Chapter 174
“Do you know? The end has come, no one can escape death. Doomsday is approaching, everyone will face catastrophe!”
In Yao Country’s largest port city, Yun City, when police responded to a call and pushed open the door of a hidden warehouse near the dock, they found a suspect already subdued on the ground. “Who called the police? Are there cult members here?”
“I did!” “We did!”
A young sibling pair spoke up simultaneously, glanced at each other, then pointed at the cult member they had captured, saying in unison, “Officer, it’s them!”
Their fingers pointed at the badly bruised and tied-up person who barely looked human anymore. “These people were spreading doomsday theories, encouraging illegal activities, and trying to deceive innocent citizens into joining them for immediate gratification.”
“Yes, they kept preaching about the end of the world, telling everyone to enjoy life while they can, without caring whether it’s legal or not. They’re completely ignorant of the law – please take them in for re-education!”
The lead officer recognized the two immediately and said with both resignation and amusement. “Ji Heng, Ji Nian, it’s you two again? Have you gotten addicted to catching cult members?”
The siblings laughed sheepishly. “Well, they’re just so easy to catch, and we earn contribution points really quickly.”
During this conversation, the officers who hadn’t met them before quickly figured out who they were.
Ever since the Heavenly Master of Divine Calculation prophesied the Seven Days of Disaster, the response throughout Yao Country had been strong.Beyond the fire departments and local military organizations, the Special Case Investigation Bureau that managed extraordinaries also contributed significantly. They not only immediately dispatched their personnel but also called upon extraordinaries who weren’t part of the official system to join the disaster relief efforts – any help was welcome. The superior physical capabilities and extraordinary abilities of these individuals allowed them to do much more than ordinary people.
This call to action wasn’t just appealing to national pride – the Special Case Investigation Bureau had designed many targeted benefits and rewards. These included high-level martial arts techniques unavailable to ordinary people (the Special Case Investigation Bureau, with its elite members, had already derived more special techniques through martial arts research), spirit-rich spiritual flowers and fruits, weapon rentals, access to certain artifacts, money, and other special privileges… Any kind of reward could be exchanged through their contributions.
The final results were very encouraging.
Whether driven by desire for the benefits offered by the Special Case Investigation Bureau, love for their country, or simply human compassion for suffering fellow citizens, many civilian extraordinaries responded to the call. This included many who had previously only been registered as peripheral members of the Special Case Investigation Bureau but had remained inactive.
The Ji siblings were among them.
After the Seven Days of Disaster passed, the cooperation model between the Special Case Investigation Bureau and civilian extraordinaries wasn’t dissolved – instead, it became even closer. The relevant policies were further modified and improved from their original foundation, causing many order-aligned civilian extraordinaries to become accustomed to this model and willing to maintain order.
During this period, the dark clouds hanging over various parts of the world hadn’t dispersed with the end of the Seven Days of Disaster. On the contrary, as civil defense projects proceeded at full steam and doomsday rumors spread further, the entire world existed in a subtle atmosphere of restless anxiety.
The domestic order in Yao Country was far less stable than before. The affected ordinary citizens were manageable – as long as the national leadership hadn’t fallen into chaos, they would at most just stockpile food. The most troublesome were the active “Doomsday Cult” members.
This wasn’t a true cult like the Candlelight Society – it was just a general term for all those who eagerly anticipated doomsday and caused destruction everywhere. Many of them didn’t know each other, but they were undoubtedly all disruptive to social stability.
These people were unquestionably chaotic evil elements who not only firmly believed in the end of the world but were also happy to accept its arrival. They took the lead in destroying order, creating chaos, breaking laws, and spreading their twisted theories everywhere, causing the street police force in Yao Country to increase several times over.
Moreover, in this age of spiritual revival, individual power had increased infinitely, making even criminals harder to deal with. This caused the difficulty of maintaining order to rise sharply, leaving the police severely understaffed and forced to recruit civilian “volunteers” to help maintain order.
Civilian extraordinaries who had tasted success in previous cooperation were happy to be such volunteers. These disruptive individuals appeared to them as living contribution points.
Take the Ji siblings, for example – they had only been in this port city for half a month on assignment from the Special Case Investigation Bureau, but they had already caught four waves of doomsday cult members. After all, they looked so innocent and naive that they were easy to fool – no acting skills required.
After understanding the situation, the police stepped forward skillfully and smoothly, taking out special handcuffs to seal the flow of spiritual energy in each suspect’s body, then produced “Spirit-Locking Talismans” from Spirit Forgers. This was a small innovation taught by Joey and accidentally created by a Spirit Forger – as simple as kindergarten doodling, with no requirements for artistic skill or spiritual level. Even novice Spirit Forgers could draw it. It essentially added weak spirituality to the work, causing anyone who saw it to fall into a slight trance, making them unable to concentrate on mobilizing spirituality. Because it consumed little spirituality and was easy to make, it was quickly widely adopted after that Spirit Forger’s flash of inspiration. After sealing their ability to mobilize spirituality, they loaded all the criminals onto police vehicles and took them away.
