Devouring World Dragon

Chapter 273 End Calendar... Year 0

Around the world, TVIK-6395465 administrative district.

"The world is about to end! Only the chosen ones will survive..."

On the street, a person with outstretched arms shouted loudly in the crowd. The seductive words were amplified to the maximum by the powerful spiritual energy, and the crowd surrounded it in circles.

A crowd surrounded it, most of the men and women looking bewildered, while some were already showing signs of infatuation.

"Behold! Satan is coming soon. We once lived within it, we are its descendants, it is our ancestor, our homeland. There is no need for fear, no need for trepidation, for now we will return to its embrace, return to our homeland..."

Guided by it, the spiritual energy of hundreds of people gathered together, trembling, forming a grand spiritual whisper that influenced the nearby crowd.

The grand psychic whispers spread outwards like waves, creating splashes that were drawn towards the outer world, from which a strange echo returned.

Low and muffled, like a dream.

"Listen, beyond the starry sky, our homeland is calling us. We were born of dust, and now we will return to dust. The stars are not our home; the earth is our true home! Fellow countrymen, let us go home..."

"Oh!"

Before the words were finished, the frenzied voice abruptly ceased with a soft thud.

The psychic whispers, which had been deliberately guided, lost their host, and the men and women who had been in a daze suddenly awoke, their faces regaining their radiance.

Not far away, Hasegawa Garo, wearing psionic armor, put down the ray gun in his hand.

"Damn snake cub, it's gotten so audacious."

In the past, even when the Serpent Worshippers were rampant, they would not have dared to proselytize so openly in the territory ruled by the Third Reich. But now, the Serpent Worshippers' behavior is completely blatant, and they even dare to openly preach to unarmed missionaries.

"Citizens of the Empire, please return to your residences immediately and undergo mind infection screening under the guidance of the security AI."

Flames erupted from the engine beneath his feet as Hasegawa soared above the crowd, addressing the people who had just been bewitched.

But unexpectedly, the crowd only stirred slightly, and no one actually left.

Hasegawa frowned.

"Citizens, I repeat myself: please return to your residences immediately and undergo a mind infection screening under the guidance of the security AI!"

"Go back? Go back where? The world is about to end, we've already been abandoned! Don't you understand?!"

Suddenly, someone in the crowd shouted.

Hasegawa looked around and realized something was wrong. In the past, people who had been misled would usually undergo mental health testing after they regained their senses, but in front of him, although the people had regained their senses, their eyes still held hostility and anger.

They weren't just being swayed by psychic powers; they genuinely believed the preacher's words.

Believe those snake bastards who use ordinary people as human shields for terrorist attacks? Believe those snake bastards who disgust him to the point of vomiting?

An unnamed rage surged within Hasegawa.

"you……"

Just as they were about to rebuke them, a loud bell rang out.

"When... when... when..."

The long, drawn-out sound of bells rang out from afar, and upon hearing it, both the common people and Hasegawa looked in that direction.

In this not-so-large city, scenes like this are happening in every corner...

On the anti-gravity floating city, a man sipping tea looked up; a woman piloting a flying shuttle gazed down from the sea of ​​clouds; a scholar deep in thought rubbed his temples, looking worriedly in the direction from which the bell tolled; inside a spherical building, a bureaucrat taking in everything in the city silently toyed with the beads in his hand, his mind filled with complex emotions…

Everyone knows what this bell means.

The calendar has finally reached year 0.

In just one year, the doomsday that everyone fears will descend upon RimWorld.

……

No one knows exactly when the Last Calendar started. It was originally used to predict when a "star" would arrive in the ring world, and later it came to be known as the Last Calendar.

Every year that passes, the Last Calendar counts down by one year, year after year... and so on, until after two thousand years, humanity finally arrived at the last year of the Last Calendar—Last Calendar Year 0.

Last calendar year 0 month 0 day.

In the world of Ringworld, this day is considered the last day, the "doomsday," because when this day arrives, the "star" will descend upon Ringworld.

The "star" will devour the entire ring world, and all good and evil will end on this day.

For two thousand years, countless people of noble character and lofty ideals have sacrificed their lives to prevent this day from arriving. But... it's impossible, absolutely impossible; there's simply no way to destroy that "star."

Long ago, back in the Second Republic, humanity, realizing that it might be impossible to destroy that "star," began to gradually evacuate the population of the Ringworld. But there were just too many people, far too many. The entire population of the Ringworld was simply too large.

How many humans are there on the planet Ring of Fire?
Trillions?

Billions?

Trillions of billions?
Billions?
It is 300 trillion trillion humans.

The entire ring world is trillions of times larger than Earth, and the efficient use of space in the ring world has resulted in the proliferation of ground-based cities and floating cities from the surface to the sky.

