The war between Ao City and Hope City was a tremendous upheaval for the mobile cities that had already settled into stability. The suddenly rising Hope City emerged into the world with a formidable power that did not fit into the norm of the entire apocalypse.
Faced with a Hope City that possessed such power, all the other mobile cities had already begun to carefully devise strategies and schemes. A single mobile city in the current apocalypse was already equivalent to a nation. Nations could cooperate with each other, yet were rarely compatible, because no matter how vast a mobile city’s size was, it was still limited.
Under such circumstances, wanting to gather enough power to resist Hope City was impossible to achieve in a short time. Even though they very much wanted to actively think of ways, they were simply powerless. In the face of absolute strength, any resistance was completely useless.
Although Ao City was heavily rejected because of the actions of the Former Emperor, the Former Emperor had already died at the hands of the New Emperor. Quite a number of mobile cities would seize this chance to send envoys to inquire about the details of the war. Yet the more they learned, the more terrified they became. Why would such a monster appear in the apocalypse? Was having the Nightmare Beast seeds not enough?
All the mobile cities were trembling in fear. In front of a city that possessed such enormous power, as long as they wished, they could attack any mobile city at will.
The mobile cities that had previously launched the war almost wanted to run off immediately, yet these cities still obediently stayed stationed in their original places, not daring to make any move.
Because they discovered that there was an unknown entity circling around them all this time. That thing would make footstep sounds to intimidate them. If they made any rash moves, they would be threatened by that entity. The cities even watched helplessly as that invisible monster tore away huge sections of their city’s defenses.
They were so close to the Nightmare Beast Forest, and were being watched over by some unknown beast. One after another, they were frightened to the extreme.
In this fear, these few cities that had once obeyed Ao City’s orders sent envoys to Hope City, negotiating treaties of surrender, begging to be let go, or else pleading for protection. Under this pressure, the city lords were nearly on the verge of collapse.
And when He Fang received the news brought by the envoys of these mobile cities, he too was stunned. An unknown monster?
At this moment, he suddenly remembered that the Rainbow Squad’s Xiao Lan, who had been brought along earlier to go to Ao City, was still wandering outside. Because he hadn’t seen Xiao Lan for so long, He Fang had forgotten about this matter altogether.
Through Zhu Yan’s search, they found Xiao Lan’s current whereabouts. Xiao Lan had completely marked these few mobile cities as cities that could pose a threat to Hope City and had been guarding them all this time. Since Xiao Lan’s charging pole lamp post was not in Hope City or Angel City, whenever he was free, he would go to Xiao Qing and Xiao Lu to leech some electricity. So far, there had never been any problem.
At first, He Fang had thought these mobile cities were simply resting and recuperating for a short while around them, so he hadn’t paid any attention to them. He hadn’t expected it to turn out to be a misunderstanding.
He Fang agreed to let them go. In the short term, he would not take in any more mobile cities. He Fang had always liked to play games steadily and surely. Expanding this excessively in such a short time was already his limit. He needed at least some time to recuperate and build up strength.
The few mobile cities also seemed not to have expected that He Fang would let them go so easily. They were quite astonished, and the other side even said that if they wanted to stay, they could also stay and develop. They could request protection from Hope City. As long as they paid a certain amount of tax every year, they could choose a nearby area they liked to develop in. Hope City would provide them with land that would not be parasitized by Nightmare Beast seeds.
This instantly dumbfounded the people from those few mobile cities.
Land that would not be parasitized by Nightmare Beast seeds?
He Fang knew that these few envoys were all staring wide-eyed in shock. But since He Fang now knew that his own city had the power to protect itself and would not be easily taken over by other cities, he could start offering everyone a way to avoid being invaded by the Nightmare Beast seeds.
At first, He Fang had thought about using the faith in the Divine Lord, letting everyone believe in the Divine Lord. But faith was something far too mystical. It would be hard to change in a short time, so He Fang could instead offer “land protected by the Divine Lord”. Hope City would call this the Holy Land. The place where the Holy Land was located would allow mobile cities to settle down and no longer need to wander and toil.
