Apocalypse Forecast

Chapter 429 - 369 Countdown_1

The second Diamond Leopard to die. Although it often bickered with that Green Bird fellow, their relationship was actually quite good. They had been together since arriving here. To save Green Bird, the leopard fought one against five without regard for its own safety. After bringing Green Bird back, it was already at its last gasp and didn't last much longer.

Finally, Huai Shi returned. It was part of his mission; among everyone, only he possessed the highest Abyss Resistance. According to calculations, even if everyone else transformed into Erosion species, he would survive just fine. Besides, his craftsmanship wasn't bad, and only he could perform this kind of work.

The third to die was a quiet fellow. A huge bat, he had thrown himself onto the central engine assembly to block the second wave of attacks with his body. By the time he was rescued, he was almost burned to a crisp.

Afterward, Huai Shi could finally bid farewell to this unsettling task. The war wasn't over yet, but the situation was already under control.

「Nine hours later.」

"The Border satellite has finally detected the edge of the gray tide," announced the fox, who was covered in thick, viscous bloodstains, over the channel. "Everyone get ready. It's time to say goodbye to this damned war."

Even though the gray tide outside had breached the city's defenses several times, leaving every Giant Beast injured and the situation more perilous than ever, the fox's tone remained calm.

The news was quite heartening. When the seemingly endless gray tide finally revealed its edge, the crushing fatigue, born from a battle that felt as if it would last until Doomsday, dissipated as if gone with the wind. Despite the dire situation, the enemy could at least be eliminated entirely, if only they pushed a little harder.

In fact, they didn't need to push any harder.

When the Central Control Room determined that the vast majority of the gray tide had entered the effective kill zone, and that this war had successfully drawn in all enemies, the war could essentially be declared over.

Now, it was merely a countdown.

Purely in terms of destructive power, Evolutionary Groups that had reached their later stages were no less formidable than any Giant Beast. In fact, nurtured by millennia of knowledge from the Current Circumstances, they had far surpassed them.

A hundred years ago, humanity's stockpiled nuclear arsenal was sufficient to obliterate the entirety of the Current Circumstances. A century had passed, and though the era seemed to have undergone a cataclysmic transformation, the sad truth was that humans hadn't changed their destructive tendencies.

As several flight formations lifted off from the newly raised runway, broke through the blockade of Erosion species avians, and soared into the distance, everyone couldn't help but breathe a collective sigh of relief.

What followed was hardly worth mentioning. It was nothing more than continuing to defend and then wait—waiting for the seventeen heavy mass generators, capable of covering millions of miles of the gray tide, to be in position.

With the countdown proceeding in the Central Control Room, three hours flashed by in an instant.

The fox threw himself into a chair, a homemade tobacco pipe dangling from his lips. He took a deep drag, unable to hide his exhaustion.

"Do you know what I'm most thankful for right now?"

He glanced around at his colleagues as the final half-minute of the countdown ticked away. "Thank God this world is leaking air!"

A burst of scoffing laughter erupted. Everyone's gaze was fixed on the countdown, their faces alight with an anticipation akin to celebrating the New Year, and they chanted in unison.

"Ten! Nine! Eight…"

Amidst the roar, the city of metal shuddered once more. The buffer layer was instantaneously blasted away, replaced by thousands of enormous, bolt-like steel columns that rammed downwards, forcefully connecting the entire city with the pre-cast steel-concrete structure in the subterranean fortifications.

It was as if a colossal nail had been hammered into this stable stratum.

"Seven! Six! Five…"

"Everyone!"

In the sky, the Phoenix suddenly beat its wings, once again unleashing a terrifying wave of flame that swept for a hundred miles, instantly clearing all the gray tide surrounding the city. It then dove downwards, roaring into the public channel, "—Brace for impact!"

No further words were needed. Before the countdown even began, every Giant Beast, without exception, had climbed onto Huai Shi's back. They allowed themselves to be wrapped with The Sorrow of Index like rice dumplings. Tears streamed down their faces, yet they stubbornly refused to get down, not even struggling. Instead, they continually pleaded, "Wrap a few more rounds, Old Pal, a little more..."

"You're crying like this and you still want more?"

"What's wrong with me being emotional!"

"Alright, alright."

Huai Shi graciously complied, fearing its dissatisfaction. He even fashioned a ball gag and stuffed it into its mouth. Judging by its excited expression, he supposed it was quite happy.

After that, Huai Shi lay down in the crater he had just created.

He even tried to dig a little deeper, his front paws moving rapidly, like an excavator. In an instant, he had clawed out a pit deep enough to half-bury himself. He crawled in, settled down, and resolved not to move, no matter what.

As for the gray tide excitedly surging towards the metal city, he couldn't be bothered to pay them any mind.

And the countdown finally reached its end.

"Three!"

"Two!"

"One!"

As the earth suddenly trembled, the world fell silent.

It was as if, in some extremely distant place, someone had opened a bottle of champagne, neatly popping the cork with a gentle POP.

Then, a chilling sense of crisis surged through the consciousness of every Giant Beast.

They dug desperately into the earth, hearing the mournful wail of the land itself.