There are over 3000 billion stars and 10 trillion planets of varying sizes in the Milky Way galaxy. Today, there are over 7000 billion administrative planets in the galaxy. Some of these planets have populations of fewer than a thousand, while others have populations exceeding hundreds of billions. However, even if all the populations of these 7000 billion administrative planets in the Milky Way were combined, it would still be less than one-tenth of the population of a ring-shaped world.

The world, the culmination of human wisdom, a miraculous creation embodying all greatness, glory, brilliance, and sublimity.

It is so vast, so magnificent, that it dwarfs any other star in the universe. It once made humanity stand proudly among the stars, considering itself the creator. Yet now, its immense size has become humanity's fatal weakness. Even if the entire population of the ring-world were distributed among all the administrative planets, it would not be enough to sustain it; even with the urgent expansion of new colonies, it would be impossible to accommodate such a large population.

Every year, humanity disperses over a trillion people from the Earth to every corner of the universe. But even with these desperate relocation efforts, after 2000 years, less than one-tenth has been moved, and to this day, there are still over 200 billion people living around the Earth.

Everyone knew it was too late; everyone knew that all 200 billion people in Beijing would perish in the "apocalypse," but no one could do anything about it.

"Go back? Go back where? The world is about to end, we've already been abandoned! Don't you understand?!"

The crowd had already been subjected to a centralized mental infection screening by AI, and the matter had been resolved. However, for some reason, the man's grief-stricken voice kept echoing in Hasegawa's mind.

My heart is at peace.

His mother said that she was like his father, whom he had never met, calm and silent, solemn like a sculpture, and only became calmer no matter what happened.

The once bustling streets were nearly deserted, both in the sky and on the ground. There were no flying shuttles or hovercars, only a few autonomous robots at work.

Arriving at the police station, although we've entered the interstellar age, not everything is science fiction. Due to cost considerations, many aspects are still similar to those of our police colleagues from long ago; work is still done in a centralized manner.

Looking around, there were only a handful of people in each of the spherical zero-gravity chambers, and most of them were dejected and listless.

"Is the director not here?"

Hasegawa asked.

In his memory, the director was not a diligent person, but he was not one to skip work either.

"AI just sent a message saying that the director got drunk at home and resigned."

A handsome young man floated in his zero-gravity chamber, operating his personal computer while speaking weakly.

"By the way, quite a few people have also resigned, so now the police department probably only has a few of us left."

Every year as the end of the calendar approaches, some people inevitably succumb to the pressure and give up on themselves. This is quite common, but this year, being the end of the calendar year 0, there are an unusually large number of such cases.

Hasegawa nodded.

"It's just the few of us left, so it looks like the work ahead will be quite tiring for a while."

As he spoke, he floated into his spherical zero-gravity chamber, manipulating the monitoring computer to analyze the city's movements with the help of AI, in order to prevent crime from occurring.

The handsome young man looked at him in astonishment.

"I said... do you really not feel anything at all? You're still thinking about work at a time like this."

"How do you think I should react?"

Hasegawa replied while scanning the information.

"This time next year, we'll all be dead. Don't you feel anything then?"

"so what."

"So? What else do you mean by 'so'? We're all going to die, you, me, her, we're all going to die, and you don't even have a reaction?"

The young man's face was full of confusion, and he couldn't help but ask.

But his answer was...

"so what."

Hasegawa raised her head and looked at him calmly.

“Jerome, I know what you mean. This time next year, we'll all be dead, so what? No work today?”

Jerome looked into his eyes, those calm, deep eyes.

He saw no fear.

Hasegawa's mental state remained as calm as ever, as if the arrival of the end of the year and the resignation of most of his colleagues could not affect him.

The young man took a deep breath and smiled wryly.

"As expected of you... But I'm not like you. I can't be so composed. Hasegawa, I'm terrified of death. If I could, I would pay any price to escape to another planet, but I can't."

“Look, now you can still see that ‘star’ even during the day. When I was very young, it was only faintly visible at night, but now it’s clearly visible even during the day. Whenever I look at it, I feel fear, because I know it’s getting closer and closer, and death is getting closer and closer to me…”

The young man lowered his head.

"Hasegara, do you really think we're just going to wait to die like this?"

“I don’t know. All I know is that you should work hard, or a third-degree crime will happen to you.”

He remained calm in response to his emotional fluctuations.

The young man looked up at Hasegawa, who was staring at him.

I don't know why, but even though I was very scared, seeing my friend remain calm and composed made my fear gradually dissipate.

"Okay, work hard, work hard."

Seeing Jerome regain his former carefree and cheerful demeanor, Hasegawa nodded.

TVIK-6395465 District, no incidents today.

There are 365 days left until the end of the world.

(End of this chapter)