He Fang did not proclaim this widely, but wanted to first see if it could succeed. In truth, this was a rather despicable method.
He Fang installed all the Nightmare Beast Seed Blockers together on a single piece of land, then used the Divine Lord to perform a blessing. This plot of land then became land that could be leased. Mobile cities could live there. This way, He Fang would gain an additional area where he could communicate steadily with mobile cities. And since they did not belong under his command, he did not need to manage them.
In other words, he directly established “neighboring nations” that could be controlled and managed.
For He Fang, this was a trial run, but for the other mobile cities, it was practically the arrival of a new era. For mobile cities that had always drifted about in hardship, a piece of land free from invasion was exactly the holy land they had dreamed of for so long. They could have more time to farm and raise livestock, could have more time to develop, and could even look for stable veins of ore, and so on.
This was simply a dreamlike place, but it was precisely because it was so dreamlike that everyone still hesitated greatly. The reason was very simple: “leasing the land”.
Leasing land was understandable, but it was also equivalent to handing over their city’s future life entirely to Hope City. True, they could develop right there on the spot, but if they grew stronger and stronger, until they were deeply rooted and unable to leave, what would happen if Hope City suddenly wanted to reclaim the land? What if they suddenly raised the land lease fees? This whole series of detailed problems was simply an enormous, hard-to-choose crossroads.
On one side was the gamble of becoming Hope City’s neighboring nation. They could live in comfort and develop rapidly. On the other side was returning once more to a life of drifting hardship. Although it was tough, at least it was free.
For mobile cities, this was an extremely difficult choice.
This matter was not something that could be decided so easily. Everyone was very cautious and sent envoys back and forth many times to negotiate, wanting to probe deeper into Hope City’s City lord’s thoughts.
This matter could not be achieved overnight. It would require much longer negotiations. He Fang, however, was not in a hurry. These few mobile cities had been under Ao City’s command and were now also defeated by Hope City, so before they made their decision, He Fang extended his money-making claws toward these cities.
Cultural development was about to begin.
Because the envoys were coming and going so frequently, He Fang sent the already-trained terminal merchants along with them. The terminal merchants brought countless terminals and resources to those cities and, with complete openness, directly carried out terminal sales right inside the cities.
And this move immediately stirred up an enormous wave in these few cities.
They were all people born in the apocalypse, but they possessed a higher level of technology and broader knowledge. They knew what movies were, what TV dramas were, they also knew what songs were, what literary works were, and what games were. But all these forms of entertainment were things the lowest-level people simply could not enjoy.
It wasn’t that they weren’t allowed to enjoy them. It was because there were no resources.
There simply weren’t enough resources to give them the chance to enjoy this kind of spiritual nourishment. In their spare time, the things they could do were extremely limited.
Because the ordinary people inside mobile cities had been heavily dumbed down, for the sake of a mobile city’s stability, He Fang naturally would not export things that were too complicated or that would provoke deep thinking, so he chose things the “public” could easily accept and that didn’t require much brainpower.
When choosing these things, He Fang had also thought about it: since the dumbing down of mobile cities was a necessity, then being immersed in things that didn’t require much thought might also be exactly what the rulers wanted to see. He Fang couldn’t change that, so he simply used these things to subtly guide these people more straightforwardly.
So all these works were carefully selected by the government’s Culture Department. Some works that were too profound and would provoke deeper thinking were classified as “niche” works and could only circulate within the three cities.
And these very simple works were pushed into these few cities.
At first, everyone viewed this terminal with a very skeptical attitude. The terminal merchants didn’t even go through trade officials. Instead, they openly set up their stalls right in the central hall of the mobile cities, actually having received the city lord’s permission.
And the terminal merchants’ method of advertising was also very simple, just like a home appliance store. A great many terminals were turned on, playing interesting clips from movies and TV shows on large screens, sometimes playing songs as well. For the bottom-level residents of the mobile cities, who had only known how to work since childhood, this created an enormous shock.
