At first, no one paid attention to this disaster. Everyone thought it was just a regular power outage, a fire, a production accident.
Until this disaster beca closely related to everyone.
On a seemingly ordinary afternoon, under the blazing sun, the sky was clear and boundless.
Beneath the azure sky, the bustling and noisy city center of Luo Island remained teeming with traffic.
On the luxurious yet elegant duty-free shopping street, glitzy figures ca and went.
But compared to usual, there were noticeably more people on the streets and alleys. Nurous ard guards stationed at key roads coldly eyed each passerby, occasionally intercepting suspicious individuals to verify identities. Even a slight mishap or conflict resulted in imdiate arrest and removal.
They seed ready to kill the wrong people rather than let them go, leaving every tourist and traveler in brief confusion, unable to comprehend what warranted such extensive asures, even at the risk of disrupting business and offending many.
"Is there really a terrorist attack?"
In the armored vehicle parked in the alley, the captain smoked a cigarette, stared at the many surveillance screens in front of him, and yawned in confusion: "Suddenly so tense, what's going on?"
"You still don't know?" The driver, returning from the toilet, sighed: "Luo Island and Xiang State have torn apart, and the Chopra family might attack at any ti. My relative working at the dock told that they're shipping weapons back by the boatload these days. It's said that even the Federation's decommissioned warships and armor are included!"
"Damn—"
The captain monitoring the surveillance cursed, snuffed the cigarette butt into the mountain of ashtrays, and irritably said, "Everyone talks as if they knew everything, yet we haven't seen a hair of the Chopra family. Instead, we run around exhausted... even the Peacekeeping Cat now says there are risks, so we can't use it. Whatever can be done, they're doing it.
If the Chopra family does exist, let soone step up and show !
Doesn't this person look like the Chopra family assassin?"
He pointed at the obese woman in the fur coat on the surveillance screen, then at the garbage collector taking out the trash: "How about him? Doesn't he look similar? I think he looks just like Minkler, should just arrest them all."
Instantly, the driver and the people on the channel burst into laughter.
The interior and exterior of the vehicle were montarily filled with joyful air.
The captain wiped his nose, scratched the itchy needle mark under his sleeve, and after cursing, rolled another cigarette, tilted his head, and lit it, taking a deep drag.
In the curling smoke, his expression imdiately relaxed.
Then, it froze again.
Right before his eyes, the surveillance screen started flashing rapidly, snowflakes appeared, causing the lying captain to instinctively sit up straight, patting the screen.
"Signal problem again? How much kickback did those stupid procurent guys get? I said that Thousand Islands' products are unreliable..." He looked at the driver: "Go adjust the antenna again."
The driver stretched out and busily fiddled, but the signal worsened.
The captain furiously urged, "What the hell are you doing? Adjust the signal!"
"Cap... Captain..."
The voice from the driver climbing atop the vehicle was hesitant: "Do you... want to co out... and see?"
"See what?"
The captain glared, opened the window and stuck his head out, angrily cursing, "I see you—"
The words abruptly stopped.
He froze in place, as did the driver, and everyone else.
Not just inside the vehicle but on the entire comrcial street, from the giant rotating advertisent screens at the street corner to the display images in front of every store, the televisions inside the stores, and even every person's mobile phone, were all covered in dense snowflakes.
The pedestrians on the street also seed to sense sothing was wrong, lowering their heads to look at their phones, staring at each other in disbelief.
At this mont, everyone had wide-open eyes.
Amidst the endless snowflakes and noise, a hand seemingly faintly appeared, spreading open, reaching toward the comrcial street, toward Luo Island, toward everyone at that mont, slowly extending and clenching.
Effortlessly swiping through the snowflakes and noise, it painted a seamless countdown on the screen.
[5]
For a mont, the captain forgot to breathe, his constricted pupils reflecting the numbers on the giant screen.
[4]
"Is this so kind of flash mob event?" A wealthy tourist blocking a slender guide grinned and marveled, "Quite original."
[3]
"Do we have any events like this?" The mall broadcast manager, still unresponsive at the mont, looked at the subordinate in confusion. The subordinate's face grew increasingly terrified, pointing blankly toward the window, toward Luo Island, the city center, and the towering bell tower.
The bell tower roared, the hour hand ticking back a notch.
[2]
Amidst the bell chis, pedestrians in the plaza instinctively raised their heads, looking around, with everyone's gaze landing on the business district's office buildings. On those colossal, high-end giant screens, a crimson hue flowed, slowly sliding down, and the residual marks outlined the final countdown.
[1]
In that instant, the dense surveillance, the spacious giant screens, everyone's mobile phones, and even the roaring bell tower and broadcast all emitted a final warning, almost screaming.
Resonating through everything.
In the dead silence, no one spoke, instinctive unease rising from within, as if plunged into an ice cellar under the blazing sun's illumination.
Yet nothing happened.
"What the hell is this?" The captain's expression twitched, forcing out a smile to reassure himself: "What's with all the mystery?"
