The City of Millions

Riding through the desert is kinda… plain and exciting at the same time. All the things you see are just sands, cactus, rock, and more sands.

However, sometimes there's a village along the way. They are really cool and beautiful, and not at all barren. The air felt fresh when we rode past any of them, it's weird considering the villagers possessed the power of Chaos. But of course, the contamination had been purified by one of the Light Musician's Sacred Artifact, which is the Kecapi, a strings instrument which played on a plank of woods, they sounded really sweet and calming.

Oh and just like in Kendang, the Kecapi played 24/7 to ward the Chaos contamination away.

By the way, have you heard about oasis? It's basically a fertile land connected to a body of water, ranging from pond to lake, or sometimes a river.

The Kaoma in the Kecapi province occupied every single one of them and build either a village or a city with it as the center.

As a Keeper, not only do they use the fertile land for agriculture and husbandry, they also need it to nurture their next generation.

But there is a huge difference between a city and a village aside from their size, which is walls. They don't wall villages since the Void never attacked them, unlike cities that are always under constant attack.

If I may be honest, Void participation in this war is like a way for nature to curl Kaoma's number from growing too rapidly. They breed too fast and easily, and the Taanji around them aren't hostile towards them.

Although the problem with letting the Void just devour the Kaoma is the power difference between the two. The Void doesn't come here as an apex predator who eats only to survive, they're here to conquer.

So if we just let them run rampage towards Kaoma's cities, they'll be overrun and driven out of existence. But the Guild doesn't know how to let the Void curl them without making them extinct yet, this resulted in us just continuously protecting them and letting their number continue to explode!

We really need a solution.

"Sweet Raven… seeing it up close, this city really living to its name, huh?" Chiya's face went rigid as we approached the Grand City of Tano Birong.

With 26 million inhabitants, it's a given that the Grand City would be giant. Though it didn't fail to amaze us seeing how we can't even see the north and south side of the wall altogether, while there's nothing to obstruct our vision in this vast desert.

"Governing this place must be hard… I can't begin to imagine how difficult it is the more fertile the province get, must be quite hellish, especially with the Void kept running rampant." My eyes were deeply fixated on the greatness of the city wall.

"Oh right, every city has its own mayor right?" Chiya asked.

"Yup, but the governor's office also resides in the Grand City," I answered.

"Governor?" Hazana got baited by curiosity.

The concept of governor has never been applied to both Selebes and the Cities Above the Cloud.

Every province in Selebes is owned by a tribe, so the ruler will be called according to the tribe itself, king for Genka (Fire), Ambawak (Earth), and Vhisawi (Toxic); Chieftain for Siska (Land Ice); and Mother for Sarma (Nature).

On the other hand, the whole Cities Above the Cloud is ruled by the elected Chairman of the Board, while the province of each tribe is ruled by a Chieftain just like Siska, though each of the Chief is a member of the Board.

"It is how you address the leader of the province. Well, Kendang hasn't yet owned one, since we only controlled over one province, and it's managed both by the King (my father) and the God of Death." I casually explained to her, as my eyes still wander around the desert.

"You'll see them when we arrived, Hazana," Anna assured her.

"Okay…" I didn't see her face, but her voice sounded hesitant.

When we arrived, we were presented by another humongous gate. This one is highly fortified, however, since the purpose is different than the one on the border. Back there it is used as a support for mage and archer to gain higher ground, while the one here is used to stop any kind of advance from entering the city.

It's even plated with holy diamonds and holy platinum, showing the intervention from Ambawak architectures. The gate is fully solid without a single slit or hole to make sure no projectile could ever harm the sheltering resident.

Although, I realized that the guards seemed to be a lot softer towards us than the ones at the border. As soon as Sir Asger's cart got quite close to the gate, they immediately opened it, without any question or hesitation.

I had a couple of theories running through my head, but I would rather not make any assumption that might put me in a difficult spot or hoping too high.

"Here we go!" The ashen lady excitedly shouted the moment we're entering the city gate.

Whoa, the atmosphere got drastically changed just by going through the line that separates what's inside and what's outside. And the first thing we felt with the first step with took was how crowded the city was with noises from all kinds of activities the residents were doing.

The floor was cemented with ceramics and on each side of the road were terraced stone houses, divided by tiny canals, carrying water from the center of the oasis.

The lawn of every house is fully made out of fertile soil that they took from the neighboring province. It was filled with all kinds of plants and even Kaoma plants. The entire city nonetheless, is extremely neat, without any dust or sand dirtying the streets or homes.

"Aren't we… taking too much space? No offense, Revian."

"None taken."

Chiya's right, the street is too small for our convoy. With how short the Kaoma is compared to us (they are half my height), their overall infrastructure naturally is a lot packed and smaller compared to us.

To be honest, if Revian walks on an empty road, it's probably won't be as much of a problem. But at the time, the street was really busy with all Kaoma walking around doing their business, some even rode camels to bring their whole luggage.

"Don't get separated with our escort, Revian. We don't know the rule and local of this place yet." I got a bit worried.

"Understood, Your Highness."