From its founding to the present, the UHC had been reduced to only nine member states.
The overall balance of power among the nine nations was roughly divided into two superpowers, one major power, and six weaker states.
The two superpowers were naturally the Beixing Nation and the Solloma Empire. The major power was the Duchy of Xisiya, while the remaining six were all small countries.
The strengths of these six small nations also varied greatly. For instance, the Yingqi Nation had once been fairly prosperous, but the Earthquake Rule forced the entire country to relocate and broke its backbone. After the rulers led by the Yuze Family were purged, it declined completely.
By now, the nation retained only two cities, and its armed forces consisted solely of the Security Department that maintained street order. Managing itself properly was already an achievement.
As for the third Exploration Experiment into Scarlet Terra that was about to begin, following Solloma and Beixing in terms of national strength, it should have been conducted in Xisiya, the "one major power." Yet the UHC had chosen Lurui instead.
As one of the six small nations, Lurui had the strongest overall national power among them.
The proposal to build a Super City, previously put forward by the six small nations at a UHC meeting, had been led by the Lu Rui Country.
Although this nation's technological level was not particularly advanced, its people were united and its population was large. It had not suffered any crippling losses during the previous Apocalypse Rules.
Especially during the Earthquake Rule, the Lu Rui Country had been far from the epicenter and suffered relatively fewer population losses. It still had nearly ten million people. Among them were hundreds of thousands of Ascendants, who formed the backbone and foundation of the