The police sirens faded into the distance.
Ji Heng stretched lazily. “Hehe, another successful operation – we’ll soon be able to exchange for that pair of spiritual weapons we’ve been eyeing!”
“Give it up, this was probably our last job,” Ji Nian rolled her eyes. “After all, we’re not the only ones who came to Yun City – others are taking action too. In just half a month, all the troublemakers have been arrested for re-education. Even those previously obvious doomsday cult members are hard to find now. We’ve had to resort to baiting them. Sigh, should we say everyone’s efficiency is high, or that everyone’s just too competitive?”
Ji Heng scratched his head. “Either way, looking on the bright side, it’s a good thing there are fewer of these people, right?”
“…That’s true.”
Although they sighed, they weren’t particularly discouraged. While they wanted to earn more contribution points, they weren’t so heartless as to hope for more of these people everywhere. On the contrary, their having nothing to do meant order had been restored, didn’t it?
The oncoming sea breeze carried a humid saltiness, and the seemingly endless sea surface merged with the blue sky. The siblings walked along the coast, and their slight gloom immediately dissipated, replaced by a gentle contentment.
Over the past half month, they hadn’t had a moment’s rest. Once these essentially lazy individuals relaxed, they immediately cast aside their “grand ambitions” of earning contribution points and relaxed to enjoy the cool sea breeze, treating it as a rare vacation.
As the two were admiring the seascape, suddenly, violent waves arose on the distant sea surface. It seemed as if a terrifying storm had descended on the distant ocean, raising frightening waves that surged in all directions, with pale white breakers instantly submerging the coastline.
Boom!
People walking along the beach screamed and turned to run.
The suddenly caught siblings nearly got thrown into the sea by a wave, but thankfully, their strong neural responses as martial artists made them instinctively leap up, their forms flying backward like swallows, almost brushing past the wave as it struck, avoiding the seemingly all-encompassing huge wave.
The humid moisture dampened their hair.
But they discovered that many people hadn’t managed to escape in time and were directly swept into the sea by the waves.
“Quick, save them!”
Among the screams, a strong voice penetrated everyone’s ears – undoubtedly from a powerful martial artist.
The siblings didn’t have time to see who it was before jumping in toward the vaguely floating human figures in the sea.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The sound of waves crashing against the shore was like continuous thunder rolling across heaven and earth. The surging waves were unprecedentedly violent, almost making people suspect it was another tsunami. Vision was blocked by snow-white breakers, water currents surged everywhere, as if a nuclear bomb had been dropped into the ocean, raising earth-shattering aftershocks.
Even extraordinaries couldn’t help but feel their own insignificance in the face of such natural forces.
With the coordinated efforts of extraordinaries and the arriving rescue teams, they finally managed to fish out the last unfortunate person. The surging waves still hadn’t calmed, though their amplitude was gradually decreasing.
Soon, the ocean gradually returned to calm.
But an unimaginable aura entered everyone’s nostrils. Following this came massive numbers of floating fish corpses.
Everyone gazed at the sea surface from afar with solemn expressions.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om
Dejected emotions emerged from everyone’s eyes.
“Is the end of the world really coming?”
The people here all had more or less official channels, and before long, they received news from official sources. “Latest news: this South Sea disturbance affected the entire South Sea region. In other words, all countries with South Sea coastlines were hit by these mysterious huge waves.”
“…At least it wasn’t a tsunami.”
“But isn’t this inexplicable ocean disturbance even more abnormal than a tsunami? The Special Case Investigation Bureau has taken over this case. We must figure out the reason behind this, whether it will happen again, whether it will evolve into a tsunami, or an even more terrible disaster?”
“Believe other countries have also sent people to investigate.”
Especially for trial participants who knew about the Return to the Void countdown, any changes in the real world were enough to make them vigilant.
Soon, more bad news arrived in succession.
“All our submarines deployed in the South Sea have lost contact.”
“Not just submarines, but also other…”
“In short, all communication equipment has lost contact.”
“…We suspect they were completely destroyed like the dead fish. But it’s also possible the signal is just temporarily interrupted.”
“On satellite maps, we can only see a huge, spreading vortex in the center of the South Sea, as if something is trying to emerge from that vortex…”
“–Something abnormal has happened in the deep sea!”
The intelligence from the other end of the phone made everyone’s expressions even more grave.
Deep darkness spread from the distance, and the originally deep blue seawater seemed to be tinted with a floating black light. The fish corpses in the black light looked like vast patches of pale algae.
This blackness wasn’t ink or dye, but more like a constantly spreading concept that transcended matter.
Everyone stared at that darkness, as if seeing “death” itself.
An inexplicable horror made them shiver.
“This ocean… are there truly any living creatures left in it?”