Strolling Through the Forbidden Zone (Part 2)

  Yellow sand swirled on the ground, frost and snow eg the sky.

  What inally appeared to be a rugged and wild off-road modified vehiow seemed as gentle and quiet as a ragdoll cat in the cold wind and sandstorm of the outer world.

  Nuo Mi expertly drove the vehicle. There were no traffic rules ier world, and one might not enter a living creature even after driving hundreds of kilometers. Rather than driving cautiously, it was better to rely on the vehicle's performaep on the gas, and forcefully break through the yers of frost and sand.

  Li Aozzi put down some supplies and repced them with fuel to increase the vehicle's weight, preventing it from being blown away by strong winds.

  There was no fear of flipping over; ier world, the vehicle was mainly on cold, pacted sand, and with a suspension system, there was little worry about flipping. But based on Li Aozzi's years of experience, if the vehicle doesn't flip, it will likely be lifted by the storm.

  Supplies take up spaside the vehicle, so it's better to repce them with fuel to add weight, and the remaining fuel barrels could be traded for other items. Even if not hey could be made into indiary bombs.

  Ier world, unless part of a voy, it's usually not advisable to use headlights to avoid attrag bandits and mutated beasts.

  However, Nuo Mi had good eyesight. People who could drive ier wenerally had night vision parable to that of beasts. As a guerril of the Rose Army, she had certainly undergone special training.

  Additionally, the bination of sandy and icy mud made driving very fuel-intensive.

  Li Aozzi had heard a joke from meic pyers: The Four Nations' tanks couldn't move in the muddy terrain of the outer world due to insuffit horsepower, often being paralyzed and requiring new armored vehicles for rapid marches ier world.

  This led to the development of mechs and powered exoskeletons.

  Later, due to the inefficy of humanoid mechs—too little defense area, low efficy, and proo flipping over—the chassis was made lower.

  But then the head of the humanoid mech became too spicuous, proo being shot.

  So, the cockpit was moved from the head to the chest, aually, the head was repced with a monitor.

  It was found that humanoid feet weren't as effective as air cushions, so the tact area was increased, turning it into a structure like a hovercraft.

  The resulting thing was a tank with arms and air cushio, dubbed mobile armor.

  Though much uglier, it could indeed repce tanks for operations ier world.

  Later, after some wars broke out among the Four Nations, it was found that this thing could only repce tanks and couldn't solve the infantry's armored vehicle problem. The vehicles still got paralyzed in the snow.

  This led to mobile armor charging ahead, but infantry couldn't keep up for cover, causing their armored units to be blown up by enemy anti-tank teams.

  Eventually, they started using hovercraft for infantry too.

  But the hovercraft's armor was insuffit and got hit by enemy artillery.

  So, they stacked ons and armor on the hovercraft, but the power wasn't enough, so they increased the fuel tank size. The rger fuel ta less space for infantry, allowing only four people to drive.

  The result was infantry chasing tanks, and tanks chasing mobile armor—a bizarre sight.

  Of course, this was just a joke among meics, those tech-savvy guys often came up with heavy industry jokes, like whether a robot's child would be fathered by C++ or Java, and calling an 8000-derby online scam a practical application of social engineering—leaving Li Aozzi with the impression that they were all average idiots.

  Li Aozzi sat in the passenger seat, his feet on the dashboard, half-squinting, his thoughts drifting.

  The outer world was very b.

  The dance of frost and sandstorms, spectacur and magnifit at first gnce, became monotonous and dull wheually wahrough it.

  The epic se of id fire praised by poets was a deep-seated suffering for the people of the outer world.

  The outer world was devoid of life.

  In the back seat, Miss Qiu Ran curiously looked at the sery outside the car. It was very dark, and she could only see lightning fshiween the red-bck clouds.

  "So there's no sun outside..."

  She said regretfully.

  Li Aozzi guessed correctly. Qiu Ran was from Frost, but her background was even poorer than his.

  Acc to her, she had lived and grown up in a remote scrap metal recyg station in the tryside, never haviered the city for over ten years. If it weren't for being diagnosed as an ied person and being relocated te for treatment, she would never have seen the vast world.

  "Of course not, try bumpkin!"

  Nuo Mi snorted:

  "Hundreds of years ago, the sun's rays were blocked by those red-bck cursed clouds. The people of the Four Nations maintained small artificial suns using nuclear fusion teology, geing Walden particles to create barriers made of particle ttices to block the outer world's storms and frost—although I don't uand the teical terms, basically, every town in the Four Nations has a nuclear fusioor underh."

  "You don't know Walden?"

  Li Aozzi g Nuo Mi: "It was taught in vocational school: Dr. Walden was a nuclear physicist of the old era. His Walden hemisphere teology ged the ndscape of warfare. It allowed the miniaturization of nuclear fusion, deployable on armored units, pletely altering the warfare ndscape."

  "Not to mention, there's a small reactor uhe refuge that run on a small amount of uranium fuel rods."

  "So verbose! I didn't go to school. Anyway, one day we'll kick the Four Nations' asses! Those reactors will be ours!"

  Nuo Mi impatiently patted the steering wheel:

  "If it weren't for the blockade of the Four Nations, even without the sun, humans wouldn't be uo survive."

