As a vital transportation hub, the enormous steel platform was busy and overcrowded. All kinds of machinery and locomotive engines and carriages awaiting assembly were piled everywhere, and even the crooked tin shacks for the administrators along the platform's edge looked as though they might be squeezed off at any moment. Hurrying workers ran back and forth among the equipment, preparing for the next departure or repairing machinery ravaged by magic-energy radiation. Almost no one had the leisure to pay attention to the uninvited guests who had suddenly appeared on the platform—several thick-necked supervisors stood on the control tower, and no act of slacking escaped their eyes. Compared with the wages that bought them food after a day's work, a group of oddly dressed strangers who had suddenly appeared was nothing worth noticing.
Under Wendell's guidance, Hao Ren and the others crossed the busy, chaotic platform and headed toward the administrator's tin shack not far away. A boiler undergoing repairs rumbled nearby, while the pungent smell of machine oil spread through the air along with the blare of steam, making Lily sneeze continuously all the way. Twilight City had left Husky Girl with an extremely poor first impression. The stench here was pure torture to her.
In the end, she had no choice but to put the life-support collar back on. She had taken the thing off after entering the Twilight Barrier.
"Every ten hours, two locomotives depart at the same time, heading from here to the extraction sites in the wilderness." Wendell pointed toward the rugged steam locomotives. "They take out a batch of numb miners and bring back a batch of miners exhausted to the point of collapse, along with freshly dug ore. The ore is then sent to the Great Forge, where it's turned into construction and