Chapter 452: Arrival (6K)

London time, 4:35 a. m.

Four minutes remain until the Deep Red Alert arrives.

Light rain fell from the sky; beneath a composite alloy-fiber-reinforced concrete barrier dozens of meters thick, in the underground bunker below Whitehall beside Westminster, Number 10 Downing Street.

Britain's elites rushed through the labyrinthine tunnel network, each holding one or more phones, racing against time to gather intelligence, exchange information, and seek aid.

Armed police officers, plainclothes agents, and soldiers hastily deployed had no idea what was happening; they stood like statues at the doors of every corridor, serving as guards.

At the same time, they strained their ears, trying to piece together the truth of the event from fragments of conversation leaked amid the chaotic clamor of ringing phones.

In the deepest chamber of the bunker, the atmosphere was foul; the Indian-origin Chancellor of the Exchequer, face drawn, smoked the most intensely.

The royal family and the Prime Minister and his wife had strategically relocated at once; he, the Chancellor, had been dragged here on the spot to serve as wartime leader.

Or rather, the biggest scapegoat.

His left hand, clutching the cigarette, trembled uncontrollably; he slammed the table with his right hand and barked with forced bravado: "Appeal to the GOC! Appeal to the Knights Templar! Appeal to European Heavy Industries! Appeal to Prometheus!"

The Prime Minister's private secretary whispered low in his ear: "The Templars' transcendentals are en route; the other guilds have informed us they're assembling personnel."

In reality, four minutes were more than enough for the major guilds to open a large teleportation gate and deliver a strike team of elite transcendentals—led by a Lv35, average Lv25—across the ocean.

But a cruel truth remained: aside from the guilds native to London and the Knights Templar, who possessed religious martyrdom spirit,

none of the other major guilds—once friendly, harmonious, and claiming to be the Western civilized world's extended family—had come to help,

not even the United States, Britain's nominal conjugate father.

The logic was simple: who knew how a Deep Red Alert-level disaster would manifest?

What if the disaster's anomaly fluctuation index of 5000 points was merely the upper limit of the prediction machine?

What if the disaster spread as a mental contamination?

What if it permanently warped the minds of all transcendentals and ordinary people within its range?

It was better to wait until the nuclear bomb had detonated, then let the various factions enter to assess, rescue, or even exploit the chaos.

After all, the monk may run, but the temple stays—London was the Zhong Lou Guild's stronghold; they would inevitably be the first to stand their ground.

The Chancellor's vision darkened; he quickly braced himself on the table and pleaded: "Where are the Mr. and Mrs. Zhong Lou?"

"We are here."

A cold voice echoed through the void; as a circular, faint blue teleportation array adorned with intricate ornate patterns materialized on the floor, a group of men and women appeared out of thin air.

At their head stood a stern, expressionless white middle-aged man, clad in a black wool overcoat, gripping a black elderwood staff, his sideburns meticulously groomed.

Lv35, 【Mobius】

Behind him, the men and women were all pillars of the Zhong Lou Guild, each with a level above Lv25—including Nikola.

"Mr. Mobius."

The Chancellor recognized the man—he was one of the eight Grand Mages of the Zhong Lou Guild's Arcane Council, Master of the School of Conjuration, and also the Guild's Secretary, overseeing finance and intelligence.

A Lv35 transcendent had already half-stepped through the threshold into the ranks of top-tier power.

The Chancellor exhaled in relief and asked cautiously: "Is Lord Hohenheim..."

"You're unlucky," Mobius said calmly. "The Chairman and the other six Grand Mages of the Arcane Council have gone to explore the Killing Grounds and are currently unreachable. The Observatory is now under 【Merlin】's command."

The Zhong Lou Guild's headquarters was located nine kilometers southeast of Whitehall, at the Royal Observatory Greenwich; normally, it was separated from the real-world observatory by spatial magic.

Tourists visiting the Royal Observatory Greenwich and Zhong Lou members entered and exited the same location without interfering with each other.

Mobius and Merlin were both Grand Mages of the Arcane Council; the latter was Master of the School of Abjuration, currently ordered to remain at the Observatory, guarding the Zhong Lou's headquarters with a massive barrier.

While Mobius spoke, Nikola and the other mages were already waving their wands, casting spells to reinforce the underground bunker.

Several formed a circle, their wands combining to emit flowing light, weaving a three-dimensional map of Greater London spanning 1,500 square kilometers; each faint blue dot represented a human being.

Eight to nine million people in London.

