Xyrin Empire
Chapter 540 A Minor Tremor

Chapter 540: Chapter 540 A Minor Tremor

Lin Xue, that girl, was really determined to give me a hard time at all costs.

It wasn’t just a biohazard, and it was quite clear that the troubles of this world were definitely not just a simple biohazard. There was nothing surprising about that. The Prophet had sent me personally to this low-magic, low-energy world. If there were only some dead bodies here, that would have truly made that girl too idle to bother... *cough*, anyway, there must be something beyond a biohazard on this planet.

But it definitely wasn’t like last time, when we entered the Apocalypse Plane contaminated by Star Ring Fragments. Just now in orbit, the mother ship had released a probe, and no similar source of pollution, nor anything that could be called a high-energy reaction, was detected on this planet, except for some suspicious signs of large-scale natural disasters. There was no sign that this planet had been hit by outer space materials, making the Empire’s non-combustible waste pollution theory inapplicable here. So, could the "something" Lin Xue mentioned exist in a way we can’t detect?

This is what’s really troubling me, Lin Xue clearly knows what’s up with this cursed place, but that damn girl just won’t tell me... I know spoilers are bad, but can’t you just tell me alone? I wouldn’t tell the readers, right?

*cough cough*, you guys didn’t see anything just now, did you?

"It’s really desolate here, not a soul in sight..."

Leading a hundred fully-armed Imperial Soldiers, we made no attempt to hide our presence; the warriors’ alloy armor clacked and echoed densely through the entire block, but not a single living or dead person popped out.

"Strange, has this place been struck by lightning?"

Du Dao Kazuko was scanning the surrounding high-rise buildings. We hadn’t noticed from afar, but once we entered the city, we saw that many of those tall buildings had some damage on the upper levels, looking as if they had been struck by lightning.

"Stupid humans, I don’t like this place!" Mercury Lamp frowned. At first, she insisted on walking by herself, staying more than two meters away from me, but since entering the city area, she had unconsciously moved closer to me, now deliberately pretending not to notice as she sat on my shoulder, "Hey, when are we leaving?"

Mercury Lamp couldn’t possibly be scared of this little scene. Despite her appearance as a Little Loli doll, she probably had a curiosity even stronger than Lilina’s. It wasn’t so much fear as it was an instinctive repulsion to the atmosphere of this city, which was evident from her facial expressions.

As an incomplete Alchemy Creature, her sensitivity to death and the foul aura here seemed far more acute than that of normal creatures.

"Did all the people in the city evacuate?"

Kazuo Komuro and others were surrounded and protected by layer upon layer of Imperial Soldiers, with a safety level of at least twenty-plus plusses. But upon returning to this terrifyingly memorable place, they still involuntarily gathered together, warily watching their surroundings. The speaker was Miyamoto Reiko, a girl I’ve always considered half a vase, who quickly regained her bravery after returning here, now carefully observing the situation around her.

I looked down at the floating holographic projection in front of me: "The probe has been released. It will return the three-dimensional information of the entire city in a few minutes. However, so far, no life signals have been received; either everyone is dead or they’ve fled—hopefully the latter."

"It seems like there’s a smell coming this way..." Du Dao Kazuko approached, sniffing and muttering lowly, "It’s quite unpleasant."

Ah, it is quite unpleasant. I’ve had my fill of this smell when roasting insects in the Kepulu Star Zone—it’s the smell of burnt corpses!

"Up ahead—but the scene might not be suitable for children."

"I’m not scared!" Alice, the Little Loli who had always been protected by adults, declared in her milky voice, "With all these amazing uncles protecting me, I’m not scared at all!"

Immediately, a hundred Imperial Soldiers lit up collectively. Is it my imagination?

"Uh..." Despite just now collectively acting cool and unafraid, when we actually turned around a block and arrived at the city center’s main square, the Academy Seven Little Strong group collectively threw up.

Bodies strewn all over, blood flowing into rivers?

"If that were the case, it would be somewhat better!"

