Akhirnya, kereta itu memperlambat lajunya saat mendekati jembatan.
Yang tampak tepat di depan adalah gerbang kolosal. Itu pada dasarnya adalah terowongan besar yang dibelah langsung menembus Tembok Besar, yang kini membentang jauh ke dalam kota pusat, efektif menutup separuh pertama lingkaran pertahanan.
Sebelum melewati bayangan gerbang itu, Li memandang keluar jendela untuk terakhir kalinya.
Di sebelah kirinya, istana kerajaan menjulang menembus awan. Itulah pusat kekuasaan mutlak, jantung berdetak yang telah merombak dunia tempatnya tumbuh dengan kekerasan. Di sebelah kanannya, memudar ke dalam kejauhan yang berkabut, terletak perimeter Selatan. Rumahnya... Titik persis di Tembok tempat ia akan kembali dalam dua hari.
Ia hanya akan pergi selama sedikit lebih dari satu hari.
Namun, sensasi hampa yang aneh merayap di perutnya. Ini adalah pertama kalinya ia benar-benar meninggalkan kotanya. Ini adalah pertama kalinya ia melintasi ambang batas masuk ke Yino, alih-alih hanya menatap siluetnya yang jauh dari parapet.
Kereta itu melaju masuk ke dalam terowongan.
Ia duduk dengan rasa pusing yang aneh sejenak, menatap retakan yang sangat dalam. Itu juga perasaan melintasi perbatasan yang tadinya hanya berupa garis imajiner di atas peta, hanya untuk menyadari bahwa itu adalah tempat yang sangat nyata.
Li menyeberangi jembatan besar sepanjang beberapa kilometer yang membentang di atas jurang pemisah, secara resmi memasuki Yino.
Kesan pertamanya saat keluar dari gerbang cermin itu ternyata cukup positif.
Zona perbatasan langsung, yang secara historis dulunya merupakan pos pemeriksaan militer yang tegang dan dijaga ketat di mana dua kekuatan saingan saling memelototi dengan kecurigaan terbuka, telah berubah total. Tempat itu kini menjadi bazar yang meledak-ledak dan kacau, yang khusus didedikasikan untuk memperdagangkan bahan-bahan lokal Yino.
Keluarga-keluarga yang hancur lebur selama era kristalisasi yang mengerikan, garis keturunan yang kehilangan setiap Tamer tingkat Silver dan Gold yang mereka miliki akibat tragedi itu, akhirnya mulai pulih.
Mereka berjalan di pasar dengan bangga, diapit oleh generasi baru Tamer tingkat Gold. Mereka adalah anak-anak muda yang menerima garis keselamatan persis seperti yang dilemparkan Ren ke Yano. Mereka bahkan menggunakan metode spora yang sama, menerima dukungan finansial yang sama, dan menaiki tangga melelahkan yang sama hingga naik ke tingkat Gold.
Mereka tidak membanggakan bahkan sepertiga dari total kekuatan militer yang dikomandoi Yano. Tapi itu sudah cukup...
Itu lebih dari cukup bagi sebagian besar keluarga Yino yang selamat untuk akhirnya hidup dengan nyaman. Sebuah kenyataan yang akan terdengar seperti dongeng naif beberapa tahun lalu.
Namun, saat kereta mendesak maju melewati pasar yang sibuk dan merangsek lebih jauh ke dalam wilayah itu, ilusi kemakmuran tersebut hancur berkeping-keping. Kontras antara kedua kota itu menjadi begitu menyesakkan.
Semakin jauh Li bepergian dari jembatan, dunia pun menjadi semakin kosong.
Separuh bagian kedua Yino adalah kota mati. Tempat itu praktis ditinggalkan.
Kondisinya tampak jauh lebih buruk daripada daerah kumuh Goldcrest di masa lalu. Tempat itu tampak lebih buruk daripada pinggiran kota yang sangat miskin tempat Li kecil dulu pernah kelaparan.
