Extreme Cold Era: Shelter Don't Keep Waste-Chapter 908 - 136: The Desert Kingdom

The Desert Kingdom is an ancient land encircled by a golden sea of sand. Since the mythical age when gods walked among mortals, it has been the cradle of human civilization.

Rivers like the Nile and Euphrates once meandered here, nourishing a dazzling civilization.

Throughout three thousand springs and autumns, the changes of dynasties recorded in cuneiform and the golden ages celebrated in hieroglyphics have now been ground into fine sand by time.

The oasis cities once bustling with endless caravans now only leave behind wind-eroded fragments of pottery; the fertile fields where waves of grain once rolled have long been swallowed by drifting dunes.

Yet the temple columns built with red sandstone stubbornly stand amidst the yellow sands.

The fierce wind sweeps past the ruined colonnades of palaces, creating a wailing sound akin to an ancient harp, while fragments of murals inlaid with lapis lazuli still narrate the glory of the pharaohs and priests' reign.

Occasionally, shepherds find clay tablets engraved with strange scripts or golden amulets embedded with scarab beetles—these are the fragments of memory the Desert Kingdom has left for the present world, witnessing how this land transformed from a lush paradise into the forgotten visage it bears now.

Yet, as the apocalyptic winter descends, this kingdom of yellow sand, scorched by the eternal fierce sun for thousands of years, surprisingly becomes blanketed in white.

Although this is a desert where snow might not fall but once in centuries, under the premise that the entire world is frozen into an icefield, this ancient land has not been spared.

Bone-chilling winds replace the former heat waves, howling past broken temples and crumbling obelisks, freezing the once-hot sand grains into hard ice crystals.

But unlike other places, this desert might be too dry; even under such extreme cold, the ice and snow have not completely covered the entire sea of sand.

Amidst the white snow, one can still see patches of bare yellow sand, like the earth's skin struggling against being completely iced over.

The wind sweeps across, whipping up fine ice particles and sand dust, stirring a chaotic storm in the pale world.

Sand and snow intertwine and dance, blurring the distant horizon as if time pauses here, leaving this frozen desert silently witnessing the world's end.

However, even though covered by yellow sand and snow, the depths of this lifeless desert still pulse with the flame of human survival.

Empire colonies stand like tenacious thorns deeply rooted in this land forgotten by gods.

The fierce cold of the apocalyptic winter has ravaged most settlements, turning many towns into frozen ruins. However, when Empress Annie last inspected this territory, she could still find settlements with smoke curling up between the folds of wind and snow, and cities standing unbowed against the blizzard.

Surprisingly, some local chiefs have begun to stir amidst the apocalypse.

Clad in mottled leopard skin cloaks and wielding ancestral bronze scimitars, they ambush Empire supply convoys under the cover of sandstorms.

These chieftains, who claim to be descendants of ancient pharaohs, regard the extreme cold as divine punishment against foreign rule, attempting to rebuild the long-vanished desert dynasty.

However, faced with the divine-favored knights supported by Perfikot, their rebellion melts as swiftly as snow under a blazing sun.

The blood of rebels stains the ice and sand red, with the severed heads of chieftains hanging from flagpoles in the colony squares—just like how their ancestors dealt with rebels three thousand years ago.

When the Empire's banner again rises atop the pyramid ruins, the last agitation on this land is forever frozen beneath the ice.

To be fair, during its former prosperity, this land indeed warranted the Empire's devotion and cultivation.

It connects to the Romulus inland sea to the north and another vast ocean to the south, like a wedge nestled between the old world civilization and the remnants of the Desert Kingdom.

Caravans once converged here, exchanging silk and spices from the East with gold, silver, and glass from the West; warships also harbored here, controlling the choke points of the two seas.

On the granite-built port docks, deep grooves on the mooring stones can still be seen, recounting the spectacle of countless sails from those years.

However, now all these strategic values have disappeared with the onset of the apocalypse.

The Romulus inland sea freezes into a thick icefield, leaving the once-busy waterways only in a white deathly silence; the ocean on the other side has not completely iced over, but the rampaging snowstorms make any voyage a distant hope.

Trade routes cut off, ports abandoned, even the most obstinate merchants have retreated from this place of desolation.

Once a geographic advantage acting as a bridge between East and West, it now only subjects the colonies to bone-chilling winds from two icy seas.

The Empire fleet is frozen in the port ice, resembling metal coffins.

Ironically, even the Desert Kingdom itself has become a burden.

The coveted oases and mineral veins of yore are now mere death traps covered in ice and snow; the clay tablets documenting ancient wisdom have become brittle fragments devoid of worth in the extreme cold.

Maintaining the colony costs have far exceeded any returns it could offer—even Her Majesty the Empress's undeniable majesty, there's truly nothing left to guard here.

But for Perfikot, who witnessed the desert miracles firsthand in the original world, this frozen desert still conceals an astonishing wealth secret beneath it.

He is more aware than anyone that beneath the seemingly barren sands lies dormant the black liquid gold—oil, the true treasure that might change the Empire's destiny.

In the geological survey reports of the Empire before the end days, the geological structure of this region strikingly resembles the oil-bearing zones of the Arabian Peninsula.

Perfikot often gazes at an oil sand sample brought from the depths beneath the sand by colonists, those sticky black substances radiating rainbow-like glows under the firelight, reminding him of the desert empires in the original world built on oil dollars.

Once able to break through the permafrost barrier and establish a complete extraction system, this barren land could swiftly transform into a treasure trove flowing with black gold.

He had sketched the blueprint for the future on parchment: towering drilling platforms piercing the icefield, refinery chimneys lining the desert's end, pipelines connecting the Empire's lifeline like veins.

Colonies now shivering in the snow could potentially develop into bustling oil city-states comparable to desert cities in the original world.

But all this hinges on enduring this prolonged winter and safeguarding this seemingly worthless yet crucially frozen land harboring the Empire's future lifeline.

And now, Perfikot has arrived at this land with the Floating City, equipped with ample technological prowess to penetrate the frozen ground for oil extraction.

This will undoubtedly and completely alter the positioning of the Desert Kingdom region within the entire Victor Empire.