Chapter 58: Mel & Hardy
Yuan had only spent a day in Battletown, and he already hated it.
While the city was made of steel, suffering and exploitation were its true foundations. Yuan guessed he should have expected a place centered around a yearly death game and the slave trade to cater to all of humanity’s vices. The streets sprawled with taverns, inns, bars, restaurants, brothels, drug shops and gambling dens. Every street corner even had its own massive screen showcasing one gladiatorial match or another.
History Road wasn’t the city’s only attraction. Battletown hosted lesser racers, cage matches, and crueler games. Yuan briefly watched one on a screen where slaves were thrown at a Firewheel and people bet on the order in which the monster would crush them. It took all of his willpower not to shoot it down in disgust.
The city did feel safe, in an oppressive kind of way. Groups of oni thugs and yaoguai warriors bearing the Khan’s insignia patrolled the streets and promptly reacted to any commotion. Yuan had passed by a wall covered in the nailed hands of thieves who thought they could prey on tourists. Those were the lucky ones. Most criminals were enslaved and then sent to die fighting spirit-beasts in one arena or another.
The city housed so many slave auctions Yuan found it nauseating. The city hosted a market’s worth of flesh auctions near its docks, where yaoguai slavers from beyond the Oil Sea bet gold and pills on the finest flesh-crafted workers this side of the Fanged Coast had to offer. Yuan had seen Human Pillars younger than Holster forced to board a ship run by giant spiders.
The more time Yuan spent in this town, the more he struggled against the urge to blow it all up. He knew instantly which place he would select should he ever win the Right of First Annihilation, even if the Yinyang Khan laughed it off.
For now, he forced himself to behave and keep a low profile. Yuan, Bucket, and a few others had spread across Battletown to gather information and learned a few interesting tidbits since.
First of all, Slash apparently acted as the Yinyang Khan’s majordomo and right-hand man. Not only was he in charge of managing Battletown’s biggest events and overseeing competitor recruitments, he also served as the city’s chief of police. Information about his actual capabilities remained sparse and elusive. Slash rarely got his hands dirty, and few survived to tell the tale when he decided to.
Second, Yuan gathered some tidbits on his fellow racers at a bar serving as a gambling den for the games. Its owners had compiled lists of contestants and the current bets on them, along with some other details like which sects sponsored them.