Bound and Broken: An Isekai Adventure Dark Fantasy (Melas Book 1) V.A. Lewis (feel good books to read .TXT) 📖

These houses stood on average at around three stories in height, and occupied a plot of land almost twice as wide across; each house seemed to be split up into multiple buildings, and formed more of a small complex with a courtyard in the middle rather than a single structure, despite clearly being houses people lived in.

Most of Bys consisted of similar looking buildings, as though the same buildings were copy and pasted thousands of times over vast swathes of land to be as efficient as possible; but it was these sprawling indistinguishable architecture that made what stood at the heart of the city even more remarkable.

It was not a single monolithic structure that was erected in the middle of the metropolis like in Boleria, but rather a vast array of massive buildings that stood far above everything else within the city walls.

Dozens of buildings that rose up to a hundred feet stood amongst each other, forming a superstructure that was built in the center of the Slave City. The sudden transition was the same as going straight from a random town in the Midwest United States to the middle of Manhattan in New York City!

Towers and minarets clustered together to form the centerpiece that emerged out of the rest of the city. Varying structures came together to create an eclectic mix of architecture: obelisks poked out of the ground while pillars protruded from the floor, all just to decorate the land!

There was even a statue of a man standing triumphantly with his hands on his hips, standing 60 feet tall next to a clock tower twice its height!

But even among these mini-skyscrapers and giant monuments, there was a massive structure that stood out like a jewel amongst the unremarkable houses that filled the background; this gigantic amphitheatre almost looked like a brilliant round-cut diamond, where it’s base starts out small and thin, growing larger and thicker the further up the structure you went.

Looking at it from the side, it took the shape of an upside down trapezoid with the bottom being only half the length of the top. This was only possible because of the mana crystals reinforcing the foundations of the stadium, allowing it to not only tower over the city at almost 350 feet, and also be more than twice as wide across at its thickest. It looked like it could fit over 60,000 people in it without a problem! Almost as much as a modern sports stadium!

And next to the amphitheatre was another building erected up to 500 feet at its peak; this building stood as tall as any skyscraper from my world, but did not have the impossible proportions the adjacent monument had.

Instead, this towering structure was built layer by layer, slowly diminishing in size as the structured ascended. The ziggurat eventually crested into a flat top, which although could still fit half a football field (I mean American football, not soccer!) in it, it was less than a quarter of the size of the first layer that carried the entire building.

The ziggurat looked old, like it was built over a hundred years ago; the stone that built it was worn down, and the architecture primitive compared to the neighboring stadium.

And the fact that it was not made with any sort of mana tool enhancements on it attested to this idea. The design for the ziggurat had a massive base that was necessary to carry its own weight, since there were no mana crystals used to strengthen and support it.

This juxtaposition of the old with the new, of the unremarkable with the remarkable, and of the background with the foreground all painted the breathtaking portrait that was the city of Bys. And the final touch to this painting was the picture frame that held it all together.

The walls that surrounded the city were not as tall as the ones in the Free City of Boleria, but they were still heavily fortified, with bell towers placed every hundred feet. But despite circling the entire city, there were only four main gates— one in each cardinal direction— almost as if it was designed to keep things in, as much as it was meant to keep things out.

The Free City of Slaves unfurled before my eyes, and for a moment, I had my breath caught in my throat.

It was a beautiful sight. There was no denying that fact. But I couldn’t stare in admiration for long.

The sheer amount of manual labor required to build the vast and sprawling city laid before me had to be the work of millions of slaves. Generations of people entrapped in a society that treated them like some sort of tool.

I caught myself from gawking, and sobered up.

It was terrible.

The machinations of pure evil was what created the city in front of me. And I was caught in its system.

I shifted my focus away from the Free City of Bys, and towards the city guards standing next to our wagon; they were caught in a casual conversation with each other, talking excitedly about us— as if we were some brand new toy.

"Ha! I told you the Mancis Company always delivers!"

"I just don’t understand how they bring in so many slaves each year! And now Beastkin, too? Where did they even get those animals from?"

"From what I hear, these Beastkin were caught in a border conflict between Anibes and those idiots at the Chalstics Confederacy. Captured soldiers that the Mancis Company bought from the Free Cities there, and is now importing into Bys."

I listened in, and noted the ‘official’ story our captors made for us. It was not real, of course. Just a fake cover-up story they created because what they were doing was illegal.

Which, considering how Bys was known as the Slave City, showed how incredibly wretched the Mancis Company