The prices of the terminals varied. From the craftsmanship to the shape, they all had different price points. The lowest-grade one was a bit pricey for them, but still completely within an acceptable range. Because of this, finally, there was a first person brave enough to “try the crab”.
But only after buying it did they realize that many of the videos required spending more money to purchase, giving them a feeling of having been tricked. But since compared to the terminal itself, these videos weren’t really expensive, although they were annoyed, they’d already bought the terminal, so they simply went ahead and bought the videos, too. After picking out films for a long while, they went home and watched them.
Everyone was watching from the sidelines. In the end, that person immediately got hooked and couldn’t pull themselves away. Because the device was small and could be used anytime, and the mobile city didn’t have any rules saying they couldn’t do other things while working—it used to be that there was nothing to do, but now there was—as long as they got their work done, everyone just turned a blind eye. So all the people secretly paying attention saw that person carrying the terminal everywhere, not even lifting their eyes for a second.
Someone quietly asked, “Is it that good?”
“It’s good. Really good.”
Even though they knew, this was still the first time they’d come into contact with something like this. They didn’t even know how many times they’d heard the same stories passed down by word of mouth. Now that something like this has suddenly appeared, who wouldn’t want one? What’s more, there was now a living, breathing billboard hopelessly hooked on it, and it wasn’t expensive, so the second person, the third person… gradually, more and more people started buying it.
Everyone could afford one, and if those higher up wanted to buy, they could spend more money to get a better, more convenient terminal, and buy videos with higher resolution. The higher-priced ones would even come with some small-budget movies as a bonus.
This kind of entertainment, which they’d never even dared dream of before, instantly set off a huge craze. Seeing others buy one, they’d buy one too, not to mention the upper ranks.
This form of entertainment practically exploded overnight and spread like wildfire, and then someone discovered that you could even buy games. The games were simple to play but unexpectedly addictive. Nearly everyone got hooked.
The terminal merchants’ goods sold out very quickly. Once the terminals were all sold, they would return to Hope City to restock and bring back a new batch. Since the cities were so close to Hope City, the turnaround was very fast, and after just two months, everyone basically had one in hand.
After thinking it over, He Fang allowed the terminal merchants to bring along the “niche” films. These could be purchased according to the official rank within the city. The city lord could buy all types of films, and if the city lord agreed, they could lift the restriction on their favorite films and let everyone in the city have the right to watch them.
This kind of rank division and privilege was very quickly accepted by the mobile cities.
Now, within the city, everyone was talking about plots, singing popular songs together, and sneaking off to hidden corners during breaks to secretly play games. He Fang’s cultural dissemination was extremely successful.
The terminal merchant, who had started as just one person, now became a whole team. Once a city’s purchasing power dropped, the successful example gave them full confidence to push onward to the next city.
He Fang wouldn’t deliberately pick a city he wasn’t sure about. He only chose those that were all vassal cities under Ao City. With Ao City’s orders in place, these cities didn’t dare refuse the terminal merchants, so their business ran very smoothly.
How could anyone not like entertainment? If they didn’t like it yet, it could only be because they hadn’t encountered it yet.
He Fang felt that within just half a year, the profits he’d made from cultural dissemination were practically overflowing his pockets. He’d never expected that this thing would spread so terrifyingly fast. It seemed humanity’s need for entertainment was far greater than he had imagined.
And finally, during this half year, two cities decided to stay, accepting the Holy Land, and signing a treaty with Hope City. At least judging from the treaty, there wasn’t anything too harsh on them. After learning Hope City’s prices, they felt that being able to trade was a very good thing.
As for the other cities, they left. He Fang used fences to enclose the boundaries of the “Holy Land”, letting the mobile cities move in. Such a large piece of land was enough for a city to develop.
The one thing He Fang felt relieved about was that he didn’t need to purchase this land.