  Qiu Ran curiously asked: "Isn't there no energy material ier world? Without the sun, hoeople survive?"

  "Then how do you think the White Fang gang and those settlements survive?"

  Nuo Mi retorted.

  "Um... I don't know." Qiu Ran leaned against the window, tinuing to watch the distant sery.

  "Well, it's not that the outer world has no resources at all."

  Li Aozzi thought for a moment and said:

  "But having resources doesn't mean having the ability to develop them—oil has always existed underground, but it wasn't discovered until long after entering the industrial age. In fact, the outer world is much rger thaerritories of the Four Nations; 70% of the p's area belongs to the outer world."

  He took some time to expin to Qiu Ran:

  Due to the sun's rays being absorbed and blocked by the red-bck cursed clouds, the earth couldn't absorb and reflect the sun's heat, leading to a general temperature lower than the high-altitude clouds.

  The temperature differeween the earth and the sky created desperate winds, which carried away surface moisture. Without the vital sunlight, pnts died, causing the soil to lose its windbreak and sand-fixing foundation, leading to rapid erosion.

  Despite the heavy snowfall, the cold temperatures prevented melting, and even if you dug through the sand, the deeper yers were just cold ground.

  They had long been frozen solid by the cold, and only diamond drill bits could dig and struct.

  But even if artificial rivers and reservoirs were dug, without sunlight and warmth, how could you cultivate aquatic ecosystems? How could you farm the nd? How could you feed people?

  Without a popution, there 't be enough bor to develop industry. Without industry, you 't extraderground resources.

  Only a very few areas with developed geothermal energy, leeward locations, and pces where soil erosion is trolled, such as areas near mountains and valleys, or around voloes, could have rge poputions.

  "But the Four Nations are different. After the war that ended all wars in the old era, they found that apart from war, everything else had ended. Small tries perished, and the Four Nations became the absolute giants of the blue p."

  Li Aozzi ged the topic:

  "Acc to the history of the Four Nations: Before the cursed clouds enveloped the sky, they already had a lot of nuclear power pnts, o resources, and wind power pnts. Their industrial facilities were plete, agricultural resources abundant, and their military strength was the best in the world. Even with fewer people, relying on nuclear energy naturally attracted a rge influx of people."

  To prevent another world war over energy, the Four Nations calmed down this time.

  They trolled the bulk of energy through the GTB, the Global Trade Bank formed by the Four Nations.

  People from the Four Nations could easily get energy loans from the GTB to develop immigrant cities outside. They raised artificial suns and hemispherical barriers.

  But other small tries and autonomous city-states of the outer world would find it "a bit" difficult.

  The bank could use various excuses to block small tries' energy loan applications, f them to buy overpriced oil, natural gas, electricity, and iron from the Four Nations.

  Li Aozzi mentioned his previous life try's—Arnca Kingdom.

  Arnca was a vassal state of the Red Arrow Empire. The two tries shared nguage and ey, but the people were different, a result of cultural and eic ization by the Red Arrow Empire.

  The small try of Arnca, sitting on uranium mines, had to sell them to the neighb Red Arrow Empire at a low price of 200 Derbies per ton in exge for political, defense, aricity support—the Empire could have just taken it, but they gave a little money. It really made him cry.

  Li Aozzi didn't tradict this, as the Arnca Kingdom was ihe luckiest small try, backed by the Red Arrow Empire. They had resources and just had to ftter the emperor to gaih.

  Arnca, with its bootlig stance, had bee a dominant force among the surrounding small tries.

  Meanwhile, Tianhuan's slogan was "Leave the nd, not the people," which was somewhat inappropriate for children. Li Aozzi didn't dare say more.

  With the capital provided by the GTB, the poputiohe ey developed, and various enterprises, factories, and services were created, improving people's living standards, further promoting popution growth.

  However, the increased popution alsht pressure on employment, survival, and the enviro.

  To develop and trahese tradis, the focus turo the vast outer world.

  Thus, the people of the Four Nations, who were ued by the cold wind and sandstorms, explored outside. With sunlight and energy, they built factories, established farms, and excavated the outer world's mineral resources, causing more severe damage to the mountains and soil.

  The destru of minerals greatly tributed to the geological damage. In the relentless meical stru, the already eroded nd became even weaker.

  The outer world people could only watch their homend being blown away by the wind.

  Li Aozzi described this in a light-hearted tone.

  Uhe brilliance of each hemispherical city y the buried corpses of the outer world people.

  But the Four Nations weren't pletely heartless and only knew how to plunder.

  "Damn it!"

  Nuo Mi suddenly cursed, stomping on the brakes three times and stopping the car steadily. Li Aozzi immediately pulled up his face mask and jumped out of the vehicle.

  As soon as he opehe car door, even with the mask, a strange, pu smell hit his face.

  Li Aozzi frowned, holding the car door, his mind rag.

  "What happened..." Qiu Ran groggily got out of the car, shielding her eyes, peeking ahead.

  Fag the se in front of them, they hardly dared to breathe.

  Over 800 meters away, they saw a steaming ke, with a faint e glow shimmeriween the red-bd pale sky.