causing a severe stampede accident. Some refugees who were scrambling to board the steamer were pushed into the icy seawater. Some boatmen were killed by the refugees with daggers. The chaos in Kalur Harbor finally influenced the entire city. When a 2000-ton passenger liner Golden Pearl capsized after colliding with another steamer anchoring at the harbor under the manipulation of a lot of refugees, the bloody suppression started.

It was not fresh for rulers to maintain their orders violently wherever it was. However, when it happened at this moment, it was more miserable. In front of the threat of the demon army, human troops were suppressing human refugees. The implication was evident——This was a chaotic world, a real chaotic world, when all the orders gave way to the human instinct of seeking for survival and all the axioms were hiding behind punches and blades.

The consecutive heavy rain didn’t flush away the blood stains in Kalur Harbor. The corpses of those refugees who were killed in the suppression were straightly thrown into the ocean. Nobody cared about their lives at all as new refugees were pouring into Kalur City...

In Goose Bay, Vedirac Federation, which was over 1,200 miles away from Kalur City, there were also a great number of refugees. There was a ”Goose Bay Trail” in Goose Bay through which those refugees who had no traffic tools to climb over the Kalay Mountain Range could penetrate through the Kalay Mountain Range.

”As it is the rainy season, the Goose Bay Trail doesn’t work. Due to mountain floods, many parts of the trail has collapsed, causing great casualties. Don’t keep moving forward. You’re seeking for death. You cannot penetrate through the Kalay Mountain Range in this way...” A military commissioner of Vedirac Federation was standing on a high platform, wet through, in the heavy rain while holding a trumpet made of an iron sheet and shouting exhaustively so as to prevent those refugees from entering the Goose Bay Trail.

Some refugees stopped while more refugees just entered it in a numb and silent way. When they passed by this young military commissioner, they even didn’t glance at him.

The young military commissioner just watched the great number of refugees entering the Goose Bay Trail with simplified maps in hand with a grieved look. In such a season, less than 1/10 of these people could finally penetrate through Kalay Mountain Range through Goose Bay Trail.

More refugees were gathering in Upton, the capital city of Free Commercial Federation over 3,000 miles away from Goose Bay.

Upton was the largest and most famous aerotropolis and commercial city in the north of Blackson Humans Corridor. This city and Millbay in the south of Kalay Mountain Range were both members of Free Commercial Federation. With Kalay Mountain Range in between, the two cities were connected with each other through airlines, which supported the prosperity of the entire Free Commercial Federation.

Upton City once managed the largest and most prosperous airline that traversed Kalay Mountain Range in the north of Blackson Humans Corridor. At this moment, Upton’s air traffic volume was over 10 times more prosperous than that before the holy war. Numerous airships were flowing from the south and landing in Upton City so as to carry away refugees from here...

After the tragedy broke out in Kalur Harbor, the population of garrisons being dispatched here to maintain the order of Upton City increased to 300,000. All the airships in Upton City were surrounded with 3-layer barbed wire. In the heavy rain, dense refugees were crowding outside the airship base and watching the airships in the sky. Any airship landing in would arouse their turmoil as numerous people would flood in that airship base.

”Those who have honor certificates could leave first...Those who have honor certificates could leave first...” The garrisons were waving their sticks and ferociously beating those refugees who attempted to rush into the airship base, causing them to bleed. Those refugees who were raising high red honor certificates were selected from the crowd and allowed to enter the airship base first. They were allowed to leave out of here first before the next batch of airships arrived.

”Ah, my honor certificate, my honor certificate, someone grabbed away my honor certificate left by my husband...” A woman who was cradling a 5-6-year-old girl in raincoat cried loudly at the entrance of the airship base while changing her face greatly. In the chaos, when the woman raised her honor certificate, another hand reached out from her side. Before this woman responded, her honor certificate had been grabbed away.

Right then, a bolt was shot out from the embrasure of the bartizan above the entrance of the airship base and killed the man who wanted to sneak into the base with an honor certificate. This shocked everybody else as they all retreated two steps backward.

A first lieutenant military commissioner rapidly walked out of the bartizan and came to the man who was lying dead on the ground with a bolt through his heart. The military commissioner then picked up that red certificate. After that, he pulled out that tearful woman from the crowd and put that honor certificate in her hand. Additionally, he whispered to a soldier on his side to escort the woman and her daughter into that airship base.

”Anyone who dared to grab the honor certificate, would die...” The first lieutenant watched those refugees with a heavy killing qi.

Previously in Free Commercial Federation, when a soldier killed a civilian casually, it would arouse a great turmoil. However, at this moment, nobody cared about that.

Soon after that woman entered the airship base with her little daughter had a medium-sized airship arrived from the north for replenishment.

After a few minutes, that woman received a news that a medium-sized airship would fly off soon while a seat was available for her. The woman then followed a soldier to that medium-sized airship while cradling her daughter after extending her sincere thanks many times.

When the woman boarded on the airship, a person was getting off the airship. A lot of people felt embarrassed to see that person off the airship, including the captain of the airship.

”Mr. Peter, don’t you need to think about it? If you wish to protect us to leave out of here, we could pay you 2,000 gold coins as a reward when we arrive at the destination!” A well-dressed fat man watched that person who was getting off the airship. The person named Peter, a 28-year-old youth. With a common long sword on one side of his waist, he looked pretty average.

After hearing this, the woman’s heart pounded as she finally knew how she got that vacancy. As someone was going to get off the airship, after negotiating with the personnel in this airship, the military commissioner agreed to let her in. At this moment, although being selfish, she was indeed afraid that Peter would change his mind again.

”As you’ve already arrived here, you’re much safer. The demon corps’ power could not reach here. You could traverse the Kalay Mountain Range in less than 2 days. Therefore, it’s unnecessary for me to stay in the airship!” Peter refused that man’s proposal by waving his hand.

Although everybody else was inviting Peter to stay, they failed to move him.

”Peter, will...I see you in the future?” An 18-year-old blonde girl came to the hatch door as she watched that man who was leaving here with an admirable, unwilling look. The maiden’s pure eyes looked as tender as water. The moment Peter saw her had he understood her meaning.

Everybody [who were seeing Peter off] didn’t speak. They just watched him silently on one side, including that maiden’s father. After staying in the airship for two days, all the passengers, including that maiden’s parents, had understood her mind——young women always worshiped heroes and powerful men, especially those who had saved them and could make them feel extremely safe during the crisis.

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