Crossing the final sand dune, which resembled the spine of a dead, silent beast, the true face of the Ancient Kingdom of Roran finally crashed into view.
This was hardly a city at all; rather, it resembled a festering metal tumor. Countless brass pipes of varying thicknesses crawled up the outer walls of the towers like blood vessels, and black columns of smoke gushed out from the forest of chimneys, staining the desert's originally crystal-clear blue sky a sickly, emphysematous grey-yellow.
Huge gears were exposed on the surfaces of the buildings; some were spinning idly, while others emitted a teeth-gritting screeching friction, on the verge of collapsing at any moment.
Naruto opened his mouth wide like a country bumpkin who had never seen the world, though his gaze actually swept across those suspended corridors that defied the laws of mechanics like an X-ray.
The load-bearing pillars bear uneven stress, the pipe layout is entirely dead ends, and the thermal energy loss rate is visually estimated to exceed 40%, Naruto lowered his volume, entering "Chief Engineer Mode" at a pitch only Sasuke could hear. This is like an apprentice who just learned to draw blueprints, forcibly welding a bunch of scrap metal together. If this were placed in Konoha, it would count as a serious illegal construction, and the fines would bankrupt you.
Sasuke was wrapped in that moldy-smelling rag, and the single eye exposed to the outside was filled with utter disgust.
As an elite of the Uchiha clan, his aesthetic sense had always been on point. The nouveau riche-style piling-up sensation before his eyes gave him physiological discomfort.
"Even less tasteful than Orochimaru's laboratory," Sasuke coldly spat out a venomous evaluation. "That fellow named Anrokuzan probably still has an aesthetic sense stuck at the protozoan stage."
The convoy drove