That jumpy little siren finally left the transport conduit after Shaqila coaxed and threatened her in equal measure. Before leaving, she still grabbed Doudou and examined her curiously for a long while. She had never seen such a tiny "member of her kind" in her life, so her worldview had probably taken a serious blow. Hao Ren knew nothing else, but he did know that this trip to Nathatone had given him a much deeper understanding of the Siren race...
Soon, they arrived at the Royal District in the center of Nathatone.
What appeared before Hao Ren was a cluster of buildings that had yet to be fully restored. This place had once held the Siren Queen's magnificent grand palace, but during the crisis several months ago, the palace had suffered massive damage from the aftermath of the battle between everyone and the brain monster. Most of the main structure had been razed to the ground, while the surrounding towers had largely collapsed in the explosions. Damage on such a scale could not be repaired in a short time. Besides, the sirens no longer had as much heavy machinery or the architectural technology of old. Thus, they had merely repaired the spaceship control facilities beneath the palace as much as possible, cleared away the ruins on the surface, and built several temporary structures atop them to serve as the queen's residence and government offices. Compared to the former palace, the few domed halls scattered across the open ground looked exceptionally shabby. Yet precisely because so many ruins had been cleared away, vast stretches of empty land remained. Those empty spaces had now become new gathering centers, with groups of sirens wandering everywhere. At last, Hao Ren saw several sirens maintaining human forms, and his eyes were spared further torment from