The day after the Sixteenth Apocalypse Rule was released, the UHC held its latest remote conference.
Unlike before, this meeting had not been proposed by the three major powers, but by several smaller nations.
The purpose of the meeting was to discuss a proposal drafted by the officials of several countries after consultation, which they hoped would pass within the UHC.
The proposal concerned Tianshui Star's current situation.
Across Tianshui Star's vast lands, sprawling solar panels and other solar energy facilities had replaced the signs of human habitation.
As the world's population steadily declined, the concentration of people became increasingly apparent.
During the first year after the Apocalypse Rules were released, every country still had people living in rural areas. Now, with just over a month remaining until the two-year mark, nearly ninety-nine percent of villages and small cities of all kinds had been abandoned.
In countries that still maintained their governments, the population had gathered in only a few major cities.
Some UHC member states had even reached the point where their entire national population was concentrated in one or two cities.
This had not been intentional, but unavoidable.
Once the population became too low, even a huge city could barely function normally. Filling it with vast numbers of intelligent robots could not reverse that trend.
If this continued, then after several more Survival Rules that reduced the population appeared, these small nations would face complete collapse.
How miserable were people whose nations had fallen? The more than one hundred countries that had vanished over the past two years had already set an example.
Many citizens of fallen nations had become mercenaries and formed wilderness groups. Some had joined other countries as refugees, but none were better off than before.
Under such circumstances, several small nations were unwilling to