The scene in the square was beyond description by mere corpses scattered everywhere; even those "things" no longer resembled any human form. Those charred remains could only be called "objects," after high temperatures had partially melted the fat and organs out of the bodies, stacking layer upon layer across the entire square and solidifying into charcoal. An area spanning hundreds of meters in radius was covered with nearly a meter-thick layer of corpses, millions of bodies burned together like sardines in a can, indistinguishable between men, women, old, or young, all turned into one entire block of carbonized fat. At that moment, I thought of many things, but the first thing that came to mind was...

"Damn, it looks like the cake Sandora made for me the day before yesterday...ugh...that girl’s cooking is absolutely vomit-inducing."

What was even more disgusting was that the surface of the mound of corpses covering the entire square occasionally had one or two discernible human faces embedded in it. Under the high heat, the facial muscles of these faces twisted grotesquely, like demons sealed in the ground of hell.

Alice suddenly burst into tears, and at the same time, I felt the Mercury Lamp slightly trembling: this doll might have no issue with killing, might even face corpses calmly, but not being afraid doesn’t mean she wasn’t sickened by such a sight. Zhang Fei would shake off his shoe if he stepped in poop; this had nothing to do with courage—she was purely disgusted, and if she were fully functional, she’d probably want to vomit as well.

Thank goodness Luo Zhen had passed on, as the Mercury Lamp had no stomach—this girl was now riding on my neck...

And to be honest, I was also thoroughly disgusted.

"What...what happened here..."

Fatty Hira’s face contorted, and mid-sentence, a bile surged up, but he endured it for a long time and managed to swallow it back down.

As a result, Kazuo Komuro next to him suddenly threw up.

"It seems like the evacuating people tried to gather most of the dead bodies in this square, then set them on fire." Looking at the mix of metal debris in the center of the square that was now unrecognizable, probably the tombstone of the last few living people of this city, no matter how you look at it, it seemed impossible for humans to have escaped from such a gruesome scene, unless they cheated by having a helicopter airlift them during their escape.

"Moreover, it looks like they didn’t burn them all."

"Being high helps one see far," mentioned the Mercury Lamp, who was riding on my neck, suddenly noticing something odd. She pointed towards the end of the street and said, "Those disgusting piles of trash, are they what the stupid humans call zombies?"

That thing is called a corpse here; let’s be careful with copyright issues, shall we?

"Dammit, there really are those things here—" Kazuo Komuro said indignantly and then habitually looked around for a weapon, but someone else was more professional.

"B-6 Type Armed!"

The accompanying Imperial Officer immediately shouted loudly. During the mechanical assembly clacking, the surrounding Imperial Soldiers switched to a triple-linked six-barrel particle machine gun—the most effective and inexpensive weapon against fragile swarm targets.

At that moment, dense shadows gradually emerged from the end of the street; the corpses, these incomplete bodies groaning unconsciously, finally appeared before us, their muscles rotting as they staggered forward, frustrating every medical professional from the biological and physical perspectives. I then recalled what Lin Xue had said, "...They’ve evolved, huh? Pfft, such a third-rate plot."

They had indeed evolved. Originally, the corpses in the plot had no senses except for hearing, but now, it was clear they didn’t come here following sounds. The clashing sounds of the armor of our fellow Imperial Soldiers couldn’t possibly draw enemies from several blocks away. Probe data showed that even the corpses on the other side of the city began moving this way.

"Fire at will!"

Once the Imperial Officer gave the order, over a hundred battlefield meat grinders immediately started spewing fire. The intensity of the soldiers’ firepower could not be described merely as a storm. The astonishing firing rate of the triple-linked six-barrel particle machine guns emitted micro plasma clusters, carrying shocking electric fields and temperatures. As they resonated, the resulting energy cloud mist spilled out, forming a moving curtain wall. Kazuo Komuro and others hardly had time to gasp before our surroundings were already clean.

