Cyber Era Witch
Chapter 642 - 541 Sato City

Chapter 642: Chapter 541 Sato City

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Sato City, one of the cities seized by Black Fire Innovation.

The Northern Archipelago had lost two of its southern islands. It was like when humans lose a pinky, experiencing extreme horror and pain the moment the finger hits the ground. Once the blood had drained and the wound healed, people gradually accepted the loss of their little finger and life went on as usual.

Now it was the same.

Those who remained on the main island soon lost interest in the fact that such a battle had taken place.

As for the 5 million people and 6 cities on the two southern islands, their lives plummeted into the abyss when they were swallowed up by Black Fire Innovation.

Six hours into the occupation, the citizens were still complacent, believing it was merely a change of city ownership due to corporate warfare aftershocks, and that by continuing to work hard they could maintain their lives as before.

Then, the Black Fire Innovation army launched large-scale looting and massacres, and the city was instantly flooded with blood and cries. Before people could even express their shock, the corporate troops entering their homes plundered everything and subjected them to violent treatment.

There was nowhere to escape, no land that was safe to speak of.

After three days of occupation, everyone was arrested. All activities came to a halt, valuable factories and machines were relocated, and money was plundered clean.

The remaining people were sorted according to their skills and labor abilities. Those with a craft, especially technicians, repairmen, and machine workers, were sent back to the Taiya Archipelago immediately to join the cause of the Black Fire Innovation.

Women were an important resource, no matter their status, all were dressed in clothes with special markings and sent back to Taiya to satisfy the high demands of the Black Fire soldiers. After treading the tough battlefield day and night, once they rotated back to the Taiya Archipelago, they had to release their stress.

Without any birth control measures, the island women taken away were to bear children, children who could support the cause of the Black Fire Innovation.

The rest toiled away, repairing military airfields, barracks, and war weapons ceaselessly day and night.

In the first week, some audio-visual materials about the atrocities committed by Black Fire Innovation still managed to be sent out. By the second week, network facilities were cut off, and those left on the island withered away like plants in vacuum jars due to a lack of basic nutrients, falling into a silent process of death.

Two months into the occupation, after such enslavement and plundering, Sato City, once a beautiful island city, had deteriorated. The parched people succumbed in hunger and disease, withering away day by day.

The silence was broken only by the roaring of Black Fire Innovation’s military aircraft taking off and landing, the explosive sound of engines when warships entered the port, and the drinking and revelry of soldiers rotated from the front lines.

Barracks, like vast parasitic fungal colonies, rapidly expanded around the once-clean city, quickly seizing all of the former civic infrastructure and monopolizing the scarce water and electricity resources.

The twisted corpses by the roadsides reached out with dry claws. Living people passed by, unable to cast a sorrowful glance, for their own lives were just as precarious.

Millions left on the island worked arduously, constantly dismantling and excavating all of the island’s resources. The area of the forest was cut in half, leaving countless tree stumps like spots scattered across the island’s face.

The city itself did not escape, high rises collapsed thunderously, and houses and shops were all disassembled, turned into concrete and metal debris, uniformly shipped back to the Taiya Archipelago for melting, becoming part of the war resources.

The military control of Black Fire Innovation was enough to drive anyone insane.

Five months into the occupation, at least 200,000 people had died in the winter famine, with corpses piled densely on the beaches forming dry mountains of bodies. Whenever the tide rose, mutated sea monsters climbed onto the shore, swallowing dead bodies in large gulps.

Many people in extreme despair developed a morbid ideology and volunteered to join corporate troops, unafraid of engaging in the most dangerous experimental tasks or suicide missions.

In their hearts, Black Fire Innovation had become the strongest power in the world, the lord and ruler, capable of destroying their lives to such an extent, like a steel knife peeling away the veil of civilized living, piercing through all the hypocrisy beneath, using force and bloodshed as a sobering reminder to humanity. They joined Black Fire Innovation to perpetuate this process, to keep the flames of war alive.

Those who harbored these thoughts and acted on them never returned once they left the island.

Now, 10 months into the occupation.

The number of survivors was dwindling. With communication absolutely cut off, they still believed the Northern Archipelago was firmly controlled by Kyoto Infinity.

The few hundred thousand that remained longed to see the moment when the fleet of Kyoto Infinity appeared in the sky, yearning for the instant of salvation.

...

The enormous Ocean Descendant Clares the Second was swimming in the sea, its massive and sleek form evoking the image of a scarlet sea dragon. The pressure it exuded made all large marine creatures desperately avoid it.

Ever since the Mouse Witch Sally applied the Giant Growth Magic Power on it, Clares the Second had grown to an unrivaled size. In fact, it had become the overlord of the Eastern Hemisphere’s marine regions, making any school of fish consciously flee from Clares’ swimming route to avoid being devoured whole.