Although Britain's history included the Bengal Famine, the Cholera Famine, the Skeleton Famine, the Agra Famine, the Irish Famine, twelve Indian Famines, the Bengal Famine,

Although Queen Victoria's personal KDA exceeded the combined total of the second through tenth on the leaderboard,

Although Britain pioneered concentration camps during the South African Boer War, inspiring an unnamed artist,

Although Churchill, the "Chancellor of the Middle Hall," once said, "Whether there is famine or not, Indians will breed like rabbits,"

Although the modern British government concealed for decades the import of HIV-infected American blood and used infected British children as test subjects,

none of these mattered.

What mattered was that the loved ones of Whitehall's elites—the old Londoners who once flew the Union Jack—had not yet evacuated from the city!

That was the critical point.

The Chancellor's face shifted through several expressions; he opened his mouth to speak, but Mobius raised a hand to stop him: "Director Xing of the Yinshi Special Affairs Bureau sent me a message: the mysterious figure moving at light speed in the western Pacific does not belong to the Special Affairs Bureau—this has nothing to do with them."

The Prime Minister's private secretary asked instinctively: "Then who?"

"Ask yourselves,"

Mobius glanced at them coldly. "Have you done anything recently that would make the world despise you?"

At these words, every Whitehall elite in the room wore a strange expression.

There were too many.

Britain had always been unhuman in its unhumanity. Its enemies, old and new, could not be said to be absent—they were scattered across the globe.

Mobius's lips twitched involuntarily; given the situation, he no longer bothered to rebuke them. He took out his phone himself: "The Turing Division has identified two time-space coordinates for the disaster's origin.

One: 4.7 hours ago, western Pacific, 30°N.

One: three minutes from now, 51°30′N, 51.8°E, Akmola Region in northern Kazakhstan.

The GOC's Central Asia regional director will arrive in Akmola shortly—though it won't help much."

The Akmola Region spans 146,000 square kilometers but has only seven or eight hundred thousand people; its economy relies primarily on agriculture and herding—a classic case of vast land, sparse population, where one typically sees cattle and horses baring their teeth.

"I understand!"

Suddenly, the Cabinet Secretary leapt to his feet, exclaiming: "London lies at 0°1′E, 51°30′N—he's using the anchoring effect of the Killing Ground's physical form!"

Huh?

These words left him baffled; the Cabinet Secretary involuntarily drew a deep breath,

he pushed aside the clutter on the conference table, pulled an orange from a fruit basket, gathered his thoughts, and spoke rapidly:

"This orange is Earth. Earth's rotational linear velocity varies by latitude; at latitude φ, it is 1670 × cosφ kilometers per hour.

That is, London's linear velocity is 1060 kilometers per hour.

Mo Si's linear velocity is 1446 kilometers per hour.

GOC tested this years ago: every time a player enters or exits the Killing Ground, no matter how long they stay inside, their real-world position remains anchored, relative to Earth's rotation.

Otherwise, they'd be flung away at over a thousand kilometers per hour, crashing into buildings or Shanfeng and dying.

But this anchoring effect weakens as the player moves farther from Earth."

"You mean—"

The Prime Minister's personal secretary also realized it: "The source of the disaster flew to low Earth orbit deliberately, to weaken the Killing Ground's anchoring effect?"

"Exactly."

The Cabinet Secretary nodded and spoke quickly: "Once a transcendent reaches low Earth orbit and enters the Killing Ground's physical form, the anchoring effect shifts from 'following Earth's rotation' to 'following Earth's revolution.'

He flew to low Earth orbit, logged into the Killing Ground, and his real-world coordinates locked onto 400 kilometers above 51°N, in the vacuum of low Earth orbit.

And the time difference between Akmola Province in northern Kazakhstan and Mo Si is precisely—"

"4.7 hours."

Mo Si gave the answer, a flicker of shock and awe passing through his eyes.

The audacity of the idea, the precision of the calculation, the brilliance of the method.

He used Earth's rotation as a vehicle, low Earth orbit as a highway—entering and exiting in 4.7 hours, cutting over six thousand kilometers.

"Wait, is this guy a player?"

The Indian Finance Minister finally caught on: "Which guild is he from? The Laughing Troupe?"

Britain may be the embarrassment of the P5, with more army generals than tanks,

the Royal Navy has 119 admirals and 260 captains serving just 19 surface combat vessels—an average of six admirals and thirteen captains per ship.

But even a dying camel is bigger than a horse; it still ranks sixth globally in GDP, possesses strategic nuclear submarines, and has the top-tier guild Zhong Lou.

Even the Laughing Troupe, obsessed with pranks, wouldn't launch a terrorist attack in central London. This is a feud that demands death or victory, pursuit to the ends of the earth.

No one could answer the Finance Minister's question. In the vast conference room, only the ticking of the clock remained.

————

London time, 4:38 a. m.

One minute remains until the Crimson Alert arrives.

Low Earth orbit, International Space Station (International Space Station), Nauka Multipurpose Laboratory Module.

