Regardless of the details, Hao Ren and his group of unwelcome outsiders had caused massive chaos in Twilight City—and sometimes, "chaos" was a necessary means of solving a problem. To reach the deepest part of the city, verify one of Vivian's guesses, and figure out how Twilight City functioned, Hao Ren needed a bit of chaos to gather all the trouble onto the upper district's main platform.
The ear-piercing sirens continued to wail without pause. More and more Twilight Guards answered the call and arrived in the upper district. From the perspective of the defense force's commander, the incident had taken a bizarre and utterly incomprehensible turn, with the entire situation gradually slipping out of control. The supreme commanders had racked their brains but could not understand why such a powerful force of disorder had suddenly appeared in the city—and why this force was entangled with a Light Seeker who had just returned from the Dark Wilderness.
For many years, the city had maintained a fairly peaceful state. There had always been one problem or another—resource shortages, equipment failures, mining accidents, and, at its worst, even a localized fire in the main boiler—but no matter what happened, the problems were at least clear-cut, and the experts and scholars could always quickly find the root cause. This time, however, the force of disorder that had suddenly appeared in the city was completely inexplicable.
They could not find out where the intruders had come from, and there had been no warning whatsoever.
Most of the tracks and platforms in the upper district were already under martial law. The two enormous gear assemblies in the middle and upper levels of Twilight City emitted a heavy rumble, while huge columns of steam burst from within them, gradually slowing the entire mechanism. The main boiler