Chapter 449: Political Change (I)
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
After the massive destruction by the Glassians, the condition of the earth had deteriorated and disasters frequently occurred.
Looked down from space, the entire earth had been covered by a layer of gray, flowing fog. Although it moved slowly, it was the view from a hundred thousand kilometers away. On earth, it should be akin to a hurricane adversely affecting one’s whole world.
The atmosphere was crazily getting more and more intense. Clouds of dust blew about, and even trees and rocks were also flying in the sky. It was almost impossible to witness the scene on earth with one’s naked eye. The consequences brought by the nuclear-powered antimatter intelligent space bomb had gradually become serious, imminent of an impending nuclear winter.
In addition to the previous strong explosion, it had caused a shift in the earth plates. The World Island (Europe) had turned into a series of islands, North and South America had been completely separated and the entire North America had a huge hole blasted in the middle of it.
It was only a few hours since the destruction of the Glassians, but it had caused the creation of more than a hundred volcanoes. All of these volcanoes were erupting a hundred millions tons of material every second into the air which worsened the situation on earth.
However, this was only the beginning. It would take a long time for the earth to re-stabilize from the plate adjustments. It was foreseeable that in the next six months to a few years, the number of volcanos would be rapidly increased, whilst the nuclear winter might even continue for more than a decade.
Luo Yuan pursed his lips and felt heavy-hearted. This was a terrible disaster. Even the people who survived would face a cruel moment soon.
It was not like the brutal dangers during the apocalypse – it was much more terrible. In such a severe environment, mankind would completely lose all traces of sunlight and would need to live every day like a cold winter night for a long time.
He kept flying, and in just a few minutes he had crossed 400,000 kilometers of distance and rapidly entered the atmosphere.
Over time, the view had gradually dimmed down. Strong wind with sand and stones were violently blowing around. Although Luo Yuan was inside the space bubble and isolated himself from all attacks, he could feel the terrible strong wind in the atmosphere.
The airflow around was moving at high speed at hundreds of meters per second. From a standard Typhoon calculation, this wind speed was more than a level 18 typhoon.
The whole earth had been completely tattered. The forestland had now become desolate with lodging trees everywhere. As for Europe and North America that had been seriously hit, they had become a largely barren land and was left only a few high-level giant trees that were still standing upright.
Luo Yuan tried very hard to identify the location of Hope City. After a long while, he could roughly find the location of Hope City through the nearby terrain. There had been no trace of the city but he could only sense the strong wind.
What made him even more shocked was how there were dimples on the ground everywhere and formed as a concave in the sand wind. There were even cracks as long as hundreds of kilometers that separated the city into two.
At this time, the space-time bubble was moving at an amazing speed of thousands of kilometers per second. In order to avoid directly penetrating the center of the earth, he had been slowing down his speed when he entered the atmosphere. When he got closer to the ground, his speed had decreased to a few kilometers per second.
He slowly unraveled the space bubble, but just when his body was in contact with the outside world, he was blown to the middle of the air by the gust of surrounding strong wind.
He awkwardly tumbled into the air. He was not heavy enough and no matter how strong he was, he could not withstand the strong wind.
When he was in the midst of being blown into the air, he tried to use his Will to stabilize his body but to no avail. The weight of his Will was only a few hundred kilograms. There was not much effect when he encountered this kind of super sandstorm.
At this point, he somewhat felt remorseful. He was in a rush when he came out and did not carry the belt that was made of the Demonic Horseman’s mane, otherwise, he would not need to worry about strong winds like this.
He let the wind blow against him, and after a few seconds, he immediately teleported.
The very next moment, his body had already landed on the ground. This time, Luo Yuan was well prepared. Before the wind took its toll on his body, he embedded his hands into the ground to stabilize himself.
As it should be, it was already supposed to be a bright sunny day the next morning, but now it was completely dark and was obscured by the endless sand.
Immediately, his sense penetrated the ground and with teleportation, he disappeared from his original position.
The first layer underground had been completely run-down. The strong wind blew through the collapsed region here, where most of the buildings had been dilapidated. When he walked along the street piled with thick sand, he could see corpses scattered everywhere.
Fortunately, it was a warehouse district with only a few staff, thus, there were not many casualties.
Luo Yuan went through four levels consecutively and it was the same for all. There were totally empty and in ruins.
He started to feel worried and eagerly wanted to know the current situation of Huang Jiahui and the rest.
He split through the basement and immediately jumped down to the next level.