Then his face was overshadowed by the looming presence in the sky.
Boom!!!
In the azure sky, a newly ascended Flying Airship suddenly trembled, billowing thick smoke, and just like that, engulfed by flas right before everyone's eyes.
Stumbling and staggering, losing altitude...
Falling!
At this mont, the falling giant whale dragged down smoke as thick as blood, descending from the azure blue sky ocean, cutting across buildings like corals, scattering the bewildered schools of fleeing fish, passing through the bustling, noisy city, breaking the false peace and serenity.
The mournful shriek tearing through the air seed to sing loudly.
Just like that, under the witness of the entire Luo Island, the ever-expanding shadow completely covered the solemn building at the center of Luo Island.
The Central Building, once constructed under the personal guidance of the Empire's renowned master architect, the governing headquarters of Luo Island, symbolizing the Sujano family's majesty and dominance — the 'Crown Throne'!
It seed a roar erupted.
In the void, a faint barrier erges, rising and protecting at the front of the Crown Throne!
Steady as a mountain.
A Flying Airship attack? What a joke! Do you really think Luo Island is entirely unprepared?
Until, as the Flying Airship approached, the Defender finally noticed.
Wait!
Sothing doesn't seem quite right?
The Flying Airship beneath the flas and smoke, why does it look so much like... the one the family always used to transport Fuel Elent and weapons?
Under the rolling smoke and flas, a flash of red light appeared.
At the highest point of the Crown Throne, the Guardian stood because further words failed him.
Couldn't help but want to laugh.
"You son of a..."
Boom!!!!!!
The violent light engulfed everything, within the earth-shattering roar and tremor shaking the entire Luo Island, a mushroom cloud slowly rose from the sky.
Smoke billowed, dust flew.
The last sound heard was a shattered wail.
The Crown Throne was cut off at the waist!
Thus, the curtain of chaos was lifted...
Half an hour earlier, Ji Jue sat in the best viewing spot, raising his teacup.
Half an hour later, Luo Island spun out of control.
All control collapsed.
The fire burned for a full day and night, by deep night, the soaring Fla Light still turned half the sky red, the fluttering ash led to a complete sell-out of masks across Luo Island.
The ensuing explosions and reigniting tornted relentlessly, until the Sujano Family, at their wit's end, called for a rainstorm...
No other way, the firefighting system was originally makeshift, the more severe the situation, the more makeshift it beca. Even involving the Crown Throne, the usually sluggish bureaucratic system flaunting unprecedented speed, was still useless.
From the start of the explosion, until one hour later, layer upon layer of errors and strange glitches in the command chain led to the firefighters not even receiving activation signals.
Following that, a traffic jam covering all of Luo Island, sudden and unexpected, cleverly trapped the fire trucks kiloters away, incapable of approaching.
The aerial firefighting was faced with oil leak and multiple safety issues right as it was about to take off, rendering the firefighting helicopters entirely sedated, the radio frequencies completely jamd, full of noise, walkie-talkies ti-confused with sporadic interference.
Every piece of equipnt reliant upon modern civilization bizarrely appeared wonky.
Everything was disjointed!
Until the furious Sujano Family reverted to the most primitive manpower to barely curb the flas, still riddled with setbacks.
Not just traffic, communications, but power and water supplies were besieged by endless problems.
When the flas lit up half the night sky, the other half under which Luo Island lay was pitch black, all electricity cut, water supply entirely halted.
The gas station exploded mysteriously out of control, frequent leak-outs and pressure failures in Fuel Elent reserves.
Even in the brightly lit resorts and nurous luxurious hotels, chaos kept erging, constant current leakage in heated pools, sudden fires at popular tourist spots, dozens of false fire alarms across different hotels in a single night decimated Luo Island's tourism reputation accumulated over decades, in an overnight collapse.
And the finance sector faced an even greater calamity.
The bull market originally soaring all the way, upon afternoon closing, realized server errors dominated, massive buy and sell transactions were incomplete... especially peculiar were the few funds mainly held by the Sujano family, the trend bizarrely and entirely ungoverned.
The losses weren't severe, but profit was even more terrifying, right?
More so when so shipping companies from the Federation and Empire found their cruise ships eting accidents near Luo Island, preemptively shorted by the Sujano family... before the next day even began, both securities commissions had frozen all of Sujano family's financial assets, initiating thorough investigations!
Within just eight hours, the entire Luo Island teetered on unprecedented chaos, on the verge of collapse.
Yet before dawn... everything miraculously restored!
Ca back, all returned!
As if nothing had happened, no mistakes had erged, everything resud operating normally, beginning systematically addressing the troubles remaining from before.
A whole day of peace followed, the troubles were mostly sorted, just as everyone savored the fa of life, just as the Sujano family thought Ji Jue had ceased...
He once again opened his screen.
Raised his teacup.
Making Luo Island, great again!
AGAIN!!!
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