"What is Chaos thinking? After finishing a task for the Western World, I was immediately sent back here." Tianmiao looked at the vast expanse of the ocean before him, murmuring to himself.
"The missions in this world are so complicated," Kong Hou frowned as he looked at the Heavenly Mechanism Memo in Dong Xiao’s hands.
"Yes, the mission in this world... spans over such a long period..." Tianmiao said softly.
In the year 2120 AD, the apocalypse arrived.
It began with tsunamis and typhoons, and later, the world’s volcanoes erupted continuously, earthquakes became frequent, the sea levels kept rising, and humanity finally realized that their habitable planet could no longer endure them and was beginning to cleanse the human race, which had multiplied rapidly and was just as destructive as a virus.
Humanity began to reflect, but it was too late.
The land was gradually submerged, farmland was washed away, cities were drowned. In some cities, the tops of skyscrapers still peeked above the water’s surface.
Many cities completely became underwater worlds.
People began to live in what they called sky cities. On top of the remaining tall buildings, they constructed new structures to serve as fortresses. Others built bases on the water using gigantic ships; soil had become a luxury, and humanity was facing severe survival challenges.
And then an even worse situation occurred.
A virus spread wantonly.
Once humans were infected with this virus, they turned into monsters, gradually losing their sanity. Their bodies became covered with scales, and their heads transformed into large fish heads, yet they retained their limbs. Their only instinct was to attack humans and compete with them for living space.
Humans eventually named these monsters "Abnormals."
In water, these Abnormals were like phantoms, and humans who were even slightly careless would be attacked and ultimately hunted down — they were products of the apocalypse.
Every step of nature’s wrath seemed to forewarn humanity’s extinction.
...
On the boundless sea, a gigantic ship was speeding ahead. They belonged to another fortress. The purpose of this voyage was to exchange usable supplies and food with the Divine Dragon Fortress. Recently, they had salvaged a ship and dismantled many alloys and similar materials, which were necessary for building fortresses and could be used as currency for trading.
The experienced captain traveled with the fortress leader’s daughter, Zhou Chaoyang. The young girl was very curious about the outside world and often carried old maps asking herself whether Earth truly had been this beautiful before, with such a vast expanse of land, unlike now when everyone had to live cautiously on the water.
Zhou Chaoyang was very interested in natural geography and quite intelligent. After quickly adapting to life on the ship, she could even temporarily command the ship’s course and such tasks. The captain admired her and called her the intern deputy captain.
That day, a short-haired girl sat in the captain’s room, flipping through an album with yellowed pages.
The album featured blue skies, white clouds, and endless green grasslands. On the next page, there were mountains and flowing water, and on another page, tall buildings and bustling traffic.
"Captain, was our homeland really so beautiful back then?" This girl, Zhou Chaoyang, asked with longing as she flipped through the album.
"Yes, very beautiful. But I never saw it either," the captain said regretfully. "It’s said that this land used to be filled with warm sunshine, fragrant soil with beautiful flowers, and lovely little birds singing in the trees."
"Warm sunshine, huh?" Zhou Chaoyang turned her head to look outside, where the sky was overcast, and asked, "What is sunshine like?"
"Sunshine can be very warm, or it can be scorching. Everything needs it to grow. But now, the cloud cover overhead is too thick; the entire planet is enveloped in dense clouds, and we can’t see the sun," the captain replied.
"I wish I could see it," Zhou Chaoyang sighed.