Fortunately, the lower he went, the better the situation was. When he reached the seventh level, apart from the thick sand on the ground, there was not much impact on others. However, the power had been completely disrupted and it was dark everywhere.
It was already the residential and lightly-polluted industrial area. On the street, there were people panicking everywhere. A lot of military police were standing on every street attempting to enforce basic law and order.
"… The government is exploring new methods, and everything will be fine. I hope everyone can remain calm, as we have a lot of food and water reserves. Agricultural areas are still operating well. I believe that if we unite as one, we will get through any difficulties..." A government worker was holding a tweeter and shouting loudly.
Luo Yuan listened quietly for a while. He remained silent and walked through the crowd to the passageway.
It was the same on the eighth floor. Crowds were on the streets. Some people were crying and some looked numb. Some of them were panicking with uncertainties and kept trembling. Many of the people were holding fire torches and wandering on the street without a purpose, like a group of soulless zombies.
Fortunately, it had been the apocalypse for so many years. During all these years, the people had trained to be organized and disciplined. In addition, there were a lot of police maintaining order. Although they were in despair, no untoward incidents were caused.
Luo Yuan sighed and quickened his pace. He could not wait to go home now.
Not long after, he arrived at the ninth level underground, where his villa was located. However, before he entered the door, someone was in his way, accompanied by Huang Jiahui. When she saw Luo Yuan, she finally lit up and expressed relief.
"They have been waiting for you for a long time," said Huang Jiahui. There were just so many words her heart wished it could utter, she had to bottle them all in.
Luo Yuan nodded and turned his face to the acquaintance beside her. He was the vice mayor of Hope City, Bi Jianping. His face was dim and said with a serious tone, "Hello Minister Luo, I’m really sorry to bother you. Today, Hope City has arrived a near-death situation. As part of the executive committee of Hope City, please be sure to attend the government meeting and discuss the countermeasures."
He had been waiting for a long time and insisted on standing at the doorway. As a vice mayor, he had to be humble because the situation has not seen its worst until today. All the signals had been interrupted and the ground was covered by a terrible sand storm causing the gridlocked traffic. They were unable to retrieve any information and after much consideration, they decided to come and ask Luo Yuan himself.
The attack by the Glassians happened in the middle of the night, so the Reconstruction Area was totally unprepared. When the nuclear-powered antimatter intelligent space bomb exploded, a strong electromagnetic pulse disrupted all communications and electricity supply. They had no idea what had actually happened until this day.
Some of them had even speculated that there were some insane people who detonated all the nuclear bombs and tried to commit a suicide mission with all human beings in the Reconstruction Area. This view had been agreed on by most of the people but they had never expected that the attack this time would be 10,000 times more terrible than the nuclear bomb explosion.
Luo Yuan nodded and said, "Okay, I have some details to share with you. Let's go."
Although he was only a step away from home, due to the urgency of the issue, he did not hurry back home. He looked at Huang Jiahui and nodded, then turned and left with Bi Jianping.
Shortly after, Luo Yuan walked into City Hall’s conference hall together with Bi Jianping. When the door flung open, they caught a whiff of the pungent smell of cigarette; the air was badly polluted.
Luo Yuan glanced through the room. There were only five people attending this meeting. He looked at the ashtray that was full of cigarette butts, and apparently, these people had waited for a long time.
When Luo Yuan entered the room, everyone looked at him with a gloomy face and some had nervousness plastered all over their faces. Some of them even nodded at him with well-intentions.
Luo Yuan did not care much, and nodded to them one by one, before choosing a vacant seat to sit down.
The meeting was chaired by Bi Jianping, "In this terrible disaster, Mayor Xie Guping and the Vice Mayor Zhou Jianguo have unfortunately passed away. In accordance with the organization's procedures, the meeting will be chaired by me for the time being, and I have also invited Minister Luo from the Firearms Bureau to attend the meeting.
Today's situation has seen the worst, and we have completely disconnected from the outside world. The signals with other cities were also interrupted and we have too, completely lost contact with New Capital City. Thus, the first thing to prioritize is to restore the communication and power…"
"I have to interrupt!" Luo Yuan chimed in.
"Minister Luo, please go ahead." Considering how he was such a human weapon, Bi Jianping dared not disregard him.
"There is no need to contact anyone. In fact, New Capital City has disappeared or should say that most of the Reconstruction Areas have disappeared. Now, the survivors left are only from Hope City and the few surrounding cities," said Luo Yuan in all seriousness.
