Apocalypse Star House Hoarding

Chapter 300

As the piercing sirens echoed throughout the city, Yu Xi and her group were having dinner inside a partially collapsed building.

The day had been relatively stable for them.

The areas ravaged by the black hole could only be described as devastating, but at least the ground remained intact. That was perhaps the only silver lining in this disaster.

If the ground had collapsed, it would have caused a chain reaction, affecting a large portion of the mid-air structures in the West 320 sector. Given the sector’s height of 320 meters, a ground collapse would have sent debris plummeting down, causing secondary disasters in both the mid-air and ground-level districts below.

As things stood, about seventy percent of the buildings in this area had been completely destroyed, but much of the resulting rubble had fallen into the black hole.

Throughout the entire day, rescue teams, accompanied by large squads of robotic security units, had been combing through the wreckage, searching for survivors.

Fortunately, this place had advanced bio-mechanical medical technology. As long as a survivor still had a breath left and received treatment in time, there was always a way to keep them alive.

Mechanical arms, mechanical legs, mechanical internal organs—even cases where people had lost their entire lower bodies to the black hole had an eighty percent chance of survival if they received immediate treatment.

The problem was that during a black hole attack, the blue light barrier blocked all external aid. No one with such severe injuries could survive until the blue light disappeared.

The destruction of buildings had also damaged water pipes and electrical circuits. To prevent further explosions and ensure rescue operations were not hindered, officials had shut off the water supply, gas, and electricity in this entire district. As the rescue teams worked tirelessly, they noticed more and more people—originally living outside the blue-light zones—arriving in vehicles with their families. Some even carried inflatable tents and multiple backpacks, clearly intending to settle temporarily in the disaster zone.

The rescue teams were unable to stop them and quickly reported the situation to their superiors. In response, new robotic units were deployed to set up barricades at both ends of the district to prevent more people from entering. Officials assured the public that expert teams had been assembled and that a solution would soon be found.

But neither their words nor the barricades had any effect. Those who had left their homes to relocate here had already thought it through and made their decision.

Eventually, the barricades only led to a mass gathering of civilians and protests. The issue soon spiraled into a heated online debate, with people questioning why the government was preventing them from saving themselves in a crisis.

All they wanted was to increase their own and their families’ chances of survival—why were they being stopped from entering the black hole-ravaged zones?

The government was already overwhelmed by the situation. More importantly, they couldn’t refute the public’s argument. They had opposed people seeking refuge in the blue-light zones because they believed those areas weren’t entirely safe. But in reality, no place in the city was truly safe.

In the end, the government gave in and withdrew the barricades.

Yu Xi had been watching the surrounding chaos through her drone. She recalled it into her storage space, then turned around—only to nearly jump in shock when she found a square-shaped, metallic-gray head hovering just above her shoulder.

She instinctively took a step back before remembering, once again, that she had forgotten about Xi Yuan’s new form.

The large metal head spoke in a familiar voice: “Careful.”

She knew what he was warning about—she was standing at the very edge of a broken wall. A couple more steps back, and she would fall outside. But considering they were only on the third floor, at most, she’d get a scrape—if that.

Before she could react further, a firm arm caught her from behind.

Turning her head, she saw that Xing Min had wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her back toward the building’s interior. He shook his head slightly in disapproval. “Still not used to it?”

Yu Xi looked again at the over two-meter-tall robotic figure in front of her. How was she supposed to get used to this so quickly?

Back when he turned into a wolf-headed man, at least he still had a human body. But now, he was completely non-human.

Apparently, since Xi Yuan’s identity in this setting was a freight truck driver—someone who didn’t need to interact with customers—there was no need for a human-like appearance. His entire body was pure metal, with no synthetic skin or human features.

His head only had the rough outline of a face—two electronic eyes, no nose, and a mouth that was just a thin slit of metal.

At this moment, those two glowing red, bulb-like eyes were locked onto her, seemingly attempting to express sadness.

The effect, however, just reminded her of an old song lyric: eyes wide like brass bells.

Yu Xi sighed and rubbed her forehead.

The building they had chosen as their temporary shelter was near the glass barrier at the district’s edge. Beyond the railing was open air—essentially a dead end. That was likely why not many people had escaped here.

The structure itself wasn’t particularly eye-catching among the surrounding commercial buildings. Nestled in a corner, it had once been a small café.

Because it had been closed and unoccupied at night, the black hole had only grazed the building before moving on.

The café had three floors, and because the main supporting walls had not been damaged, the structure remained standing. The first and second floors had lost their outer canopies, while a section of the third-floor glass wall was missing, but the rest remained intact.

The café wasn’t very large. Half of the third floor served as a storage room. They kept the furniture they needed and stacked the rest against the walls, clearing space near the broken glass section.

