Lord of the Sky City

As Rocky widely distributed invitations, guests began to steadily arrive at Backhill Village, with the first to reach being Howling Sky, the Sirius City Lord, followed by Karina.

When Rocky headed to the Mairente Family, Karina had always been around Backhill Village with Rose City, but she was far from idle, consistently launching attacks on the Demons nearby during this period.

For Karina, this time was fantastic. Killing Demons was not difficult for her, and given this area was Rocky's territory, especially with the large Sky City of Sirius City nearby, Backhill Village had turned into her supply base. Tired from battle, she would return for supplies and conveniently sell off the collected Demon Materials right in Sirius City.

When Rocky delivered the invitation to her, she just happened to be on her way back and had matters to discuss with him, so she quickly returned to Backhill Village and met with Rocky.

Regrettably, Rocky was too busy during this time. On one hand, he was preparing for the upcoming conference, and on the other hand, the invited guests were arriving one after another, each requiring his personal reception, so he genuinely had no spare time to consider other matters. Fortunately, Karina understood this, hence the matters she intended to discuss were postponed until after the conference.

In the following time, Rocky remained continually busy, continually receiving all sorts of guests alongside Archimonde.

Among these people, those who came by Rocky's invitation were mostly his old acquaintances, but there were also many whom he did not recognize at all. The reason these people showed up at Backhill Village was entirely due to the invitation from the Apple Tree Corporation.

The guests Rocky invited were mostly City Lords, as he was one himself and his social circle was largely limited to such figures. However, the guests invited by the Apple Tree Corporation were more diverse, including City Lords and nobles, but mainly fellow Chamber of Commerce members. The Apple Tree Corporation itself had a very strong manufacturing capability, producing warships they developed and produced themselves, leading to closely knit connections with many other chambers, hence their guests included various business magnates.

Facing these individuals, Rocky naturally did not dare to neglect them, as he might also need to deal with these people in the future. Therefore, he met various important figures every day, bustling about nearly to the point of exhaustion.

This hectic situation had persisted since the first batch of guests arrived and was quite expected. After all, the sky is broad, and the invited guests were from different air regions, arriving at different times. Moreover, the sky was not very peaceful now, which further delayed the arrival of others, hence Rocky was bound to remain busy until all the guests had arrived.

However, while he was extremely busy, and everyone around him was as well, inside Carltos City, a group of people were also busy.

"We must make Rocky pay this time!"

Within a seemingly inconspicuous villa in the city district, a group of people dressed like nobles sat together, angrily discussing a plan.

All of these people were nobles and officials from Carltos City. No, to be more precise, most of them were former nobles and ex-officials, now stripped of their titles.

As mentioned before, Voss implemented several policies after taking office that quickly stabilized the city. Among these, one of the most critical measures was a thorough purge of the city's officials and various nobles!

This thorough purge could be said to have been swift and forceful, immediately achieving a striking effect. However, Carltos City had been under the control of the Mairente Family for years, giving birth to some deep-seated and complex relationships. Even though some key figures and targets were purged, some fish inevitably slipped through the net, and these were the people in question.

Before Voss took office, these individuals were either city officials or nobles. But now, they had all been stripped of their positions and titles. Most importantly, although Voss had neither expelled nor arrested these people, he had confiscated all their assets. Consequently, not only were their means of livelihood destroyed, but they also had no way out.

Because of this, their hatred for Rocky and Voss was beyond what ordinary people could imagine—indescribable even with words.

Logically, even if these people resented Rocky and Voss, they could only endure silently. After all, an arm is no match for a thigh. They had but two choices: to live out the rest of their lives quietly or to find an opportunity to flee Carltos City. That was all they could do.

But this time, with Rocky choosing to make the announcement in Carltos City and more and more guests gathering in the city, those harboring hatred for Rocky found their opportunity!

After gritting his teeth and uttering a phrase, the leader turned his head and asked another,

"Vian, is everything ready?"

"It's ready, everyone has been contacted."

"Don't let these people botch it. This rabble is good for nothing but messing things up."

When the man known as Vian nodded, another glanced at him sideways before speaking determinedly.

"Don't worry, there won't be any problem this time." However, hearing this, Vian merely smiled, "I've already told them as long as they can unite and protest on the streets in these few days, they'll get their jobs back. Moreover, I told them that if they gather enough people, neither Rocky nor Voss will dare to touch them—all of them believed it as the gospel truth."

Chuckling, Vian then slowly continued to address everyone.

Since Voss had assumed office, in addition to reducing taxes and purging the management, he had also shut down several factories in the city. As Carltos City is a medium-sized Sky City, it boasts over a hundred industries, a significant part of which were controlled by nobles. Thus, as the nobles were being purged, the industries they controlled inevitably faced shutdowns, causing some city residents to lose their jobs.

Originally, Voss had plans for this. Rocky was actively engaged in construction, whether it was the luxury goods industry or the Armor manufacturing industry, any sector that developed could add new factories within Carltos City. This would naturally provide the residents with jobs quickly. Unfortunately, the common folk were unaware of these developments, and it was precisely this that gave the people in question their opportunity.

Upon learning that Rocky intended to use Carltos City as the venue to announce his partnership with the Apple Tree Corporation, they began to scheme, planning to embarrass Rocky thoroughly when all the big names gathered together!