Chains of factories were perfectly disposed, every piece of land available was put in use. This trend created a landscape full of colossal steely construct that looked very robust with a high point that blows clouds of thick black smoke in the atmosphere.As he was going through West Highway, Fell"s face grew continually brighter due to the soft light coming from bulbs built in the road. He stepped on West Highway"s ground with an unhurried but determined pace; his measured footsteps left a deep m.u.f.fled sound as he advanced on the asphalt. A mult.i.tude of shadows followed his steps due to the many bulbs on the ground.
Only three hours had pa.s.sed since he began his journey, his earlier curiosity died down when Fell noticed the lack of change in his surroundings. He would have never expected that when trying to go to the Main District, he would have to pa.s.s from this sickening place.
His mental health was starting to degrade, seeing the same factories repeatedly left him with a bad taste in his mouth. And the fact that he didn"t get to meet a single soul since the beginning of his travel aggravated his feeling.
Fell was really affected by the fact that his surroundings didn"t change at all. He felt like he wasn"t making progress towards his objective. He was going forward with determined steps, but to his mind, it felt like he hadn"t moved from the beginning. Fell was starting to ponder on his sanity as this made him think something wasn"t normal.
He encountered neither vehicles nor pedestrians on his road, making him feel as if he was the only living being in this no man"s land.
At some point, he noticed movement in a factory that was on his left. Interested to finally see what the human beings outside of the Slums looked like, he rushed to the other side of the road hoping to get a better view.
Fell was genuinely eager to see what people outside the slums were like. Aside from his recent encounter with Anzar, He had never seen an outsider of the slums in his lifetime. For all he knew, they could be entirely different, physically and mentally. Maybe Anzar was just a guy with average strength, but to the slums, he was ridiculously strong.
Fell had so many hypotheses in his mind that were cycling in his mind, one after the other, but he was sure of nothing.
As Fell kept getting closer to the movements he noticed, he focused his eyesight on the distance; he managed to get a glimpse of what looked like a group of workers.
They were in the middle of their labor; he could see them lift metal boxes and transport them inside a truck.
Struck by curiosity, he jumped from the Highway falling twenty meters from the ground. He landed softly on the surface; his fall didn"t produce any sound. Fell used his body"s inherent softness to reduce the impact his fall would have created, making him completely weightless.
He dashed for a few hundred meters in the direction of the factory, closing the distance in a moment he met a wall of steel wire on his road.
He leaped over the barricade, crossing it in a simple motion before stopping in his tracks. He felt changes in his surroundings; his senses notified him that he wasn"t alone.
He calmed his jittery nerves while slowing down to an empty stop. As he approached the building, his breathing cycles unceasingly lengthened. He instinctively reduced his presence while trying to calm himself, as it was his first time sneaking somewhere ever since he became a cultivator.
He swiftly suppressed his presence before advancing in his path, moving unnoticed through security checks. His feet produced no sound whatsoever, they were like feathers sweeping the ground effortlessly. Fell was left surprised by the degree of automation in the security. There were no humans taking care of it; no guard was present anywhere.
"I could swear I felt movement around me, but I don"t feel any heat in my surroundings," He thought while sneaking through the last security pa.s.s, in front of his eyes was the main building of the factory.
He stopped in his track and hid behind a wall. His reaction was due to what his eyesight perceived, a group of androids were currently progressing through the entrance of the factory.
"Who would have thought I would meet Androids here! It"s already worth the detour, how can they move so smoothly with steel as their bone and wire as their veins?" he pondered still hidden from their eyesight.
He waited for them to enter through the factory before leaving his cover, he crossed the distance between the main building and him in the blink of an eye and stopped in front of the entrance.
He lifted his head in the direction of the sky, his pupils contracted and a sigh escaped from his lips. From the top of the factory, a billowing torrent of smoke was coughed out by a humongous chimney. The smoke tainted the atmosphere black, polluting it with its filthy and hazardous composition.
Here darkness was prevalent, but it was quite odd. At an hour where the sun should be at its highest, there was not a single ray of light that reached the ground. The sun couldn"t pierce through the veil of toxicity formed by the thousands of factories.
He sneaked near the entrance; he checked if someone was close by and barged inside as soon as he cleared any doubt. As he stepped in, he felt a cold sensation on his neck; a shiver went through his body as he instantly took out his weapon from his Spatial Pocket.
Fell"s nerves tensed up, his back arched like a cat. Staying in that position for a few breaths, a drop of sweat appeared near his temple. It slid down his face before hitting the ground, taking Fell out of his focused state.
"What was that? I felt as if I was being scanned…" he mumbled with a blank look, Fell was trying to deduce what that sensation might have been.
He brushed the unpleasant feeling and resumed his advance, in front of him was a large hall. The walls and floor were made of a strange alloy; they were very smooth and clean. Not a single speck of dust or stain appeared in this hall.
Fell took the only way possible, a large pa.s.sageway that led him straight to the heart of the building. His steps echoed in the dimly lighted hall. Ever since he had that feeling, Fell"s heart was full of unease; his perception was fully projected outward, ready to react to any situation.
Tensed up, Fell swiftly advanced in his path, tension followed his steps. Finally, he saw the end of it and entered a s.p.a.cious room.
The room was circular and in the middle of it was an escalator, it was made of a solid material that looked similar to crystal.
Looking around and noticing that it was the only way around, he stepped in the elevator and pushed the b.u.t.ton.
"Do all factories have underground structures?", he thought while feeling himself move downward, "I will definitely discover what is going on here!".