The information from Luo Yuan was like a strike of thunder to everyone's heart. Before he even finished his sentence, a few people had already stood up and said, "No, this is impossible. Even if all the nuclear bombs were to explode, the power would not be strong enough to destroy the Reconstruction Area."
If this was a nuclear bomb, it really was incapable of destroying the Reconstruction Area. After the apocalypse, all the main cities were built deep underground and only the heavy industrial areas on the ground were left. As long as the nuclear bomb had not exploded in the city center, its power was indeed limited.
Luo Yuan shook his head, his face heavy, and said, "All of your guesses are wrong. It was not caused by a nuclear bomb and was certainly not done by human being. It seems like your level of getting confidential information is still not high, but there is no need to keep it under the wraps anymore."
While Luo Yuan shared his story, everyone gradually became taciturn and uneasy as he was not just any normal evolved human but one of the top management members of the Firearms Bureau. This bureau reported directly to the high-level committee, so the level at which he could obtain confidential information was totally incomparable.
"All this while, there has been a lot of speculations about the biological big bang during the apocalypse. A lot of evidence refers to the supernova explosion, but in fact, it is not the case at all.
It was caused by an alien virus. The purpose was to test on this destructive virus. For them, it was secondary but the real target was to destroy humanity.
Five years ago, these aliens had come to the solar system by their spacecraft to cast the virus, but the impact was not too huge back then. Until the next outbreak of the solar system as affected by the supernova, the virus mutated and this had led to disastrous consequences.
Until a few months ago, the Reconstruction Area had found some traces of aliens and when they finally confirmed and started on the defense plan, it was already too late.
The attack this time had blasted the whole Europe into piles of islands, and a huge sinkhole had emerged in North America. Other than Hope City and the several cities nearby, there were no survivors left."
It was a long silence in the conference room and the air reeked with tension. Bi Jianping lit up a cigarette with a trembling hand, "Do you have any evidence?"
Bi Jianping was pale, however, at the bottom of his heart he had believed the story told by Luo Yuan. There had been so many actions by the Reconstruction Area and he had noticed some clues. For example, during the last few months, many of the new research institutes had suddenly moved to New Capital City. Even the rocket base professors and experts of Hope City were half being deployed. It was all done by the Mayor and no one knew the real story behind all these movements.
However, although intellectually he had some belief, emotionally he could absolutely not digest this new piece of information. He would rather believe that it was done by some insane people but not the fact that the aliens wanted to destroy mankind, at least it was not so desperate as compared to the latter one.
"Evidence… is this considered evidence?" Luo Yuan suddenly pulled out something and placed it on the table, which was a gadget that he found from a Glassian. Luo Yuan was amused with it so he brought it back with him.
It was a long strip of material in white. The workmanship was fine and the color was soft. When they laid eyes on it, they knew that it was definitely not from the times of the apocalypse.
"What is this?"
"I don't know, maybe it is a toy of alien," said Luo Yuan, while gently pressing down on somewhere dimpled.
The long strip immediately floated in the air to about half a meter in height, then on its surface, there were a number of small cubes raised. It shortened and transformed, and soon it turned into a ball formed by numerous cubes.
Then, a melodious yet exotic style of music echoed in the room. The surface of the cube moved with the rhythm, like waves rising up and down in unison.
This quality of the music was very clear, however, at this time, no one had the interest to enjoy it but felt cold and hopeless.
Luo Yuan took away the ball and gently pinched it. The ball broke and the music suddenly stopped.
He put all the broken pieces on the table. Each piece was about the size of a green bean. When everyone came near to see, they found that there was no circuit boards or chips in it.
Other than the white material, there was nothing else. Although it was just something trivial, perhaps a toy of alien, it totally could not be replicated by human technology.
"Perhaps there really is an alien lurking about to destroy mankind. But I still do not understand that if the aliens wanted to destroy mankind, why are we still alive? If the technology of the opponent is so advanced, it is impossible to miss destroying this place." A deputy mayor voiced out, trembling in disbelief.
Luo Yuan glanced through the crowd and smiled, "The reason why they missed this spot is that they're already dead. Currently, 600,000 kilometers away in space lies a floating abandoned spacecraft."
Everyone looked at each other. They were smart and fully understood the meaning behind Luo Yuan's words. It had hidden threat inside but they could not say anything but to keep mum.
If that was true, the power owned by Luo Yuan had already completely overridden mankind. In everyone’s heart, they whispered, "There is going to be a political change in the Reconstruction Area!"
"I propose to suspend the meeting!" Bi Jianping suddenly said. When he spoke, he looked at Luo Yuan with mixed feelings.