A young warrior—he looked very unsuited to this bloody place—staggered away from the battlefield. The young man wore armor made of iron plates and artificial leather, and two simple colored cloth strips hung from the seams of his shoulder pads, stained with blood flowing from his own face. The iron sword in his hand was bent and dull, and this inferior weapon had not brought him the slightest victory. The side he was on had completely fallen into a disadvantage in the melee, so the young man could only desperately escape before his own people were completely annihilated.

The soldier ran across a low wall at a street corner. In his panic, he didn't see what shadows were hidden beside the wall. A leg suddenly stretched out from the corner and tripped him solidly to the ground.

Hao Ren stepped forward and held the soldier down. He had been thinking all the way about how to make initial contact with the locals and introduce himself, but he never expected to be talking to one of them in this situation. It seemed that no careful plan could keep up with dramatic changes. The soldier was even more shocked after being pinned down. He thought he had fallen into an enemy ambush. He immediately tensed up, not daring to resist, and tried to raise his head to see who had captured him out of the corner of his eye. Then he saw a group of strangers in bizarre costumes. The young man gasped, "My lords... and ladies? I... I'm just a soldier..."

"Quiet, we know you're a soldier, and we have a lot of things to ask you," Hao Ren loosened his grip slightly, but used his eyes to tell the soldier not to resist violently. "Who are you people? Why are you fighting here?"

The soldier looked at the strangely dressed man in surprise, but terror made him dare not ask too many questions, so he honestly told what he knew: "The High Tower Kingdom and the Iron Citadel are fighting here for control of Gear Town. I'm just following orders and don't know any more."

As he spoke, he unconsciously used his hand to cover a piece of colored cloth hanging on his chest, as if he was worried that the camp he belonged to would bring him death. Hao Ren noticed this small action and casually asked, "Which side are you on? What's your name?"

"...High Tower Kingdom," the soldier said softly, "Willie, my name is Willie Mormont."

At this moment, Lily peeked out and shouted softly, "They seem to be finishing up... and they're coming this way!"

The two sides in the melee had already decided the winner. The warriors wearing the same markings as Willie were outnumbered and finally scattered in a panic, leaving behind a few corpses and a pool of blood. The soldiers who were their enemies—should be the warriors of the Iron Citadel—were divided into several groups. Some stayed on the scene to collect spoils, and some went to chase the fleeing enemies. Several tall and burly warriors ran towards this side, one of them shouting loudly, "This way! I just saw that little noble bastard run this way! That sissy can't run far, catching him is better than ten people!"

Hao Ren looked at Vivian helplessly: "Knock everyone down, but don't kill them. We're not here to cause destruction."

Saying that, he took the initiative to walk out of the shadows of the hiding wall, and the others followed closely behind.

The soldiers of the Iron Citadel were surprised to see several strangers in bizarre costumes suddenly popping up in front of them, but they soon discovered that these people had no armor on their bodies, so they concluded that they were a group of refugees who had luckily found an ancient storage cabinet. They immediately raised their weapons and rushed up with strange cries.

Vivian opened her hands to these people, and a powerful chill gathered around her. Large pieces of frost condensed out of thin air and swept towards the soldiers. Then Nangong Sanba also threw out the Leyta Rune, which exploded in the air, instantly seizing the enemy's mind and making it impossible for the soldiers to avoid the polar storm released by Vivian.

The warriors of the Iron Citadel were so frightened that their pants were wet when they saw a gust of frost coming towards them. Someone shouted in horror, "Ice Witch! They have an Ice Witch! Winter is coming..."

The soldier's shout stopped abruptly as huge hailstones knocked him unconscious. Vivian had deliberately weakened the power of her attack, otherwise she could have directly frozen these mortals into ice chips with ultra-low temperatures.

The soldiers of the Iron Citadel rushed over aggressively, but they all fell to the ground in an instant. This scene was seen by those who were dividing the spoils in the distance. They were stunned for a moment, then suddenly reacted and screamed and ran away into the distance, constantly shouting incomprehensible words like "Ice Witch" or "Winter." Nangong Sanba held the enchanted crossbow in his hand and gestured a few times to discuss with Hao Ren: "Knock them all down? I can guarantee to only shoot their legs."

