Chapter 1: The Ghost City

The Beiming Continent spans tens of thousands of miles, and countless resources provide the foundation for the survival of billions of people in the entire continent, while also bringing survival danger to billions of people.

After tens of thousands of years of development, the Beiming Continent is divided into five regions: the Eastern Regions, the Western Regions, the Southern Regions, the Northern Regions, and the Central Regions.

To this day, except for the most chaotic Northern Regions, which has not completed the unification, the other four major regions have established powerful empires that have been immortal for thousands of years. Compared to the stable order within the four empires, the Northern Regions still belong to the era of war. Because of the competition for resources, countless people die on the battlefield every year, and the war spreads to various places in the northern region, and some areas with frequent fighting are even called "burial grounds".

Nearly half of the northern region has been devastated by years of war, and countless people are living in water and fire, and hunger and oppression are everywhere. Many people not only have no guarantee of their own safety, but also have problems with their basic livelihood. It's just that living in an era of war, the weak have no choice but to become a tool used by those in power to fight for power and profit.

There are seven large principalities in the North, each of which is thousands of years old or more. Between the Seven Duchies, there were hundreds of lesser principalities of varying sizes, each of which either depended on the Seven Duchies or existed independently. Because of the dissatisfaction with the scarcity of their own territory and resources, many principalities have been at war with each other, and they can fight for years, more than ten years, or even longer.

For thousands of years, on the borders of the two countries, where wars were particularly frequent, the inability of the belligerents to sustain the wars led to the creation of many towns in those places. And those cities have one thing in common, they are all so-called borderless cities, as the name suggests, borderless cities are not subject to the regulations of any country.

When the number of borderless cities increases indefinitely, it forms a Chaos Lord, blocking the two countries that were at war, keeping the two countries at war at peace. There will be a Chaos Lords at the borders between many principalities throughout the Northern Regions, and for many people who are unable to protect themselves, the Chaos Lords are an extremely chaotic but relatively safe place.

Since the emergence of some Lords of Chaos, the uncontrolled rapid development of those places has been the sight of many countries. However, after hundreds of millennia of war, it is rare for a Duchy to use their armies to attack the Lords of Chaos, as countless times have proved to be a thankless task.

Even if some countries can forcibly unify the Lords of Chaos by force for a period of time, they will eventually be snatched away by the opposing countries, so that control of the Lords of Chaos is constantly shifting between the belligerents. Therefore, since there is no guarantee of dominance over the Lords of Chaos, many countries simply give up the competition for the Lords of Chaos in the end, and instead regard the Lords of Chaos as their best borders.

Judging from the development of countless years, because of the relative independence of the Lords of Chaos, the existence of the Lords of Chaos is beneficial and harmless for many principalities. And unlike the four empires that are recuperating, many of the principalities in the Northern Regions are in the stage of development and growth, and even if they have enough strength, they still will not easily move their troops, and various factors have caused some Lords of Chaos to continue to grow and develop.

Sadly, though, even without a threat from the surrounding countries, the Lords of Chaos are still known for their perennial chaos. Whether it's a struggle for power between cities, or a struggle for power between the major forces within a city, it is not easy for anyone to live a peaceful life in the realm of chaos. However, as long as you keep in mind the two rules of survival in the Beiming Continent, "fear the strong and rely on the strong", anyone can get relative stability in the chaos.

There are many well-known Chaos Lords throughout the Northern Regions, each of which is composed of dozens of connected cities, and in terms of overall strength, even a medium-sized duchy with a population of tens of millions can be compared.

Of course, in the Realm of Chaos, the borderless cities will only care about their own interests, and will not be easily united. Since ancient times, chaos has been indispensable in those places, and security is relatively existent, and the more cities that make up the realm of chaos, the more obvious the two situations become.

For thousands of years, there is a chaotic realm at the junction of Youzhou and Bingzhou in the northern part of the Northern Regions, which is very famous, first, there are more cities in that place, and second, the strength of the cities in that place is generally very strong. It is worth mentioning that those cities are still closely connected with each other, and it can be said that although the order is chaotic, the order of chaos can be found.

There has always been a saying in the northern part of the Northern Regions, "The Rebellion of Beiling is as chaotic as the world," and this saying refers to the border between Youzhou and Bingzhou "Beiling".