Barisan demi barisan rumah kosong menatap balik ke arahnya lewat jendela-jendela yang menganga. Seluruh jalan raya terbengkalai, terkubur di bawah lapisan tebal debu yang tak tersentuh. Itulah kesunyian mutlak dari tempat yang dulunya menampung ribuan detak jantung, kini merosot menjadi ketiadaan.
Secara logis, Li tahu hal itu memang bisa diduga. Yino telah kehilangan persentase populasi yang sangat mencengangkan akibat kristalisasi. Para penyintas secara alami telah mundur ke dalam, melarikan diri ke arah jembatan, berkelompok di dekat Yano demi ilusi keamanan. Mereka telah meninggalkan distrik-distrik terpencil secara permanen karena sekadar kekurangan tenaga manusia untuk mempertahankan atau menghuninya.
Bahkan dengan mengetahui sejarahnya, menyaksikannya secara langsung tetaplah pukulan telak.
Satu hal membaca laporan yang menyatakan Yino setengah kosong. Itu adalah pengalaman yang sama sekali berbeda untuk menaiki kereta melintasi jalan-jalan mati selama bermil-mil, merasakan beratnya beban menghimpit dari semua ruang terlantar tersebut.
Separuh dari kota besar, secara permanen merosot menjadi kenangan busuk tentang dirinya sendiri.
♢♢♢♢
Li akhirnya mencapai perimeter pertahanan.
Batu Tembok di sisi Yino memiliki tekstur yang berbeda, lapuk oleh angin laut dan ditambal dengan bahan-bahan yang tidak familiar. Berjalan di sepanjang parapet yang lebar, misi pertama yang ditemuinya adalah Min.
Min sudah memimpin sebagian besar garnisun yang cukup disegani yang ditempatkan di sisi perbatasan ini. Ia bukan seorang jenderal seperti Ren. Ia tidak memikul seluruh wilayah di pundaknya, tetapi ia memegang pos solid berperingkat tinggi yang diperoleh sepenuhnya atas usahanya sendiri. Ia adalah salah satu dari sedikit Tamer dual-contract terkuat yang sesungguhnya di kota itu. Dan tidak seperti Ren, Min tidak repot-repot menyembunyikan nama asli atau kekuatannya saat pertama kali mendaftar.
Sifatnya yang tidak bisa diam dan suka melucu justru menjadi bumerang baginya di awal.
Para prajurit garis depan yang keras kepala itu sama sekali tidak tahu cara menghormati seorang komandan yang menertawakan hampir segala hal dan tampak pada dasarnya tidak mampu menganggap serius protokol militer.
Tetapi kurangnya kedisiplinan itu bertahan persis sampai hari mereka melihatnya bertarung.
Saat Min mengaktifkan fusi miliknya, melepaskan aura mentah dan tak tersaring dari seorang anak ajaib dual-contract di seluruh halaman, bisikan-bisikan itu langsung berhenti. Setelah melihatnya dengan santai melumpuhkan ancaman berkekuatan tinggi tanpa mengeluarkan banyak keringat, tidak ada satu pun prajurit rendahan yang berani mempertanyakan perintahnya lagi.
Belakangan, para pasukan bahkan sangat berterima kasih atas sikap santainya itu. Mereka menyadari bahwa seorang pria yang memegang kekuatan mengerikan semacam itu yang dikombinasikan dengan temperamen yang kaku dan tak kenal ampun akan menjadi mimpi buruk mutlak untuk dijadikan atasan. Humor konstan Min adalah katup pelepas yang aneh dan sangat dibutuhkan bagi seluruh sektor pelindung kota mati tersebut.
Min melihat Li mendekat dan menyambutnya dengan senyum lebar yang tulus.
Mereka langsung masuk ke ritme obrolan yang santai, bersandar pada tembok pembatas batu dan saling melempar lelucon tentang Ren. Itu adalah obrolan akrab dua sahabat lama yang bekerja sama untuk mengolok-olok orang ketiga. Min benar-benar kehabisan napas karena tertawa ketika Li menceritakan julukan "Jenderal Mulia" yang beredar di Yano. Ia terus mengulanginya di sela-sela ledakan tawa, menyeka air mata dari sudut matanya.
