The Last King Of Darkness
Chapter 287 - 205: The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars

Chapter 287: Chapter 205: The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars

In the following days, Rod spent his time at the highest Military War Department.

Da Lin intentionally kept him by his side, allowing him to engage with the affairs of the Military War Department, and appointed Molly as his assistant to help him understand various matters.

Molly was very beautiful, tall, and curvaceous, but her face was serious and her expression cold. She wore a pair of gold-framed glasses, and her icy glare always made people instinctively step back.

She was extremely familiar with the affairs of the Military War Department and had a high level of expertise. With her help, Rod quickly understood the defensive system of Trolian.

This was also the first time he had seen a map of this world.

It was a huge black painting that covered the walls of the command center.

In the middle of the painting, there was a massive divide, the giant mountain range stretching thousands of miles, Trolian’s real umbrella—

Dead Ash Mountain Range.

The Royal City was located in a corner of the mountain range.

To the east of the Royal City, nearly eight hundred miles of the Red Soil Plain, was the core area controlled by the people of Trolian.

The small angle of the Dead Ash Mountain Range blocked the entire kingdom’s north and east sides.

And Trolian’s defensive ring, the arc-shaped defense line, blocked all threats from the south.

Molly told Rod,

"Both the north and east sides of Trolian are blocked, and the expansion to the south has reached its limit. Courage Fortress is the farthest point we have reached."

"Further expansion would be very costly, not only requiring the clearing of the Despair Swamp filled with evil creatures but also causing the defense line to leave the protection of the Dead Ash Mountain Range, increasing the defensive pressure on the east side."

Smack.

She struck the wall with a teaching stick, her exquisite appearance and serious expression making her resemble some kind of teacher.

"So, our only direction for expansion is to the west."

"Here, is where we are currently expanding, Star City."

"We have more than one-fifth of our forces gathered in the city, defending against external threats while also cleaning up the filth that has accumulated over thousands of years within the city."

Rod looked at the map and quickly understood the strategic intent of the Royal City.

Instead of expanding southward, it would be far less stressful for humans to expand westward along the mountain range.

However, even so, the human defense line had broken several times.

Expanding outward was an extremely difficult task; it would occupy a large amount of manpower, material resources, and combat power, making the entire defense line fragile.

This expansion coincided with the Dark Tide.

The Royal City was almost being roasted over a fire, with even the students still in the academy being mobilized, putting forth all their efforts to allocate combat power.

This also led to a considerable number of people within the Royal City opposing the expansion.

They believed that if the Royal City had not occupied Star City, the losses from this Dark Tide would not have been so severe.

Molly coldly said, "This is a very erroneous perception. Expansion is the only way out for humanity; to hunker down is to wait for death."

Curious, Rod asked, "Why?"

"In the past history, Trolian had encountered numerous disasters, several of which nearly led to Trolian’s total destruction, causing historical gaps in Trolian’s record."

"Those few disasters, we call them ’Great Extinctions."

"The cause of the Great Extinctions is still unknown to us today, but we deduce from certain clues that the Trolian of that era was much stronger than we are today."

"Such a powerful human realm still walked toward devastation; then what makes us think we could be spared?"

"We do not know when the next great extinction will arrive; all we can do is move forward at all costs, relentlessly forward."

Molly’s exquisite face showed no emotion, her voice consistently cold and unfluctuating, yet the fervor contained within it was unimaginable.

"We need to survive, and for that goal, we can pay any price."

Yet another dispatcher holding a basket of flowers held a contrary opinion.

"Then what is the meaning of such people living? Endless pain, endless torture, death without a sound."

Coolly, Molly said, "Living itself has no meaning, but by surviving, one can find interesting things, like you found this flower, like I found him."

The aloof female assistant pointed her slender finger at Rod.

Rod scratched his head, "Am I that interesting?"

"Yes."

The dispatcher arranged the basket of flowers, prepared for the upcoming celebration.

"Molly."

He said softly.

"I am envious of you."

Molly’s face showed no emotion as she pointed at the map and continued to speak.

"Thus, we need a bigger territory, more resources."

"The development of Trolian is constrained by resources. We need Sun Stones, Spirit Crystal Ore, more Fuel Elements and Firewood, more Fire Sparks. If we do not expand into the darkness, we will have none of these."

