Final Battle for Gangsas (2)

Hovering several hundred meters in the air, Zuo Yi looked down at Quade Port ahead.

Quade was the capital of Gangsas, its largest city, and its political, economic, and cultural center. At its most glorious, it had over five million residents, and its prosperity had once ranked among the top three on the Fisen Continent.

But that had been twenty years ago.

In the eighties and nineties of the last century, the abundant oil and gas reserves newly discovered in Gangsas had brought the country prosperity and wealth. Before it had even escaped poverty and war, Gangsas had ambitiously invested heavily in Quade's infrastructure, intending to turn it into a modern major port city.

Quade thus entered a decade of explosive growth. Skyscrapers rose one after another, more and more oceangoing freighters appeared in its harbor, and its economy and trade flourished. Its GDP growth was so rapid that it was called the "Quade Miracle."

Yet that miracle had been mercilessly destroyed by war at the dawn of the new century. With the fall of the coalition government, the eastern and western factions of Gangsas had fought each other to a standstill, with no victor even now.

Quade, the prosperous and wealthy capital with the most important political status, became a sacrifice of the war. The Eastern Liberation Organization representing eastern Gangsas and the Western Alliance of western Gangsas fought bitterly for Quade, not only displacing millions of civilians and turning them into refugees, but also reducing the city to vast ruins.

Along the long coastline, broken walls and shattered structures lay everywhere. Decaying ruins stretched deep into the continent's interior. Though pedestrians and speeding vehicles could still be seen on some streets, the scars the prolonged war had inflicted upon the city were so immense that they could not