Shadow Slave novel Chapter 797

On a cold winter morning, two people were making their way through the black slush that drowned a rundown street, piling high near the dirty walls of the cheap panel buildings that clung to each other, as if for warmth. The loud sound of their steps echoed in the dim twilight, making it seem as if a monster was chewing on rotten flesh.

Nephis glanced at the dirt covering her expensive boots, then smelled the air and grimaced. Adjusting the collar of her white coat, she then glanced at Sunny and asked:

"Why are we here, exactly?"

He shoved his hands into his pockets and shrugged.

"Weren't you told to submerge yourself into how mundane humans live? Well, here we are. This is life, too."

He gestured at the ugly landscape that surrounded them and sighed.

After several years... Sunny was back in the outskirts.

'Brings back memories…'

In the aftermath of the collapse of old humanity, ravages of war and natural cataclysms made most of the planet uninhabitable. To exist in relative safety, people had to congregate in large cities like the one he had grown up in… the Northern Quadrant Siege Capital. Everywhere else was either drowned underwater or looked like a desert.

Of course, life persisted. Some trees and plants were still clinging to life. Large mammals mostly went extinct, but a few species of animals and insects had managed to adapt. However, the damage to most ecosystems was too severe. The earth turned barren, the water turned poisonous, and even the air itself was not safe to breathe anymore.

Luckily, humans had technology to help them survive. The city incorporated sophisticated water filtration systems, food distribution infrastructure and other means of keeping the population alive. It was surrounded by tall barrier walls that prevented excessive microdust, various toxins, stray remnants of weaponized bacteria, harmful radiation, and other hazards from getting into the air supply.

Sunny did not know much about how the barriers worked, but they were sufficiently effective in keeping the city in a bubble of breathable air. Of course, each district also possessed its own additional means of purifying the air even further.

The problem, however… was that the barriers were stationary, while the city was not. The human population across the planet had dropped, but here in NQSC, it was slowly growing. As a result, the city grew, too. It stretched further and further, both into the sky and underground. Of course, it also sprawled horizontally. Eventually, the city had outgrown the circle of barriers.

Hence, the outskirts appeared.

Although there were new barrier walls in construction, their completion required vast amounts of funding, human resources, and even more time. The colossal, skeletal frames of unfinished barriers had loomed above the outskirts for as long as Sunny could remember, unfinished. With what he knew now, he doubted that they would ever be completed at all.

In any case, whole generations of people like him had already lived and died outside their protection. The air in the outskirts might not have been as bad as in the desolate wilderness beyond, but it was far from safe. Those who breathed it every day did not tend to enjoy good health or long lives.

It reeked.

Breathing in the familiar stench, Sunny struggled not to follow Neph's example and grimace. He had been accustomed to the smell for most of his life and never paid it much attention, but just a few years of sweet life in the Dream Realm and in the better parts of the city made it seem rather intense.