Sebagai gantinya, Min membagikan beberapa cerita konyol versinya sendiri. Ia berbicara tentang para rekrutan baru yang tidak tahu apa-apa, giliran jaga malam yang membosankan, dan kehidupan sehari-hari yang biasa dari seorang Tamer tingkat tinggi yang jauh lebih memilih melempar lelucon ketimbang mengintimidasi bawahannya.
Untuk sesaat, berdiri di tepi tembok Yino, tidak ada apa pun selain gelak tawa.
♢♢♢♢
Ketika Li akhirnya menyebutkan bahwa ia harus segera berangkat, Min mentah-mentah menolak membiarkannya pergi.
Finally, the carriage slowed as it approached the bridge.
Looming directly ahead was a colossal gate. It was essentially a massive tunnel carved straight through the Great Wall, which now extended deep into the central city, effectively closing off the first half of the defensive circle.
Before passing through the shadow of the gate, Li looked out the windows one last time.
To his left, the royal castle pierced the clouds. It was the absolute seat of power, the beating heart that had violently reordered the world he grew up in. To his right, fading into the hazy distance, lay the Southern perimeter. His home... The exact spot on the Wall he would return to in two days.
He was only going to be gone for a little over one day.
Yet, a strange, hollow sensation settled in his stomach. This was the very first time he was actually leaving his city. It was the first time he was crossing the threshold into Yino, rather than just staring at its distant silhouette from the parapets.
The carriage rolled forward into the tunnel.
He sat with that weird vertigo for a moment looking at the insanely deep rift. It was also the feeling of crossing a border that had always just been an imaginary line drawn on a map, only to realize it was a very real place.
Li crossed the massive, multi-kilometer bridge spanning the divide, officially entering Yino.
His initial impression upon exiting the mirrored gate was surprisingly positive.
The immediate border zone, which historically had been a tense, heavily armed military checkpoint where two rival powers stared each other down with open suspicion, had completely transformed. It was now an explosive, chaotic bazaar specifically dedicated to trading local Yino materials.
Families that had been absolutely decimated during the horrific crystallization era, bloodlines that had lost every single Silver and Gold Tamer they possessed to the tragedy, were finally healing.
They walked the market proudly flanked by a brand-new generation of Gold Tamers. These were young kids who had received the exact same lifeline Ren had tossed to Yano. They even used the same Spore method, received the same financial backing, and climbed the same grueling ladder up to the Gold tier.
They didn’t boast even a third of the total military numbers Yano commanded. But it was enough...
It was more than enough for the vast majority of Yino’s surviving families to finally live comfortably. A reality that would have sounded like a naive fairy tale just some years ago.
However, as the carriage pushed past the bustling market and ventured deeper into the territory, the illusion of prosperity shattered. The contrast between the two cities became suffocating.
The further Li traveled from the bridge, the emptier the world became.
The second half of Yino was a ghost town. It was practically abandoned.
It looked infinitely worse than the Goldcrest slums of the old days. It looked worse than the dirt-poor outskirts where Li himself had starved as a child.
Row after row of hollow houses stared back at him with empty windows. Entire avenues lay untouched, buried under thick layers of unbroken dust. It was the absolute silence of a place that used to hold thousands of beating hearts, now reduced to nothing.
Logically, Li knew it was to be expected. Yino had lost a staggering percentage of its population to the crystallization. The survivors had naturally retreated inward, fleeing toward the bridge, clustering near Yano for the illusion of safety. They had permanently abandoned the remote districts that simply lacked the manpower to defend or populate.
Even knowing the history, witnessing it firsthand was a heavy blow.
It was one thing to read a report stating Yino was half-empty. It was an entirely different experience to ride a carriage through miles of dead streets, feeling the crushing weight of all that abandoned space.