From there, they could observe and wait.

This station was vastly different from previous ones.

Areas untouched by disaster were completely normal—while those that had suffered catastrophe looked like a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Fortunately, they were not lacking in water, electricity, or food—especially since Yu Xi had just restocked her inventory the previous day, completely filling her 450 cubic meters of storage space.

In the afternoon, as the rescue operations gradually came to an end and a large number of robots withdrew from the area, some of the original residents who had luckily avoided the black hole chose to stay. At the same time, even more people relocated to this previously devastated zone.

This new wave of people came better prepared than those who had moved in earlier. They had stocked up on portable food and water supplies from supermarkets, and some even brought specialized load-bearing robotic carts, seemingly determined to settle in for an extended period.

However, in Yu Xi’s view, everything remained unstable. No one knew where the next blue light zone would appear. No matter how well-prepared they were now, the moment the blue light descended, everything could be wiped out in an instant.

By evening, the scent of food began drifting from the remaining structures in the ruins.

Yu Xi’s group was no exception. She had taken out seven or eight newly purchased canned meals, along with a type of pink fruit about the size of a grape, planning to have them for dinner.

However, when she was about to hand a pair of chopsticks to Xi Yuan, he dejectedly pressed his large, square-shaped head against her shoulder. “You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you? You know I can’t eat right now…”

He bumped into her so hard that she nearly stumbled into the coffee table in front of her.

The large metal head looked completely innocent—if such an expression were even possible on that face. “…I-I didn’t use any force.”

Yu Xi felt a headache coming on and handed the chopsticks to Xing Min instead. “Forget it. If you can’t eat, just sit there and watch.”

Xi Yuan: …

However, they only made it halfway through dinner.

The moment they heard the sirens, all three of them stood up at once, rushing to the shattered glass wall. Without hesitation, they leaped down and sprinted toward the nearby glass railing.

The night wind was strong. The blue light-covered ground area was some distance away, partially obscured by layers of mid-air zones. From their vantage point, they could only vaguely make out the general situation. They had no idea that, instead of a black hole, this time a bizarre-looking snake had appeared in the area.

The new form of disaster caught everyone off guard. By the time the stunned civilians realized what was happening and tried to turn and flee, the massive snake’s gaping mouth had already reached them from behind.

The buildings in the city’s ground-level districts were mostly older constructions, many dating back decades. There were high-rises, but the streets were cluttered with scattered objects.

From the upper floors of some crumbling buildings, frightened residents peered down at the street below. They saw a mass of panicked people running, and at the very end of the crowd, a massive snake with a disproportionately large head and a stubby tail was slithering after them.

Its body was a striking shade of red and seemed to lack scales. Its mouth gaped wide as it advanced, swallowing the fleeing people at a rate of one per second.

It was like a nightmare come to life.

And it wasn’t just humans it devoured. Anything within its line of sight—street debris, bicycles, trash cans—was sucked into its mouth.

Some observant onlookers noticed that as the monstrous snake consumed more and more objects, its originally short tail seemed to grow longer.

The internet crashed within minutes under the flood of uploaded videos. Most were shaky and blurred, but they still clearly showed the revoltingly slick, red snake slithering along the streets.

—”Everyone inside the blue light zone, stay indoors!”

—”This time, it’s not a black hole! A bizarre giant snake has appeared in the blue light zone! So far, it’s only moving on the ground!”

—”No! I saw it slithering down from a high-rise! People inside buildings need to be careful too! Stay away from windows, and if possible, block off all doors and windows!”

Yu Xi and the others quickly pulled up the latest footage from the blue light zones via the “Life Assistant Device.”

As she watched the shaky 3D images before her, her brows furrowed.

If she wasn’t mistaken, that red, scaleless snake looked exactly like… the snake from the classic “Snake” game?

Among their group, only Ya Tong had significant gaming experience, but according to her, she had never encountered a game like this before. The types of games in Storm World seemed to differ from those of Yu Xi’s original world.

Xing Min, on the other hand, had absorbed knowledge about Yu Xi’s world, including concepts like black holes and the game “Snake.” However, he lacked firsthand experience, making it difficult to discuss the matter with him.

Before the first blue light zone had even settled, a second, third, and then a fourth blue light zone appeared in other ground-level districts.

Tonight’s pattern of blue light emergence was entirely different from the previous night, leaving those who had been trying to predict disaster trends completely lost.

**

That night, a total of more than ten blue light zones appeared, each featuring the devouring snake. None of them overlapped with the previous night’s black hole zones.

Perhaps because of this, the following morning, shortly after sunrise, Yu Xi heard the sound of a large crowd gathering. Crawling out of her sleeping bag, she walked to the edge of the building and saw a large group of civilians arriving in the formerly desolate commercial district park.