Truly clean— at least twenty concrete steel buildings vaporized into atmospheric matter almost as the Commander said the word "fire." Looking around, the flatness resembled Pandora’s undeveloped airport, which hadn’t developed for tens of thousands of years. As the plasma clusters released, they instantaneously turned the surrounding matter into plasma, many of the evaporated buildings’ cross sections as neatly cut as if by a knife.

And the shooting continued, although they had switched to cheaper ground combat weapons, the killy power of these Imperial weapons was still unstoppable for those jokingly moving chunks of flesh. In fact, aside from a fleeting appearance that fluttered before our eyes twice, dead bodies never showed up in our sight again; by now we couldn’t even see what these Imperial Soldiers were shooting at—the enemies were long gone from our sight.

"Wow!!! Is this really a machine gun?!!!"

Fatty Hirano completely forgot the panic he was supposed to feel at that moment and instead, like a hungry tiger pouncing on its prey, wanted to go study one of the Imperial Soldiers’ huge machine guns. Naturally, he was immediately kicked over by someone with pink pigtails, but it seemed his stubborn spirit couldn’t be curbed—as he still tried to crawl to the nearest Imperial Soldier—proving indeed that otakus are the bravest and most tenacious creatures in this world.

"Let’s go. Looks like there aren’t any living humans left in this city," I glanced at the data sent back by the probe, the human life reaction was zero, and having personally entered the city center, I found nothing worth noting. There was no more value in exploring this city. "Prepare the space transmission."

A flash of white light and, in one second, were amidst deafening explosion sounds, and the next second, we found ourselves on a highland far from the city.

The Academy Seven Little Strong looked around blankly, clearly not quite understanding what had happened; even though they had seen unimaginable technology in Shadow City, experiencing this military technology firsthand was something else.

"Instant movement? That’s... impressive!"

Fatty Hirano pushed up his glasses, his face full of envy as he drooled over the equipment of the soldiers around us. I had no doubt, given the same gear, this guy would streak naked around the street if asked.

"It looks like the people in the city have all evacuated." Miyamoto Reiko muttered to herself as if to comfort herself, but Ju Chuan Jingxiang, inappropriately, displayed her observational skills: "The population of that scale of city must have been only a few hundred thousand anyway, considering the dead bodies and corpses in the squares... I’ve always been sensitive to numbers."

"Most of the citizens must have turned into dead bodies already," Takayama Sayaka said with a very pale face, speaking in a low voice, "There were many martial law signs and temporary road signs on the streets, every intersection had a sentry, key locations had many stores converted into warehouses, indicating this city was once used as a refuge, where a large number of survivors gathered. No one fled, and then... the outbreak happened inside..."

A glimpse and the whole picture is seen; it seems what Lin Xue saw was all real.

"You’re kidding..." Miyamoto Reiko covered her mouth in disbelief, her companions’ faces quickly covered in a layer of gray, only Du Dao Kazuko looked relatively composed: she had known the truth, but couldn’t bear to tell her companions that a Doomsday weapon was now targeting Earth above their heads.

Now, it was about time to prepare for firing.

"Regardless, there’s no need to preserve that city."

I interrupted the Little Strong’s deepening conjectures, pointing towards the modern city that still looked grand and prosperous from the outside, "Burn!"

An energy aura visible to the naked eye flashed beneath our feet, and two seconds later, under the horrified gaze of Kazuo Komuro and others, the distant city suddenly burst into flames, followed by... a torrential magma storm violently erupted between the high-rises of the city, ripping everything apart, surging into the sky, and in an instant, the entire city turned into flying debris, slowly settling into the sea of magma that had just appeared moments ago.

Not to brag, but Akmonde wasn’t as clean and efficient as me.

"Hey hey... this, this is too exaggerated! Magic? Forbidden Curse? Or just happened to catch a live-fire city melting?"

Takayama Sayaka almost dropped her glasses to the ground, practically incoherently pointing at the distant sea of blazing magma, turning her eyes back to me like she was looking at a monster.

Go find your high school physics teacher, and I’ll explain the principle of earth stress with him.

