Chapter 1

Led by the soldier Willie, the group set off along the Fertile Road and the Kingdom Avenue, heading towards the family fiefdom known as "Hearthstone City." The roads beneath their feet were originally streets and highways within the sanctuary city, but years of disrepair had robbed them of their former glory and made them extremely difficult to traverse. Broken concrete surfaces curled upwards, exposing the artificial earth beneath. The potholed roads seemed never to have been repaired, and walking on them, one foot sinking deeper than the other, was no different from walking on a wilderness trail. Nangong Wuyue found it quite strenuous to walk on such a surface. She even considered whether it would be easier to transform into a water serpent and crawl, but remembering how Vivian had terrified the locals with just a few ice cubes, she suppressed the urge to suddenly manifest a tail more than three meters long. Still, she couldn't help complaining: "Are all the roads this difficult to travel in your area?"

"Difficult to travel?" Willie lowered his head to look at the road surface. "Oh, it certainly can't compare to the magnificent roads of the High Tower Kingdom. After all, this is just a backwater. Neither the Iron City-State nor the High Tower Kingdom would send people to maintain the roads in such a place."

"You two... 'countries,' why are you fighting? What deep-seated grudges do you have?" Hao Ren asked awkwardly.

Willie blinked. "Why? Winter is coming, and we must ignite the flames at the end of the world. The souls of those who die on the battlefield are the fuel for the flames. The Four Kingdoms never fight because of hatred. I thought that was common knowledge."

Everyone exchanged glances, and Vivian frowned slightly. "You're divided into... Four Kingdoms?"

"Are you really from the world of eternal winter?" Willie swallowed hard. "Everyone should know—the High Tower Kingdom, the Iron City-State, the Free City, and the Fortress of Stars. These are the four kingdoms of this world."

Hearing this, Hao Ren felt a strange sensation in his heart. He found it somewhat absurd—inside a starship, within a sanctuary city built by predecessors, territory and power had been re-divided, becoming scattered city-states and village settlements. The streets of the past had become transportation arteries between various "cities," and buildings had turned into bunkers and market towns. Factory wastelands, after being demolished and cleared, had become "wilderness" and "wastelands." The sanctuary was unrecognizable, and a primitive society was growing strangely on the ruins of a high-level civilization—and these ruins were so small.

It was all like a distorted and bizarre dream.

He looked up at the sky, from where he could see the urban landscape on the opposite side of the enclosed space. He wanted to ask Willie what he thought of this world's strange structure, but he quickly realized that he wouldn't get much of an answer: the young man before him was born here, grew up here, and received all his education here. The world in his mind should be like this. If no one else on this ship knew the concept of the "Ark," people living here would probably regard the entire world as a giant eggshell. The cold space outside the steel shield was meaningless to Willie.

Willie seemed a little apprehensive along the way. He was reluctant to walk on this avenue, especially after his comrades had fled. Being with Hao Ren and his group, who had unknown origins and knew "witchcraft," made him feel extremely insecure. But the young soldier had no choice. He still had to lead the strangers, albeit with trepidation, and be vigilant at all times, wary of Iron City-State or Free City ambushers popping out from the roadside.

But after walking on this road for a long time, Hao Ren didn't see anyone else appear. He couldn't help but doubt what Willie had said. "You said this is a dangerous road? I haven't seen anyone pass by here."

Willie rubbed his hands and tightened his cuffs. The cold weather was making him shiver. "I don't know... Usually, soldiers should be passing through here, or at least merchants from the city-states should be traveling..."

As he spoke, he looked up at the sky. The dim lights throughout the ship's city shone like fireflies in the darkness, decorating the enclosed space like a strange cave filled with fireflies. The young man's light brown eyes showed some unease. "Things have been getting worse and worse in this world for the past ten years. I've lost count of how many unusual things I've encountered. Perhaps the Iron City-State and Free City patrols are just slacking off today?"

"Getting worse and worse?" Hao Ren asked curiously.

Willie opened his mouth, just about to say something, when a strange, low sound suddenly interrupted him.

The sound came from deep underground. It sounded like the slow, descending tone of some huge piece of equipment gradually ceasing to function. It spread along the ground, and although it wasn't very loud, it seemed to make the entire space vibrate. At the same time, Hao Ren felt a lightness in his body, a sensation of being about to float off the ground. Willie's expression changed drastically, and he screamed in terror, "Everyone, don't move! It's 'Ascension'! The 'Ascension Phenomenon'!"

Almost as soon as Willie's words fell, everyone felt their bodies suddenly become weightless: the artificial gravity in the sanctuary had disappeared.

Hao Ren saw a red light speeding from one end of the enclosed space to the other, followed immediately by another. They looked like some kind of alarm lights, and Willie stared at the lights with fearful eyes, silently counting: "One... two... three... three shooting stars! Good, it looks like it won't last long... Everyone, don't move! Especially don't jump!"

At this point, artificial gravity had completely disappeared. Although Hao Ren and the others were still "standing on the ground," their bodies were actually floating, with only their soles slightly touching the ground. Willie tensed up, afraid to move, fearing that even a slight movement would make him lift off the ground: it would send him flying uncontrollably into the sky, perhaps even all the way to the other side of the world. Hao Ren quickly understood the young man's fear. He tried to ease Willie's tension: "Don't worry, don't worry, your warning was timely. No one will fly away—does this happen often?"

"No, it only happens every few months, but I heard that before I was born, it happened even less frequently," Willie took a deep breath. He no longer cared about Hao Ren's "ignorance." At this point, just having someone to talk to made him feel a lot more relaxed. "Winter is coming, and the heart of this world is slowly freezing. The earth is no longer able to hold us firmly to the surface... That's what my grandmother told me. But as long as we can relight the ancestral furnace, everything will return to normal. That's also what my grandmother told me."

Hao Ren casually brushed it off and silently looked up at the huge pipes and alloy bridges that ran through the entire space. Lights were moving along their surfaces, lights that hadn't been there before. This was probably some kind of automatic maintenance system of the Ark ship. The system was clearly malfunctioning, but it was still clinging to life.

Artificial gravity disappeared for nearly an hour. During that time, Willie kept his hand pressed to his chest, muttering to himself as if praying to some god. Finally, that agonizing hour passed. Hao Ren heard another different low sound coming from deep within the earth. As the sound gradually subsided, his body sank, and he once again felt the sensation of standing firmly on the ground.

Willie's legs weakened, and he almost fell to the ground. He managed to stand up and gave Hao Ren an awkward smile. "You don't seem to be afraid of 'Ascension' at all."

"As long as you don't fly up, you won't fall down," Hao Ren said casually.

Willie's expression darkened. "My best friend once said the same thing—but he ended up dying in the 'Valley of Winds' square on the other side of the world."

As he spoke, he looked up at the upside-down city buildings above his head. "That was a long 'Ascension,' lasting a full day and night. Poor Birken, he just accidentally stretched his leg, and then I watched him rise into the air, higher and higher, higher and higher... At that time, I didn't know how to judge the duration of the Ascension phenomenon from the shooting stars. I thought everything would end soon, but I just watched him turn into a small black dot in the sky. His sister was right next to me at the time, poor girl... Her brother even crossed the 'axis of heaven and earth.' When Mother Earth regained her vitality, Birken fell on the other side of the world. It wasn't until a few days later that the lord of Valley of Winds sent Birken back in a large box."