Luo Fan had Black Bird circle over Fuyuan City for a while, in no hurry to land.
Instead, he surveyed the ground from above.
An enormous checkpoint stretched across the edge of Fuyuan City, completely separating the Eastern Japanese survivors' settlement from the heartland of the Seven Cities Territory.
Earth Sequence Users and Craftsman Sequence Users had built this checkpoint together. It stood over ten meters high, with thick walls and faint Uncanny Artifact patterns flowing across their surfaces.
Hundreds of Sequence Alliance staff guarded the checkpoint, both atop the walls and below.
Luo Fan did not land right away, instead having Black Bird fly almost another half circle.
From the air, everything outside the checkpoint lay in plain view.
To call it a scene of utter devastation was no exaggeration.
Most of the makeshift huts and tents the Eastern Japanese survivors had built had collapsed, leaving charred timber and torn canvas scattered across the ground.
Dried blood was everywhere, its dark red patches glaring against the gray-white ruins.
Many bodies lay strewn about as well. Some had already begun to rot, and several scavenging birds that had flown in from who knew where perched beside them, pecking at the flesh.
A few figures occasionally moved among the shattered walls, their movements sluggish, like wandering ghosts.
They were the surviving Eastern Japanese women, hiding in the gaps between collapsed buildings, afraid to come out.
After a general look around, Luo Fan patted Black Bird's head.
Black Bird drew in its wings slightly and swooped toward the checkpoint.
Luo Fan jumped off its back. Black Bird shrank to the size of a crow and landed on his shoulder, tilting its head as it preened its wind-ruffled feathers with its beak.
"Greetings, Councilor Luo Fan!"
A man who looked to be in