Ivan, affiliated with the Russian Federal Space Agency, stretched in zero gravity, bones clicking, then grabbed a handhold on the cabin wall and "pulled" himself toward the computer.

The International Space Station is jointly operated by NASA, Roscosmos, ESA, JAXA, CSA, and others—already bloated with bureaucracy; recently, GOC has been added above them all.

GOC is even more domineering than NASA, assigning astronauts tasks around the clock.

More scientific experiments, more EVAs, more measurements of cosmic ray particles with physical detectors.

The only good news: GOC actually pays, and actually delivers.

It overhauled the station's aging equipment, added more modules, expanded habitable volume.

Though not as new or livable as the Tiangong Space Station, at least it no longer suffers from frequent air mold overloads, clogged toilets leaking, requiring astronauts to manually clean them.

Have you ever seen solid-liquid waste floating in zero gravity?. jpg

"Let's see, 51°30′N, 51.8°E."

Ivan recited the coordinates given by GOC, inputting commands into the station's computer to rotate the anomalous fluctuation detector outside,

while shoving a waffle into his mouth—this stuff doesn't crumble, a decent bread-and-biscuit substitute for astronauts.

Another dull, mundane day in space.

Ivan's peripheral vision caught a glimpse through Nauka's observation window: far outside, two grain-sized dots hovered.

Ivan burst into violent coughing, forgot to eat, and immediately floated to the observation window, staring intently.

Ivan burst into violent coughing, abandoned his snack, and floated over to the window, staring intently.

No mistake—those two dots were clearly humanoid figures.

One wore a crude red diving oxygen mask; clearly a pure human.

The other had a huge head, thin neck, round eyes—exactly matching the sci-fi stereotype of a "little gray."

Both floated in midair, with no spacecraft or tether in sight.

"Это невозможно!"

In an instant, Ivan's mind flashed with countless movie scenes.

Star Wars, E. T., Mars Attacks!, Moscow Falls

What shocked him more: the two figures seemed to have noticed the International Space Station, and waved at him from afar.

(The ISS's orbital inclination reaches up to 51.6°, covering mid- to high-latitude regions, circling Earth every 90 minutes.)

The little gray on the right even opened his mouth wide, shouting something at him.

'Could I become the first human in history to make contact with aliens?'

A wild thought flashed through Ivan's mind—then the little gray apparently realized sound couldn't travel in vacuum. Instantly, his arm liquefied and reshaped into a massive block of Chinese characters.

Ivan, whose sister studied in China, instantly recognized it as Chinese. He fumbled for his phone, frantically opened a translation app, and snapped a photo of the mysterious text before the station sped past the observation window.

"Ivan, GOC is asking if the anomalous fluctuation detector has rotated into position."

Alexei, another Russian cosmonaut, entered the Nauka Multipurpose Laboratory Module,

Then they saw Ivan, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, cradling his phone with an air of reverent awe as he solemnly pressed the translate button.

Then, from the speaker, came clear, precise Mandarin.

"Bring the unaging iron."

————

"Bring your head, you idiot."

Li Cheng, wearing an oxygen mask, rolled his eyes and flicked Huiyu on the forehead, his voice muffled through the bone-conduction Bluetooth earpiece: "Don't scare the astronauts—they'll think they've seen aliens."

Huiyu, cosplaying as a little gray alien under the banner of "fellow Grey family member," puffed out his chest: "What do you mean 'think they've seen aliens'? I am a genuine alien."

Hmm. Actually, that's not wrong.

The Zelo civilization is indeed alien—and far more advanced than Earth by thousands of years.

"Fine. Ten more seconds."

Seizing the rare opportunity, Li Cheng set aside half a minute to admire the magnificent view of Earth from low Earth orbit alongside Huiyu, while also pinpointing the location of Britain.

In the pitch-black universe, Earth turned slowly, majestically; the terminator line glided across the surface like a golden ribbon.

To the right of the terminator line, clouds like tufts of cotton drifted over the folds of the land—mountains, deserts, oases, and oceans rose and fell in the play of light and shadow.

To the left of the terminator line, the Eurasian continent lay shrouded in night, its cities and nations linked by flickering lights.

"Time to go."

The pet egg opened; Li Cheng retracted Huiyu, floating four hundred kilometers above Akmola, Kazakhstan, gripping the last small lump of the 【Ten-Ingredient Supreme Pill】, his gaze locked on the British Isles.

The next instant, he vanished.

——————

London time, 04:38:44.

Sixteen seconds remain until the Crimson Alert arrives.

"Muu—"

. C〇

At the border of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, in the Ural Mountains, a Kazakh cow grazing on the grass lifted its head, sensing something.

Nearby, GOC Central Asia operatives seated in a pickup truck, preparing to ascend the mountain to install observation equipment, also felt something and gazed skyward.

