Chapter 855: Disaster Begins

】East Ying New Lodge.

On the street, heads gathered.

Hiding inside a Japanese pub, six survivors wrapped head-to-toe in blackened white cloth knelt on the ground.

Outside the window, silence; tranquil.

A survivor resembling a family of three inside the house couldn't help but sob softly.

In this quiet environment.

Perhaps the sobbing was too harsh in this cramped room, a bald man holding a stick growled irritably:

"Stop fucking crying!"

"They're going to see us!"

His voice trembled; although his expression was fierce, it was easy to see from his shaking hands that he was no better off than anyone else present.

Everyone clung tightly to their own heads, like ostriches daring not to look out the window.

The window, pasted over with newspaper, cast a faint light.

On the wooden floor inside the pub, floating dust particles slowly rose, twisting wildly in the dim light, as if being guided, flying toward the light.

On the system panel, notifications from the war zone channel kept flashing.

"Warning! The Shinjuku War Zone chat channel will enter radio silence in 15 seconds! All survivors, stop checking and sending messages! Do not look up at the sky!!"

"Warning! The Shinjuku War Zone chat channel will enter radio silence in 14 seconds..."

"Warning!.."

The countdown ticked down rapidly, and the entire war zone channel was flooded with warning messages.

The sender of the messages was not the system, but an official force spontaneously organized.

Although it was merely a chat channel, at this moment it acted like a virus spreading, forcing people to actively abandon it.

"I don't want to die... I don't want to die like this...!!"

Perhaps the overly tense and oppressive atmosphere completely shattered everyone's nerves.

A young man held a shotgun, trembling as he aimed it at his own chin.

After glancing one last time at the channel's countdown, he then shook all over and turned off the message.

Beside the locked door behind him, a headless corpse lay still on the ground.

Judging by the degree of decay, it was clearly a zombie.

But the wound at the neck was extremely fresh.

That limp, twisted body seemed as if its spine had been pulled out.

"Po~"

Outside the window, on the street.

Several sounds like the opening of a soda pop rang out.

This continuous crisp ringing sounded like the final countdown.

"Bang!!"

The gunshot rang.

Red exploded in the window of the old house, speckled.

On the street where heads gathered, countless heads floating in midair stared in unison at that small pub.

On the faces floating in midair, hovering like balloons, appeared foolish smiles.

In the sky, a huge face, expressionless and covered in wrinkles, cast a large shadow upon the ground.

Arab War Zone, Yēlūsālěng.

The scorching sun hanging high in the horizon fiercely baked the earth, even the air twisting under the heat.

About a hundred meters high, beneath the massive stone wall built relying on the mountain ranges, dense corpse hordes piled up like a black tide.

The corpse fluid was viscous, pooling on the ground like petroleum.

Strangely, the air seemed to permeate with a faint dampness.

Below the city, tens of millions of zombies trampled each other, stacked to a height of nearly seventy meters.

Just like haystacks leaning against the wall, one after another.

"All survivors, prepare to evacuate!"

"Evacuate northward! Please evacuate northward as quickly as possible!!"

Armed helicopters hovered, alarms echoing repeatedly within the valley-like gathering area.

Soldiers clutching heavy machine guns roared heart-wrenchingly downward.

As a former holy city, this place gathered half of Yēlūsālěng's survivors.

A sea of people, large numbers of clueless humans blankly listened to the warnings overhead, while a few who obtained more accurate information cried out and ran in another direction.

Thirteen minutes later.

On the street, a woman wrapped in black gauze desperately watched the frantic crowd.

"Child... who saw my child..!?"

"Please, help me find my child... sob sob.."

A face showing only the eyes repeatedly searched the street for the child's silhouette.

After a moment, her eyes bloodshot, she collapsed in despair at seeing a small hand crushed under the crowd's feet, stumbling as she pushed against the flow.

"Run fast!!"

"The mountain is about to split!! Flood! It's a flood coming!!"

Unfathomable.

The panicked crowd fleeing at full speed shouted in terror, while large numbers of survivors taking advantage of the chaos to loot frantically set fire to the city.

Although they were clearly 700 kilometers from the nearest coastline, every fleeing crowd seemed to firmly believe.

The high-level officials who first received the information had already evacuated.

As the largest safe zone painstakingly established, the awakened ones who had once fought to stop the battle here unhesitatingly abandoned everything.

In the sky, large numbers of old gliders flew about like headless flies, while aircraft stripped of their precision instruments collided on the runway as if in a race.

Flames, thick smoke, screams.

At the wall corner in the escape direction, a few powerful awakened ones ran at high speed, even nimbly scaling the towering city wall.

On the roof of the highest building in the safe zone, also beneath the former Saint Norma Cross, several elderly people who refused to leave trembled as they watched the black line approaching in the distance.

The black line moved slowly, yet it seemed endless, no matter how far one looked.

It was like a black sash pulled around the waist, being drawn toward them.

His voice hoarse, he watched the black line gradually drawing nearer.

An old man with a stooped posture bent down, palms together, praying devoutly.

"God... please stop this disaster..."

"Merciful Father... what have we done wrong..."

The final church bell rang.

A tsunami from 700 kilometers away swept in.

That blackness was the endless corpse tide swept up in the tsunami along the way.

"Clang-clang.."

Doomsday bell.

Wrapped in seawater, the zombies swept up by the waves howled as they waved their arms, splitting the corners of their mouths to the maximum.

Their scarlet eyes, like red mold spots, were spread throughout the waves.

The walls that once hindered them are no longer a hindrance.

At this moment, the height of the waves they are in has reached 270 meters...

Huaxia War Zone, Capital Military Region.

In the busy war command room, many awakened ones silently gazed at the information that had just arrived.

Clearly they still had many matters left unresolved.

But at this moment, everyone's face bore a sense of grief, spontaneously stopping their work.

Buried under piles of written materials, sitting in a chair, an officer looked unwillingly at the report in his hand and sighed deeply:

"Gentlemen."

"One hour ago..."

"A total of 19 major war zones have sent us requests for support."

"Three of the war zones completely cut off all communication 40 minutes ago, and the Iceland War Zone also officially announced its demise."

Another sigh.

Although war zones cannot directly communicate, some props can cross this barrier, or border personnel can relay it layer by layer.

As those who organize the global war zone situation, they naturally pay extra attention to other war zones.

Especially, concerning the progress of the catastrophe.

But now...

"According to statistics."

"It is estimated that in the past three hours, the catastrophe procedures of all major war zones have officially erupted."

"Based on our current data, in this catastrophe's initial stage, 27.57 billion people have died..."

The officer reporting the information looked reluctant, his voice trembling.

He could not imagine what other disasters were occurring outside the Huaxia Military Region, across the world, on this planet.

"About... 4 hours inside.."

"There will still be over 2 billion survivors... dying in the upcoming catastrophe progress..."

He genuinely felt a sense of panic.

This is the first time since the apocalypse broke out that they have felt humanity's insignificance and fragility again.

Countless billions of lives are merely a string of cold numbers.

The catastrophe has truly arrived...

But at this moment, many people suddenly felt a hint of relief in their hearts.

Fortunately, the Huaxia War Zone still has one year...