Meanwhile, the mobile cities that had been waiting on edge for a year—bracing for Hope City’s attack at any moment—found that not only was there no attack, there wasn’t even the slightest sign of aggression. Instead, they saw a push for cultural promotion.
This move left many people puzzled. But because of this, many people’s thoughts gradually started to become more active.
Right now, He Fang managing to hold onto his own small city was already not easy, and stationed right beside him were two mobile cities: one was Pangu City, a medium-sized mobile city, a combat city; the other was Gaia City, a large mobile city, also a combat city.
Both cities were standard combat cities. To make sure that Hope City would be wiped out just as planned, Ao City had practically gathered all the nearby combat cities to this area. When the fighting broke out, the ten minutes of escape time that He Fang had given had allowed several cities to preserve their basic combat strength.
He Fang felt that these two cities staying behind, firstly, was for development, and secondly, was also to probe him. He Fang suspected that the people these two cities truly served might not be just Ao City.
But it didn’t matter at all. If they wanted to test him, let them test. If testing could put them at ease, then there was no problem. If he could directly have two more mobile cities to trade with, earning money and developing at the same time, why not?
He Fang moved the Rainbow Squad’s Xiao Lan out of the main city and stationed it to patrol around the more central area of the few cities. With Xiao Lan there, there was even less to worry about.
Everything He Fang did spread through the other mobile cities. Not launching attacks, not planning to rule over them, promoting culture, and so on, all these actions were being probed by the mobile cities. And because the matter of the two cities “renting land” had gotten out, the fact that land immune to the Nightmare Beast seeds could be leased out gave many mobile cities a huge shock.
This message was extremely clear. It proved that although the city lord of Hope City would not publicly share the method of dealing with the Nightmare Beast seeds, they could still gain protection after signing a contract. This made many cities that had been struggling bitterly and were almost at their limit start to waver.
Many cities on the verge of extinction began to see Hope City as their final hope, continuously moving toward it.
However…
No one would just stand by and watch Hope City so easily gain so many people.
—
In just these past few short years, a city had suddenly appeared, transcending the entire apocalypse. Hope City.
Hope City was not a mobile city. It was a dream-like city where Nightmare Beasts could not invade, where Nightmare Beast seeds could not parasitize, and where all city residents could live and work in peace and contentment, full of joy.
Legend had it that Hope City had once been destroyed. Behind Hope City, there was a city drifting outside the world itself, bringing hope to the entire apocalyptic world. The gods descended, guarding the masses. And this mysterious city was called by everyone as Mirage.
The mysterious envoys of Mirage guarded the living beings of this world, hunted Nightmare Beasts, and created lands of bliss. Countless people sang of them.
But all these rumors came from the mouths of mercenaries. Whether they were true or not, no one knew.
Among those wandering mercenaries, many gave very precise directions, saying that those who carried true faith in their hearts would be guided to find that final pure land of the world. Hope City.
One of the small groups who had nowhere to go and could only struggle to survive was staggering forward, holding a poor-quality compass, heading for the legendary Hope City.
They truly believed that Hope City existed, because once, when they were lingering on the outskirts of a mobile city where people could rest and recuperate, trying to trade for a little food, they saw that everyone in that city possessed the same magical thing—a terminal.
These people told the small group that Hope City really existed. The terminals in their hands were inventions of Hope City. They did not need to use up too many resources to enjoy the happiness brought by the terminal. It was as if they had stepped into a technological era that did not lack resources.
The small group’s leader had paid a high price in that city to buy one thing—a pendant.
The pendant was a sculpture of a handsome man and a fierce beast. It was said that as long as you prayed to the sculpture, you would receive the help of the Mirage Envoys. He saw that many people had this sculpture. Even if it was just for hope, he still bought it.
![How to Achieve Godhood with a Life-Threatening Persona [Quick Transmigration]](https://www.freenovels.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/219974s.jpg "How to Achieve Godhood with a Life-Threatening Persona [Quick Transmigration]")
I really love the development with the city and the characters themselves. Thank you for the chapters translator ❤️💪