Its presence also impacted the development of fisheries. Several attacks on coastal fishing grounds caused panic among the coastal residents. Deep-sea hunters skilled in eliminating Ocean Descendants took to the seas to chase but failed to bring down Clares the Second time after time.

High-quality steel cables wound around its two hind legs, dragging a medium-sized submarine, wandering through the deep sea.

Grown to such a size, Clares the Second, over 70 meters long, faced no rivals in the sea, and now, at the behest of Mother Farosa’s psychological suggestion, was approaches Sato City with the Disciple Squad by utilizing deep-sea streams, avoiding detection.

Without Clares the Second’s protection, swimming at such depths would have been a feast for other bloodthirsty Ocean Descendants.

The submarine was full of Disciple Squad members, tasked with destroying the military base of Sato City.

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Rinne stroked the glass layers beside the submarine.

The depths of the sea were pitch-black and profoundly silent, but there were still so many beautiful things residing within. Rinne had wanted to become sentimental, but everyone else inside the submarine was deadly serious, determined to defeat Sato City’s Black Fire Innovation troops.

The thought of the intense battles to come made Rinne put away her own thoughts; however, her gaze continued to sweep around.

Her eyes could penetrate the dark seawater, catching glimpses of shadows, now bright, now dim. Beneath the seabed lay an even more colorful realm, where undersea volcanoes cracked open, spewing out red lava and misty waves. In time, geological activities would erupt, magma would burst forth triumphantly through the tides, and as it cooled, a new island would take shape.

Geological activities were measured in millennia. In comparison, humans were like ephemeral beings. Rinne thought silently.

Boom boom—

Suddenly, the submarine began to shudder in the deep sea.

"What happened?" Rinne picked up Snowball, who struggled in her hands.

Only Clares the Second’s anxious voice could be heard, any pitch it emitted refracted and transformed by the deep water, sounding like a deep and eerie drone as if from another world.

In an instant, Rinne associated it with various audios from the deep-layer anonymous networks claiming to be recordings of whales, with titles like "Voices from the Deep Sea—Do You Dare to Listen?" And now, her enhanced auditory equipment had caught this high-pitched, sharp frequency. After hearing this dizzying sound, Rinne swore she would never travel with Clares the Second again.

"It’s so noisy! So unpleasant!" Hosoda Yoshiyuki yelled out, echoing Rinne’s thoughts.

"Clares the Second..." Chiyuki Sajou quickly walked to the front of the submarine, released her Moonlight Ritual, and silently established a mental connection with the other party, "...seems to have been attacked."

An attack launched in the deep sea.

"What kind of attack can reach down here?" Jiro exclaimed in surprise.

Immediately after, they saw the entire deep sea begin to churn, a current of air piercing the sea, creating a spiral pattern in the thick black waters, nearly splitting the ocean in half!

Rinne was stunned. What kind of power could slice through the sea?

Clares the Second writhed violently, and the submarine trailing it experienced significant drift, almost being thrown off by Clares the Second. The people inside were tossed around.

Rinne activated her magic power to stabilize herself, grabbing Lu Jing with one hand and Seeking Shadow with the other to keep them from spinning out of control.

"Clares the Second is under attack!" Chiyuki Sajou could hear a faint voice through the mental connection, "It’s telling us to get away!"

"Should we stay under the water or jump out? Or what—" Nidelaide yelled.

"Let me out to fight!" A999 slid on the floor. Snowball jumped down to the ground, running back and forth, fetching the scattered objects.

"We hide in the sea in silence!" Seeking Shadow decided on the spot.

She rushed to the control panel and activated the preset disengagement function just before Clares the Second could throw off the submarine.

The submarine was immediately severed from Clares the Second’s claws.

Seeking Shadow increased the load, causing the submarine to slowly sink deeper into the waters, while Clares the Second swung its tail and swam away in another direction.

When the submarine hit the bottom, people’s hearts also gradually stabilized along with the entire vessel.

"What do we do now?" Nidelaide voiced everyone’s common concern.

"We need someone to scout ahead... land first for reconnaissance, to understand what attacked Clares the Second and whether it poses a danger to us," Seeking Shadow swiftly made a plan.

When Seeking Shadow turned her head, she saw that Rinne had already activated the full-enclosure mode of the Witch Armor and was at the watertight door, ready to open the hatch and head out to sea.

"Where are you going?" Seeking Shadow asked curiously.

"Scouting," Rinne volunteered without hesitation.

"I’ll go too," Hazuki Masasuke said, pulling a wetsuit out of the cabinet, "but I’ll move separately from her."

"Don’t rush. Wait for an hour, and we’ll surface to a suitable location to let you out," Seeking Shadow turned back and entered a series of secret codes on the control panel to prevent signal interception.

"What could make a sea creature so afraid?" Nidelaide wondered.

"A witch," Rinne said without a second’s thought.