Hao Ren waved his hand: "Let these people go back. Maybe after they report to their boss, we can meet the big shots of this place sooner."

He realized that the order in this Ark city had been subjected to some kind of devastating damage. The original spacecraft administrators and system maintenance personnel were probably gone, so to find the current ruler of this "world," he had to start planning from scratch.

The people fleeing ran very fast. Although they were wearing heavy steel plate armor, they disappeared at the end of the street in the blink of an eye. Soon, only Hao Ren and his group, as well as a group of Iron Citadel warriors covered in ice shards, were left on the scene. Oh, and also a stunned "High Tower Kingdom" soldier. Hao Ren turned to look at the soldier and asked curiously, "What does Ice Witch mean?"

Willie couldn't help but shudder when he heard this title. The way he looked at Hao Ren and the others now was as terrified as those Iron Citadel warriors when they were attacked by ice and snow: "The legends are true... the legends are true... You are the envoys of winter, you are the envoys of winter! You are going to freeze this world..."

Lily finally couldn't stand this timid fellow who had been shivering from the beginning. She slapped Willie on the head: "Winter your ass! We just saved your life!"

Nangong Wuyue whispered a reminder next to her: "In fact, we tripped him and held him down just now, otherwise this unlucky kid should have run away..."

Lily waved her hand: "Don't consider the details, and it was the landlord who stretched out his leg just now."

Hao Ren put his hand on Willie's shoulder to restore some spirit to this young soldier who was still in shock: "Relax, relax, I don't know what you mean by Ice Witch and Winter, but we are indeed not bad people."

"You know witchcraft..." Willie looked at Vivian warily and quietly moved two steps to the side, "But Grandma really didn't say that Ice Witches and Winter envoys would talk to people... Are you really not Winter envoys?"

Lily thought for a while and pulled out her flame claws in a flash: "Look, how warm! I can also use fire!"

Willie: "..."

"We are... outsiders, passing through here," Hao Ren said awkwardly with this excuse that no ghost would believe. Mentioning "outsiders" in a closed world only a hundred kilometers long was a very strange thing, but he really couldn't explain to this timid and ignorant young man what was outside the spaceship, "Do you know of any place here where we can rest our feet?"

"This is the territory of the Iron Citadel, and they might chop off the heads of all outsiders with axes," Willie put his feet together and swayed uneasily, "But if you can **** me back to my family's territory, I can act as your guarantor and get you a warm room in Hearthstone City. Provided that you don't stir up a blizzard in the city."

"Escort all the way in exchange for a place to stay, it's a good deal," Hao Ren shrugged indifferently, "Where is this Hearthstone City you're talking about?"

Willie pointed to a wide street in the distance: "Go to the end of Abundance Road, then walk along Kingdom Avenue for a while, and you can see the walls of Hearthstone City. But this road is the most recent but the most dangerous. Not only are there soldiers from the Iron Citadel, but you may also encounter marauders from Free City..."

Hao Ren was thinking about meeting as many people as possible, so he immediately nodded: "Oh, then let's take this road."

Willie: "Huh?"

"We'll take care of any trouble we encounter," Lily glanced at Willie, "You just need to lead the way."

Willie shrank his neck and nodded silently.

"Then what about these people here?" Nangong Sanba pointed to the unlucky guys on the ground who had been pelted with hailstones by Vivian, "This guy should be waking up soon."

The strongest Iron Citadel soldier groaned softly and was slowly waking up from his coma. Seeing this, Willie immediately stepped forward and used the hilt of his sword to knock the soldier unconscious again, then bent down and tore off the piece of cloth depicting the camp emblem from the other party's breastplate. Then he tore off a few pieces of cloth from the nearby Iron Citadel soldiers.

"What are you doing?" Hao Ren asked curiously.

"Take their emblems back," Willie's face flushed red, "...to hand in."

Vivian sneered: "But in reality, you just ran away."

"Forget it, it's his own business," Hao Ren waved his hand indifferently and turned to Willie, "We will keep this secret for you. Now, take us to see the more powerful people in this place."