"Is heaven ninefold high? Perhaps Upper City is one of its tiers. Of the thirty-nine Lower Cities, who can borrow the Azure Cloud Ladder?"
This short poem, widely circulated throughout the Blessed Nation, described precisely the simple feelings its people held toward Upper City.
The Blessed Nation was a nation blessed by heaven, and Upper City was where the upper class lived.
The most prosperous city stood upon the back of a giant turtle, circling the nation's borders on its rounds. Those who lived in the Lower Cities could only crane their necks to gaze at it twice a year. Of course they wanted to climb up there, wanted to become people above others. But there had never been many paths into Upper City. The competition for the position of City Lord in every major city was fierce beyond measure.
Many years ago, Upper City had also been a boy's dream.
Today, he had trampled Upper City beneath his feet.
These shattered walls and ruined ramparts, the dead and wounded among the ruling class—all were exactly as he had wished in his heart when he first left this country.
But was that really enough?
A mother lost her son, a younger brother lost his elder brother, the most gifted among them were strangled in their cradles... What, exactly, had caused the tragedies they suffered today?
He searched through all the history books, yet found no record of it. That stretch of history had been deliberately erased.
The turtle beast carrying Baxia's bloodline seemed to have appeared in this country out of nowhere, then been inexplicably controlled by the Blessed Court and inexplicably made into the Guardian Holy Beast.
And just like that, the "heaven" of the Heaven-Blessed Nation became a sacred turtle-shaped totem.
Many years ago, this place had originally