After the Alchemy Main City sealed itself off, the refugees who had fled here from unknown places outside the city were driven into despair.
A group of refugees ran toward the city gates. The few at the front had barely reached them before crashing into the iron gates that were closing.
Some pounded desperately on the gate, their fists striking the iron surface with dull thuds before being covered by more fists and palms.
Some rammed it with their shoulders, some threw their bodies against it, and amid the pounding, voices drifted through in broken fragments:
"Open the gate! Please, open the gate! Let us in!"
The iron gates did not stop. They continued closing, shutting completely amid the unceasing impacts.
At that moment, the refugees outside the city lost all hope.
They had been abandoned.
The pounding outside continued for a while, then quickly became sparse before gradually falling silent, leaving only a faint rustling sound.
It was the sound of grayish-white mist flowing past the base of the city walls, a soft and ceaseless current.
No one on the inner side of the walls spoke. They already knew the fate of the refugees outside.
But their abilities were limited. All they could do was stand at their assigned positions, hands pressed against the wall or the edges of their robes, feeling the faint vibrations of the formation patterns continuously flowing through the walls.
The grayish-white mist had already reached the base of the walls.
It flowed along the foot of the walls. When it came into contact with the silvery-white membrane of light, fine ripples appeared across the membrane's surface as it resisted the erosion.
The membrane did not break, nor did the mist seep through.
It merely flowed slowly along the membrane's surface, like a surging layer