Chapter 28: Emergency Protocol 00001

Whether it was Arakawa Ward or neighboring wards.

Everyone who spotted the Cloud Lake in the sky immediately fixed their gaze on the floating ancient city in the sky above the Cloud Lake footage.

Just one glance.

Everyone went mad, their faces turning pale.

Their eyes bulged as if about to burst.

They longed to etch every detail deep into their eyeballs, imprinting it into their memories.

Each person gasped for breath, barely able to endure the visual shock of what they saw.

Their hearts pounded violently, as if ready to explode.

Even breathing became difficult.

Some elderly people were so shaken they suffered heart attacks, frantically pinching their philtrums.

At that exact moment.

Sakurada Wenzhi and his group were also looking up at the sky, like everyone else.

But.

Unlike the others.

They were inside the Cloud Lake footage, gazing at the distant heavens, utterly stunned.

The twilight sky, bathed in sunset, glowed with mournful, cold auroras, tinged with faint dimness.

Heaven and earth seemed to enter old age; all things appeared to rot, nearing their end.

Only that immense, towering ancient city floating in the air showed no sign of decay, its glory undimmed.

It was as if the sunset had grown dim because the ancient city had drained all its light and splendor.

The ancient city was too vast—just one corner of it filled this entire sky, its shimmering light swirling, majestic and awe-inspiring, radiating an immortal, glorious aura that absorbed all the fate and fortune of heaven and earth, concentrating them all here.

Though located far away, it still made Mizuno Yuichi and the others feel its overwhelming scale.

“How the hell big is this thing?!”

“It must be at least a hundred li! No, a thousand li! No, no! It’s ten thousand li!”

Mizuno Yuichi and the others gaped; they couldn’t even take in the entire ancient city in a single glance.

Amid their shock, they were bewildered.

How could a city be floating in the sky? Magnetic levitation?

…

In the high-level meeting hall of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.

The oval conference table was lined with personnel on both sides, each bearing a title so high it was terrifying—every one a senior official of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, with other government officials among them.

When the anomaly appeared in Arakawa Ward’s sky, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, Tokyo Government, and Tokyo Self-Defense Forces immediately convened a high-level meeting at top speed.

Those gathered here were all top officials.

In today’s world, every nation and every government has an emergency protocol for sudden incidents.

Once an unknown emergency occurs, the government immediately summons senior officials from all sectors for a meeting.

“What the hell is this? A movie shoot?”

Watching the footage from Arakawa Ward’s sky displayed on the screen,

every high-ranking official was confused, utterly baffled.

What the fuck?

Is this some blockbuster with insane special effects?

Isn’t this an emergency? Why are they playing a movie?

One high-ranking official, still drunk from a recent banquet, thought he’d misheard—wasn’t this supposed to be an emergency summons, not a movie screening?

No wonder everyone was stunned; they’d been urgently called in told Arakawa Ward had a major unknown incident, only to find the conference screen playing a film rivaling “Avengers: Endgame.”

Anyone would be stunned.

“Gentlemen, this is not a movie. What you’re seeing is footage captured above Arakawa Ward.”

When Chief Saito explained,

everyone turned pale.

“Not a movie?”

“Chief Saito, are you certain this is real footage?”

“Hey! Chief Saito, don’t joke around—wait, is this actually real?”

Each person stared at the screen with wide, terrified eyes, growing more alarmed the longer they watched.

What kind of joke is this?

Is this magical, divine Cloud Lake actually real?

The drunk official blurted out,

“Is this… alien invasion?!”

Due to intoxication and shock, his voice rose involuntarily, echoing through the meeting hall.

Though this official was drunk, his drunken remark wasn’t implausible under these circumstances.

On the contrary, it was highly possible.

“Can current technology project an effect large enough to cover an entire ward?”

One high-ranking official posed the most critical question.

“I don’t know about other countries, but as one of the world’s most advanced technological nations, we can’t do it—I doubt any other country can either.”

“This level of photorealistic projection technology? I’d say it’s a century ahead of current science.”

“I agree. No country currently has this technology—if they did, that nation would have already taken over the world.”

After a round of discussion,

they unanimously concluded that current technology could not produce such a massive, photorealistic projection.

“So… could it really be alien invasion?”

Again, the drunk official’s lip twitched, his expression strangely uneasy.

Fuck, after all your analysis, you’ve just circled right back—still talking about alien invasion?

The thought of alien invasion

made everyone’s breathing quicken, their composure hard to regain.

They had already considered the possibility that Arakawa Ward’s anomaly was alien invasion, but the conclusion was too shocking to accept.

Aliens.

Since humanity first entered space, they had never stopped searching for extraterrestrial life.

Yet after decades of searching, they found nothing—now, suddenly, one appeared, and its technology far surpassed anything on Earth.

At that moment,

a senior officer from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, his eyes gleaming with fervor, his voice trembling, said:

“If—just suppose—this really is an alien arrival, we might be the first nation in human history to make contact with extraterrestrials. If we could be the first to obtain their technology and monopolize it…”

He stopped mid-sentence.

But everyone understood his meaning.

The entire meeting hall fell silent, save for rapid, heavy breathing.

Each person’s eyes glinted with different lights—greed, hegemony, wealth…

The next instant,

that official slowly stood up and said in a low voice:

“I recommend activating Emergency Protocol 00001—yes, the one for alien diplomacy and alien invasion response. I… my god! Someone! Someone!!”

He leapt to his feet, knocking over his chair.

He pointed at the conference screen.

The Divine Sea Cloud Lake rippled again, waves spreading as if a god had reached out with an invisible hand and pointed a finger into the lake.

That single finger stirred wind and clouds.

Mist within the lake shimmered with divine radiance, swirling in brilliant colors—the scene changed again. This time, it wasn’t pulled farther away, but drawn closer, magnified endlessly. After a few breaths, the image reflected a street in Arakawa Ward.

The scene now contained something absent from the previous two: people!

And not just one person.

More than thirty.

“Are those aliens?”

Chief Saito exclaimed in surprise—the “aliens” in the footage looked exactly like humans.

But before he could finish,

another official shouted in shock:

“Wait… isn’t that Sakurada Wenzhi?!”

…