Half of a massive city, permanently reduced to a rotting memory of itself.
♢♢♢♢
Li finally reached the defensive perimeter.
The stone of the Wall on Yino’s side had a different texture to it, weathered by the ocean winds and patched with unfamiliar materials. Walking along the wide parapets, the first mission he ran into was Min.
Min was already commanding a highly respectable fraction of the garrison stationed on this side of the divide. He wasn’t a General like Ren. He didn’t have the entire territory resting on his shoulders, but he held a solid, high-ranking post earned entirely on his own merit. He was one of the few true strongest dual-contract Tamers in the city. And unlike Ren, Min hadn’t bothered to hide his real name or his power when he first enlisted.
His irrepressible, joking nature had actually worked against him in the beginning.
The grizzled frontline soldiers simply didn’t know how to respect a commander who laughed at practically everything and seemed fundamentally incapable of taking military protocol seriously.
But that lack of discipline lasted exactly up until the day they watched him fight.
The moment Min engaged his fusion, unleashing the raw, unfiltered aura of a dual-contract prodigy across the courtyard, the whispering stopped. After seeing him casually dismantle a high-numbers threat while barely breaking a sweat, not a single grunt ever dared to question his orders again.
Lately, the troops had even grown deeply thankful for his laid-back attitude. They realized that a man wielding that kind of terrifying power combined with a strict, unforgiving temperament would have been an absolute nightmare to serve under. Min’s constant humor was a bizarre, much-needed relief valve for the entire ghost-town-protecting sector.
Min spotted Li approaching and greeted him with a wide, genuine grin.
They immediately fell into an easy rhythm, leaning against the stone crenellations and swapping jokes about Ren. It was the comfortable banter of two old friends teaming up to mock a third. Min absolutely lost his breath laughing when Li told him about the "Glorious General" nickname circulating in Yano. He kept repeating it between bursts of laughter, wiping a tear from his eye.
In exchange, Min shared a few absurd stories of his own. He talked about clueless rookies, boring night shifts, and the mundane daily life of a high-tier Tamer who vastly preferred cracking a joke over intimidating his subordinates.
For a little while, standing on the edge of the Yino wall, there was nothing but laughter.
♢♢♢♢
When Li finally mentioned he needed to get moving, Min flat-out refused to let him go.
"Leaving already? Absolutely not," Min said. He threw a heavy, familiar arm around Li’s shoulders, entirely ignoring personal space. "You literally just got here. Look around. Take a really good look. Do you see a siege happening? Any emergencies? I don’t see a thing..."
Min gestured broadly toward the plains below. The perimeter was completely, eerily dead.
"We haven’t had a genuine attack in weeks," Min continued, thoroughly pleased with his own argument. "Ren’s wooden towers do absolutely all the heavy lifting now. He planted those things months ago, they grew on their own, and now they just swallow the few stray mutants dumb enough to wander out of the tree line. At this point, my prestigious position as a frontline commander consists entirely of watching those giant weeds grow."
He chuckled, taking a sip from a canteen.
"The other day, I watched one of those towers snap a Gold 1 mutant right in half. I didn’t even fuse. I just yelled ’bon appétit’ from the balcony and went back to drinking my tea."
Li shifted his weight, glancing down the wall. "Even so, I really don’t think I should be taking up so much of your important time to..."
"Oh, come on... Since you’re twisting my arm, I’ll escort you over to see Taro!" Min was already physically dragging Li toward the nearest guard post. "He’s stationed close by. Joking around with him for a bit isn’t going to hurt the defense, and I’ll have you on a carriage back home before sunset tomorrow. You have my word as a commander."
Li rolled his eyes. "Your word as a commander is completely worthless, Min... You literally told me every other commander says so!"
"They are all just deeply jealous of my management style." Min flashed a bright smile. "Let’s go!"
Komentar Chapter (0)
Login buat ikut berkomentar.
Belum ada komentar di chapter ini. Jadi yang pertama!