45: Chapter 45 An 800-meter-tall steel behemoth! Lin Wan's hometown has arrived.

The Polaris traveled westward for twenty minutes.

Lu Chen was using a tactical telescope to scan the terrain ahead, searching for a Mutant Beast habitat.

A faint tremor vibrated through the floor beneath his feet.

This tremor was completely different from the vibrations caused by the vehicle's own movement; its frequency was lower, more muffled, and it was being transmitted from deep within the ice layer.

Lu Chen's foot pressed down on the brake pedal.

"City Lord?"

Lin Wan had also noticed this unusual vibration from the cultivation area. She stood up, bracing herself against the edge of a Cultivation Box.

"An earthquake?"

"Not an earthquake."

Lu Chen lowered the telescope and looked up toward the distant horizon.

The sound arrived.

A low-frequency, muffled roar, bordering on infrasound, came rolling in from due west of the Polaris.

That sound was more resonant than the howling winds of an Extreme Cold Ice Storm, and deeper than the engine roar of the Winter Trade Alliance's lv.3 fortress.

The ice layer beneath the floor resonated, and the rivets on the cabin walls trembled slightly.

Even the hot water flowing through the heating pipes developed visible ripples against the pipe walls.

Lu Chen brought the Polaris to a halt.

The engine shifted to idle; he needed to eliminate the interference of his own noise to judge the direction of the sound source.

Rumble, rumble, rumble.

Lu Chen raised his telescope, adjusted the magnification to maximum, and aimed it at the western horizon.

He saw it. Where the grayish-white sky met the pale ice plains, a black line was slowly emerging.

An ice hill? A mountain ridge? Storm clouds? None of them.

It was a wall.

A moving, giant wall of black steel, whose height and width far exceeded the limits of his vision.

"What is that?"

Lin Wan leaned against the porthole, her naked eye now able to see the growing black silhouette on the horizon.

Lu Chen didn't answer.

His fingers spun the telescope's focus wheel rapidly, trying to capture more detail.

As the behemoth approached, details were clearly outlined through the lenses.

The first thing to come into view was the chassis.

Dozens of treads? Hundreds? It was impossible to count.

In the telescope's field of vision, the densely packed heavy tread units were too numerous to tally, each one at least twice as wide as the entire body of the Polaris.

As the treads rolled over the ice, they crushed the meters-thick ice layer into powder, leaving behind a deep trench a hundred meters wide.

Then came the city walls.

The black steel walls were nearly a hundred meters high, at least three times taller than the walls of the Winter Trade Alliance's lv.3 fortress.

The wall surfaces were covered in the rugged marks of the industrial age; rivets as thick as bowls were arranged in neat rows, each rivet head the size of an adult's head.

The walls were coated in thick anti-rust paint, which was in turn covered by a layer of ice crystal dust, emitting a dull metallic luster under the pale sky.

A ring of gear-shaped battlements topped the walls, and between the battlements, numerous turrets could be seen.

A dozen? Dozens? Far more than that.

Lu Chen took a rough scan; on the single side of the wall within his view, there were at least a hundred cannons of various calibers.

From twin-mounted rapid-fire guns to triple-mounted heavy main cannons, and even several exceptionally large super-heavy batteries with barrels wide enough for a small vehicle to drive through.

Above the walls, dozens of industrial chimneys pierced the sky, spewing black smoke that gathered in the upper atmosphere into a dark cloud that blotted out the sun.

The bases of those chimneys were wrapped in steam pipes and cable bundles, along with countless skywalks and suspension bridges connecting the endless clusters of buildings inside the walls.

On the front of this Mobile City hung a massive, all-encompassing flag.

On the flag was a black rock totem, with fiery red lava patterns surging through the cracks of the rock, manifesting an indestructible power.

Black Rock City-State.

"System." Lu Chen's voice went hoarse for a moment as he summoned the holographic panel in his mind.

"Scan the target. Report its level and specifications."

[Ding! High-dimensional long-range scan initiated.]

[Target Identification: Black Rock City-State Main City.]

[Mobile City Level: Lv.4 City-State Class Large Mobile City.]

[Estimated Dimensions: Total length exceeds 800 meters, total width exceeds 400 meters, maximum building height approximately 150 meters (including chimneys).]

[Estimated Permanent Population: 30,000 to 50,000 people.]

[Armament Overview: Hundreds of wall-mounted artillery arrays, including several heavy main cannons. Powered by a City-State Class Sourcefire Engine. Calculated total power is dozens of times that of a lv.3 fortress Class.]

[Threat Level: Overwhelmingly crushing.]

Lu Chen lowered his telescope.

Total length over eight hundred meters, total width over four hundred meters.

The chassis width of the Winter Trade Alliance's lv.3 fortress Class Mobile City was equivalent to a football field—just over a hundred meters.

The width of the Lv.4 City-State Class Mobile City before him was more than four times that of the fortress, and its area was more than sixteen times larger.

In front of it, the Polaris wasn't even worth a grain of sand.

"City Lord, what is that?"

Lin Wan's voice came from behind him, her tone already changed.

She too had seen the giant wall of steel approaching.

Lu Chen stared at the slowly approaching behemoth, his Adam's apple bobbing.

"Black Rock City-State," Lu Chen said. "A Lv.4 City-State Class Mobile City."

Lin Wan held onto the edge of the porthole, motionless.

Her eyes were wide and round, her lips moved twice, but she couldn't find her voice for a long time.

Lin Wan's hands began to shake. It wasn't from fear; she had recognized the totem on that flag.

"That is... that is..."

"Your hometown."

Lu Chen finished her sentence for her.