"This is not an invasion, we are merely reclaiming our heritage, our former home."

Her compelling speech earned a round of applause.

A short figure setting up ribbons shouted, "Molly, that was amazing, I love you!"

"I love you too! Let’s book a room at the tavern tonight!"

Molly adjusted her gold-rimmed glasses, and ignored them.

She then went into detail about the high-quality Sun Stone mines and Original Crystal mines hidden underneath Star City, as well as the items left behind by the predecessors of Trolian in the city.

According to historians, Star City had been lost for about six hundred years.

And based on the underground ruins, it was built even earlier, at least three thousand years ago.

The expedition team discovered some sacrificial altars of gods and marks of battles involving gods in the city, and the Royal City was preparing to send more personnel to explore.

After discussing Star City, Molly began lecturing on world geography.

Trolian has currently discovered four continents, with the Dead Ash Mountain Range as the dividing line; to the south lies the Gray Soil Continent, where Trolian is located.

To the north lies the Dead Soil Continent.

The Investigation Legion’s external exploration squad reached the end of the Dead Ash Mountain Range, and that land is known as the Ash Land.

In the far north, in the deeper darkness, there is a land covered in Cold Ice known as the Ice Soil Continent.

This is the world as Trolian’s humans currently know it.

What lies beyond this known world?

What horrors exist in such deep darkness?

These are questions without answers.

Rod couldn’t help but ask, "Is there really no other human outside of us?"

Molly indifferently replied, "Yes, we have found records in history’s fragments of our interactions with multiple Fire King Cities. The Trolian that built our Royal City during the Dark Epoch may not be the only human heroes."

"But in the vast darkness, such connections have long been severed. We are building a World Tower which will be able to listen to the world’s voices. Once it is completed, perhaps we will hear the voices of other surviving humans and find other Fire King Cities."

Rod couldn’t help but hold onto a glimmer of hope.

If there were other humans, wouldn’t their chances of survival greatly increase if they united together?

Next, Molly went into detail about the roles of the many departments and institutions in Trolian.

Only then did Rod realize how complex the composition of the Royal City was.

Just the combat organizations alone include three major legions (City Defense Legion, Conquest Legion, Investigation Legion), and six special legions (Night Watcher Legion, Knight Order, Calier’s covert troops, Hunter Group, Holy Church’s combat cult, Silver Oath’s Taboo Armament).

Besides these, there are several independent battle groups, such as the King’s Guards, the Spell Forbidden Guards (now destroyed), Holy Fire Defenders, and so forth.

The General Command Department has to consider all these forces and deploy them to various strategic locations in the most efficient manner possible.

This is an immensely complex task, which Jolevi Dalin, the current Defense Chief, has managed very well.

Therefore, Jolevi Dalin is also known as one of the four pillars of the Royal City.

But the work of the General Command Department involves more than this, encompassing the General Defense Department, General Equipment Department, General Logistics Department, and the General Headquarters, which manage everything related to combat, including logistics and manufacturing.

The Mechanical Research Institute, the Simans Workshop that produces a large amount of standardized equipment, the Byron Alchemy Pharmaceutical Workshop that concocts most of the potions, and so forth, also fall under their management.

Just listening, Rod felt dizzy, as it was truly not a task for ordinary people to understand.

Finally, Molly highlighted an organization known as the "White Tower."

In the Dark World, filled with various disasters, with the black tide being just one among countless others.

How to predict the occurrence of a disaster in order to prepare accordingly is a very important task.

This is precisely what the White Tower is responsible for.

The White Tower focuses on observing the Spirit Realm, predicting disasters in the material world through disturbances in the Spirit Realm.

Many disasters were discovered by the White Tower beforehand, sparing Trolian from significant losses.

The Observatory on the White Tower is tasked with observing the Sun Phase, Moon Phase, Star Phase, predicting weather, and handling the revision and forecasting of dates, among other vital tasks.

Many actions can only be decided after obtaining this information.

The Master of the White Tower, Meredith, and the Great Prophet Iyeta, are also one of the pillars of the Royal City.

After hearing all this, Rod couldn’t help but ask, "What exactly are our sun, moon, and stars?"

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