Xiang City, downtown.
The statue of the first Consul stood majestically in the center of the square. Looking up from below, its raised right hand, clutching a flag, seemed capable of touching the sky. Its interior had been hollowed out during construction and fitted with a spiral escalator. At the top was a tiny room of less than five square meters, with two windows positioned exactly where the statue's eyes would be. From them, one could overlook all of Xiang City and even see the winding coastline at the city's edge.
White Crow pushed open the window, allowing the biting wind from five hundred meters above the ground to flood the room. Her snow-white hair and trench coat whipped through the air, making an odd rustling sound.
Behind the mask covered in golden vine patterns, her originally brown eyes gradually spread into distant silver-white. Her gaze lowered calmly and indifferently, and the city's map unfolded flat across her vision. The forms of humans, birds, beasts, insects, and fish became sharply visible, recorded in an instant into a memory archive spanning hundreds of millions of years, becoming part of a vast ocean of information.
The Federation government's officials had long since retreated under the Church of the Scales' frenzied offensive. The battered city swiftly regained order under religious propaganda and militarized administration. After their initial panic, the populace recovered their precious numbness and resumed their lives of waiting for death as always. After all, no matter who was pressing down on them from above, life could hardly get any worse.
Still, if they understood the miserable state of cities beyond the Church of the Scales' jurisdiction, they would surely thank the gods for the stability of their lives at this very moment. Supplies had once become scarce due to the Federation's