The Earth's crust trembled, roared, bellowed, and began to disintegrate. Terrifying high heat, along with unprecedented geological movements, erupted from the mantle. In an instant, the entire world was illuminated by the residual magma, a sea of blood red.

Blood-red flames flowed, stretching into the distance, as if tugged by invisible little hands.

It began as a breeze, barely perceptible, then quickly escalated into a howling gale, rushing off into the far distance. The last remnants of the thin air were ruthlessly swept away, taking with them the countless screams of the gray tide from the land below.

The world was in violent turmoil.

Everything between heaven and earth felt as if it had been tossed into a small box, then placed inside a washing machine's drum, set to spin and shake wildly.

All things were in upheaval.

Even separated by layers upon layers of mountains, the Giant Beast next to Huai Shi screamed in terror, "Stand still, will you? Don't lean this way, you're crushing me..."

"It's not me!" Huai Shi cried out in panic, burying his head in the soil. "Something is sucking me that way..."

Everything in this world was drifting away, in all directions.

For a moment, the Earth tensed up, like a blanket being violently tugged. Then, amidst the mournful cry of countless tons of earth and rock collapsing, it disintegrated.

If one were to look down from the sky, would they not see the indescribably tragic scene of this boundless land cracking inch by inch, completely covered by lava?

If this place were configured as a planet, then at this moment, that planet would have certainly and abruptly burst apart, all under the silent watch of those seventeen tiny black dots.

As the heavy mass generators activated, seventeen gravitational cực điểm instantly formed, fueled by a colossal infusion of energy. Laws that were considered taboo even in the realm of physics were triggered.

Rather than calling them laws, it might be more accurate to describe it as... a malignant BUG. In the Great Secret of Chalatustra, there existed countless conflicting laws that could not be reconciled or negated, branch possibilities that could only be forcibly sealed away and their activation denied.

Just as even a skyscraper might have minor flaws, there are situations in physics where the myriad laws clash, producing outcomes that not even the Creator could have foreseen.

Among these multifarious situations, if the prerequisite conditions were met, it would lead to the birth of an infinitesimally small singularity—possessing infinite mass, infinite gravity, and capable of distorting even spacetime itself.

In other words, a Black Hole.

Now, seventeen celestial bodies, previously existing only in popular science literature, were instantaneously born upon this land, displaying their own tyrannical majesty.

In just a few fleeting moments, they violently hollowed out one-tenth of this world from its very center. If one were to look down from above, they would be able to see, through the thick, foundational layers, the abyssal void at the very bottom.

「Three seconds.」

At this very moment, this world of round heavens and square earth was being brutally ravaged, along with all the Erosion species.

The instant the heavy mass generators activated, over two-thirds of the Erosion species were sucked in, crushed to dust, and utterly annihilated. The remaining Erosion species shrieked as they fled, only to be inevitably drawn by the terrifying gravitational pull into that eternal, all-consuming darkness.

After those three seconds—three seconds comparable to destruction itself—had passed, the entire world had been reduced to ruins. The already apocalyptic world, under this onslaught, had truly met its final apocalypse.

The silver lining, if any, was that a dead world cannot be killed a second time. It was like smashing an already broken pot—simply making use of something already ruined.

Even so, the entire metal city, along with the heavy subterranean fortifications beneath it, was yanked a full dozens of meters out of the ground.

If not for its own colossal mass, it probably would have been torn into the sky by now. Had it been unlucky enough to fall into one of the gravitational fields, it would have been shredded in an instant. There was no chance of defense; it was indefensible.

This is what makes Chalatustra so dreadful. Even among the endless depths of Hell, with its countless terrifying beings, as long as the three Great Mystic Rituals remain, those unimaginably horrifying entities would absolutely refuse to enter the Current Circumstances.

The value of the Creator lies in construction and protection. Yet, all too often, the power they bring, once applied to slaughter, is beyond comparison with any Sublimator.

Take the General, for instance, who was once the most likely to reach the Natural Enemy; a full-force punch from him was akin to a nuclear explosion. But are nuclear explosions so rare in the Current Circumstances? One could simply find a garage, sneak in some uranium, and bring over a fearless Professor to replicate it.

Although the effect couldn't compare, and it certainly wouldn't be easy... how could this mass-producible and incrementally improvable technology be less useful than a capricious, unmanageable individual?

No matter how formidable the Authority Angel Fighter might be, the resources spent to cultivate a single Authority Angel could purchase an entire fighter squadron. After all, behind every high-ranking Sublimator lies the metaphorical image of one, or even several, gold-filled vaults being burned to ashes. It was really not cost-effective.

Unfortunately, it seemed that such a display of power might very well be the Eternal Titan Empire's last. After all, this was not the Current Circumstances; once one left the city, all established laws would become invalid. And only Hydra could perform the Alchemy necessary to keep the heavy mass generators operational.

It wasn't the city that needed to be rebuilt, nor the hundreds of thousands of Sacrificial victims and other dead Giant Beasts, nor even the drastically worsened environment.

This—the loss of Hydra's unique capability—was their most grievous loss this time.