There are hundreds of large and small towns in Beiling, of which there are 19 large towns, 26 medium-sized towns, and the rest are all small towns. With a total number of more than 10 million, the overall strength can be compared to that of a medium-sized principality. You know, the average medium-sized principality has a population of around 10 million.

Known as a Chaos Lord, the smallest towns that make up Northridge have a population of over 100,000. Among the dozens of small towns in Beiling, there are many unique cities, among which the small secluded city is the most prominent. As a microcosm of the entire Northridge and the various Chaos Lords, the Little Hidden City has always been unique.

There are 100,000 people in the small secluded city, and the whole city is dozens of miles away. Because of its geographical location close to the center of Northridge, Xiaoyoucheng is still a relatively developed area of commerce and trade. Merchants and tourists in the city come and go frequently, and there are many outsiders stationed there, and it has always been very lively. As a microcosm of the situation of many ownerless cities, the characteristics of the small ghost city are naturally more than this.

Since the completion of the formation of the small ghost city, for hundreds of years, every citizen of the city has been bred and raised in the martial arts culture, so there has always been a saying about the small ghost city, "There are 100,000 people in the dark city, and the old and young are good soldiers." This means that the people of Youcheng, regardless of men, women, and children, are good at using weapons.

In the entire Beiming Continent, political affairs aside, Xi Wudang is the most important thing for everyone from life to death. Because one of the two survival principles of the Beiming Continent is to fear the strong, the so-called fear of the strong can also be understood as only by becoming a strong person can he be feared.

And if you want to become a strong person, you must practice martial arts, and those who practice martial arts in the Beiming Continent are called "martial arts cultivation", and martial arts cultivation naturally has high and low strength. It is generally divided into nine levels, from the first order to the ninth order, and the higher you go, the stronger you are.

Martial arts practice martial arts is to practice qi, usually the second-order martial arts can swing a sword to cut off a foot of bluewood, the fourth-order martial arts can break a foot of bluestone, the sixth-order martial arts can swing a sword into qi and cut off a foot of bluestone in the air, the eighth-order martial arts can palm the sword, swing the palm into qi, break a foot of greenwood, break a foot of bluestone, effortlessly, and the bluewood and bluestone are the basic basis for measuring the strength of martial arts. It is worth mentioning that the ninth-order martial cultivators above the eighth-order martial cultivators are all legendary powerhouses, and in a place like Xiaoyoucheng, where even seventh-order martial artists are extremely rare, there is no ninth-order martial artist at all.

In a small place like the Hidden City, in addition to the people in the past, generally fifth-order martial cultivators can be called masters in the city, usually second-order and third-order martial cultivators. The reason why the ghost city is more special is that there is no city lord who rules the whole city, and the order in the city has always been the responsibility of the four major families in the city.

The four major families are the Lin family in the east of the city, the Li family in the west of the city, the Zhou family in the south of the city, and the Wu family in the north of the city, the four families have been inherited for hundreds of years, of course, compared with the history of the Beiming Continent, hundreds of years of time are just a snap of the fingers, not worth mentioning.

For hundreds of years, the four major families have been independent of each other, and the struggle for power and profit has never stopped, but on the surface they have always been peaceful, as if they intended to do it for the people of other cities.

Since no family could control the order in the city alone, the prosperity of the area in the city was far less than that of the respective jurisdictions of the four major families. Surprisingly, although the location in the city is not as prosperous as other locations, it is undoubtedly the most talked about place in the whole city, because there is an underground black market there. The underground black market has existed since the time when the city grew from a small town to a city, and it is now hundreds of years old.

The underground black market was not created by the local forces of the Ghost City, but it was the trading center of the Ghost City, and the daily trading volume there was very considerable. As the four major forces in the ghost city, the four major families have long regarded black market trading as one of their main sources of income.

Regarding the situation of the separation of power among the four major families, the person in charge of the black market once gave a condition, as long as the four major families can send a representative, the two sides can further cooperate, and both parties can get more benefits at that time. However, this condition has been opened for hundreds of years but has not been realized, because the four major families have never been able to reach an agreement on the distribution of benefits.