Above them, at six thousand meters altitude, cirrus clouds were suddenly severed vertically by an invisible force, cleaving a hundred-kilometer-wide gap toward the west.

The cloud sea churned; it took dozens of seconds before the hurricane-like shockwave reached the ground.

Sand and stones flew, dust filled the air; the cattle panicked, huddling together, bells clanging incessantly.

The wind was so fierce it shook the pickup truck.

"WTF"

A GOC operative, dusty and grimy, sitting in the truck bed, instinctively stood up gripping the railing, mouth agape in shock at the strange phenomenon.

The GOC supervisor in the passenger seat sighed; his friend's communication interface had just received a message.

Not just Central Asia—every meteorological satellite across Eastern Europe, Central Europe, and Western Europe had simultaneously detected a massive anomaly spanning 3,500 kilometers along the 51st parallel north.

Meteorological satellite readings went haywire; such an enormous, widespread anomaly would inevitably be seen and filmed by countless people, creating massive complications for GOC's subsequent public suppression.

The supervisor listlessly waved his hand outside the vehicle. "Let's go back."

His subordinates looked confused—they were mere moments from reaching the summit to install the detectors. "Sir?"

"This is beyond our scope of intervention. Let the Brits handle their own mess."

The supervisor's expression was complex, his voice lost in the wind: "I hope not too many die."

His ancestral home was in Ireland; his hatred for the British was passed down through generations. As a child, his grandmother would pull out the family genealogy and tell him that worse than natural disasters were the British arriving.

As a result, every time he traveled to Britain, he refused to eat British food, opting instead for Indian curry—even though curry was indeed tastier than British cuisine.

But from the higher plane of civilizational competition, every region's Earth population is a potential field where players may be born.

————

London time, 04:38:53.

Seven seconds remain until the Crimson Alert arrives.

At this moment, Britain's elite in the Whitehall underground bunker silently prayed;

The Qian family in their family shelter sealed their two-meter-thick alloy blast doors;

Young people beneath the dazzling lights of bars and nightclubs still swayed to the music;

The Greenwich Observatory—or rather, the Zhong Lou Guild's barrier—was powered to maximum, scanning the entire sky.

Five, four, three, two, one.

After an oppressive silence, the clock's second hand passed the zero point and continued its rotation.

In the underground bunker, a young Whitehall secretary, fresh from a top university, cautiously opened her eyes and looked around.

Had nothing happened?

No earthquake, no collapse of heaven and earth—even the power remained fully operational.

"He's here."

Mobius calmly addressed the Whitehall elite in the bunker: "Better safe than sorry. You may now begin writing your wills or recording your final messages."

With that, he expressionlessly swung his staff, drawing a teleportation array, and teleported the Zhong Lou group to the intersection of the street where Fabric Nightclub stood, 2.6 kilometers away.

The sudden appearance of a group of bizarrely dressed individuals startled the young people waiting under the rain shelter outside Fabric.

Some realized something was wrong and slipped away silently, hurrying off.

The rest, their brains numbed by alcohol and drugs, flushed red, shouting and pulling out their phones to film, convinced this was a movie shoot—

Many players, after becoming transcendent, visit shabby beauty clinics for minor cosmetic surgery.

On one hand, to become more attractive; on the other, higher appearance does genuinely aid communication with NPCs in script missions.

Their bizarre attire and high looks made the Zhong Lou crowd seem like they were filming a movie.

Möbius didn't even glance at these mortals; he looked up at the night sky.

Boom!

A muffled thunderclap exploded, illuminating half the night sky with Lei Guang. Raindrops emerged in the light, millions of transparent threads linking heaven and earth.

A solitary figure hovered beneath the heavens.

Li Cheng still wore a simple oxygen mask; his transparent raincoat flapped in the gale, shaking off dew gathered from the Eurasian cloud layer.

He descended at a steady pace, his soles firmly planting on the concrete pavement, separated from the Zhong Lou crowd by a single street.

"Let me introduce myself—I am one of the eight Grand Mages of the Zhong Lou Guild's Arcane Council, Master of the School of Enchantment, and Guild Archivist. Lv35, Möbius."

The Enchantment Master lightly traced the wooden grain of his staff, gave a slight nod, and behind him, every Zhong Lou member's ID lit up above their heads.

"Pleasure."

Li Cheng removed his deep red oxygen mask, smiling, "Lv21, Master Pi Fu."

Boom—

Another muffled thunderclap, the rain intensifying; water streamed along brickwork patterns, pooling and spreading mist through the city.

The mechanical swarm hovering in the clouds was illuminated by Lei Guang—its chest mounted with a levitation engine, its form grotesquely fierce and menacing, its shadow of gun treads and caterpillar tracks engulfing the entire block.