"The Xyrin people were once known as ’Destroyers of All Realms’, this power is just a basic skill, and doesn’t human-made nuclear bombs achieve similar effects?" I shrugged nonchalantly, having habitually launched a map cannon just now, but forgetting that apart from Imperial Soldiers, there were a few ordinary people nearby—my bad, "You haven’t seen Pandora go berserk; she usually fights with her little sister, right? The first time they fought, they caused several million square kilometers of land to suddenly drop by more than ten kilometers, the deepest hit was straight to the mantle, and when that girl goes all out, firing at the South Pole would create a hole at the North Pole, and just like that, the whole planet would be done for—nowadays, if you want to dominate the universe, you can’t do it without a few tricks, right?"

"Hey, silly... human," Mercury Lamp suddenly knocked on my head, "Are Pandora and Visca really that powerful?"

Me: "...If I remember correctly, you sneaked some of Pandora’s yogurt yesterday afternoon, didn’t you?"

Clearly, the Chairman felt guilty.

Just as we were preparing to board the transporter to search for any survivors nearby, an abrupt shaking of the ground nearly made Du Dao Kazuko fall.

An earthquake!?

It really was an earthquake because the solid ground was now twisting and undulating in front of us like it had softened. Huge cracks abruptly appeared and then spread rapidly. The violent shaking made it impossible to stand on the flat ground. If it weren’t for the tower-like Imperial Soldiers being used as handrails by Du Dao and the others, the Academy Seven Little Strong would have all collapsed by now.

The shaking lasted for about ten minutes before gradually subsiding, and then everyone looked at each other.

"Japan really does have a lot of earthquakes," I tapped my forehead but wasn’t as calm as I sounded.

The previous... was not an earthquake, it was an energy burst from the Earth’s core!

"Your Majesty, the probe has detected a human gathering 300 kilometers ahead!"

The accompanying commander’s report suddenly interrupted my thoughts. Hearing the news of living people for the first time since arriving in this world, Du Dao and the others immediately showed expressions of joy.

"Lin Xue just said that this world no longer needs healing," I leaned in and whispered to Du Dao, "But I never said I’d give up on the refugees here— don’t worry, humanity won’t go extinct."

The distance of 300 kilometers took only an instant with space transmission. When we suddenly appeared in front of the group of gaunt refugees, it, unsurprisingly, triggered a panic.

The already frightened refugees, faced with the sudden appearance of hundreds of black-armored Big Men, almost unanimously screamed and then started scattering in every direction with movements honed from months of nightmare-like experiences. Everyone who had survived until now had at least highly tuned instincts when facing danger.

"Everyone calm down! Officer Nakaoka, please help... Do not attack rashly! What are you people?"

After the refugees instinctively panicked, a police officer with purple long hair immediately stood out from the crowd to maintain order. I hadn’t expected there to be a police officer under such circumstances... Eh? Is this person...

"Shizuka? What are you doing here, and these students... You’re all still alive!?"

I remembered, Takayama Sayaka’s close friend, Minami Rika. Honestly, I didn’t have much of an impression of her, since what I remembered most from Academy Apocalypse was all the shaky scenes, homage to the artist.

"Rika, is that really you!" The accompanying school nurse from Kazuo Komuro’s team, the naturally ditsy Takayama Sayaka, finally recognized the worn-out police officer, covered almost entirely by dirt and fatigue, "It’s so good to see you... Please take these people and evacuate with us! We have a refuge and medical facilities, and these Imperial Soldiers are very powerful~~"

"Imperial Soldiers?" The policewoman named Minami Rika never took her focus off us. She kept a close watch on the hundred two-meter-tall, fully-armored Heavy Armor Soldiers. Now seeing her friend with these strange people and referring to them as Imperial Soldiers, she was immediately puzzled.

"To put it simply, these refugees are now under our protection," I stepped forward and said to the gun-wielding mature lady.

"Shizuka, who is this plain-looking guy?"

Me: "..."

Did the sister in the original work talk this rudely?(To be continued. To know what happens next, please visit www.qidian.com. More Chapters available, support the author, support genuine reading!)