They were just like the people who had arrived the previous day—carrying their families, inflatable tents, and food and water supplies. Those with means brought mechanical carts, while others carried their belongings themselves, clearly intending to settle in.

Sure enough, after two consecutive nights of non-overlapping blue light zones, people had begun treating previously affected areas as safe zones.

Last night, Xi Yuan took the night watch. Now that he was a robot, he claimed he no longer felt sleepy.

Xing Min woke up early and was now standing side by side with him at the broken glass wall, both watching a small group of people approaching the building below.

Compared to the open park filled with rubble and debris, this small café building was a much better place to stay. Some people who hadn’t prepared tents were planning to stay inside.

However, the café’s main entrance was locked. The three of them had always entered and exited from the third floor, so they hadn’t broken the lock. Instead, they had stacked tables and chairs at the stairway entrance, effectively blocking off the third floor from the rest of the building.

The newcomers, unaware of this, saw them through the broken glass wall and then found the entrance locked. They assumed that Yu Xi and the others had locked the door on purpose to keep others out.

The group returned to the broken section of the glass wall, looking up with negotiation postures. They stated that they wouldn’t drive them out but simply wanted a place to rest. They hoped to share the building and asked them to open the door peacefully, preferring not to resort to force.

Xing Min and Xi Yuan both turned their heads toward Yu Xi.

Yu Xi was tying her hair. She casually swept back her medium-length strands, found a hair tie from her space, and neatly tied it up. Then, she reached out and stored all their personal belongings from the third floor.

“Let’s go. We’ll find another place,” she said. She had some thoughts she needed to record in a quiet environment before analyzing them with the others. Staying here would only mean more people coming.

“Let’s go!” Xi Yuan liked her decisiveness. He leaned against the wall, crossing his arms, and shook his large, square head—a move that was probably meant to look cool. Unfortunately, Yu Xi completely missed the point.

“Did your neck get stuck? Want some machine oil?”

Xi Yuan: …

Xing Min couldn’t hold back and let out a soft chuckle.

Without a word, Xi Yuan turned and jumped straight down from the third floor.

The people below were still trying to phrase their negotiations, but the next second, a tall robot landed with a loud thud in front of them.

Before their shocked screams could even escape, two more figures followed, leaping down from the third floor.

…Was this negotiation breaking down? Were they about to be beaten up—no, was this turning into a fight?

“We didn’t use the door. You can do as you like, but the blue light zone isn’t necessarily a hundred percent safe either.” Yu Xi addressed them briefly before turning and walking away with Xing Min and Xi Yuan.

Compared to other stations, the people in this one seemed even more tragic.

Disasters that followed a predictable pattern were at least manageable, but chaotic and unpredictable disasters like these quickly wore down people’s hope and courage.

**

An hour later, a large, leafy tree quietly appeared near another glass railing beside a collapsed building.

The surrounding buildings had completely crumbled. Rescue teams had come and gone, saving those who had survived, but there had been no time to clean up the wreckage. Blackened, stagnant water pooled in various spots, and two trees stood beside the ruins, perfectly concealing Yu Xi’s treehouse.

Inside the treehouse, Xing Min was making coffee in the open-concept kitchen, while Xi Yuan used a damp towel Yu Xi had handed him to carefully wipe the dirt from his mechanical feet. Then, he sat cross-legged beside Yu Xi, watching as she jotted down key information on paper.

It was Yu Xi’s habit—writing things down helped her think more clearly.

Both games are about devouring, which directly matches the name of this station. It is reasonable to assume that if the blue light disasters evolve further, they will still be related to devouring games.But right now, she couldn’t immediately recall any other similar devouring games, so she had no way to predict what might come next.

“But—” Yu Xi tapped her pen against the paper. “It feels like these disasters are all physical in nature.”

So far, the blue light zones only appear at night, not during the day.Her speculation about this was that it was related to time and dimensional shifts. The black hole and devouring snake were not things recognized in this world—they might have come from other dimensions. The blue light could very well be their protective barrier.

That would explain why they could move freely within the blue light, but their range was strictly limited to it. If there was a way to eliminate the blue light, then even if they didn’t disappear, they might be restricted.

“Actually, I have one more theory regarding points one and two,” Yu Xi said, “but it’s too terrifying to write down just yet.”

Hearing her say that, Xi Yuan became even more curious and couldn’t resist asking what her theory was.

She looked up, meeting Xing Min’s gaze as well, and asked, “Have you heard of the ‘Fourth Calamity’?”

Xing Min, having absorbed all the knowledge of Yu Xi’s world, naturally knew what the ‘Fourth Calamity’ referred to. But applying that concept here made the implications particularly chilling.

If her guess was correct, then the people in this station were truly the most pitiful of all.