Did the world end today?

Chapter 415 Lessons

Chapter 415 Lessons
"This is the end of the world."

Buenos Aires, on the outskirts of the city.

The man, who had narrowly escaped death, sat slumped on the ground, still shaken, with his car, which was already in pieces, behind him.

He could hardly believe he had survived.

He witnessed everything before him being swallowed by the void, saw the explosion, and saw the intense flashes of light carrying shockwaves rushing toward him.

He reacted quickly; as the shockwave was generated, he stepped on the gas and sped away from the cavern.

Even so, the shockwave still caught up with him 2 kilometers from the edge of the city, throwing him and his car into the air.

At that moment, he even felt as if he were on the verge of a nuclear explosion.

Fortunately, his body was not torn apart by the shockwave.

After a long period of unconsciousness, he was finally awakened by flashing light.

He thought it was the arrival of official rescue forces.

But when I opened my eyes, I realized that it was the last rays of the setting sun, casting its last glow through the clouds.

This ray of sunlight was not warm; when it pierced through the clouds and smoke to reach the earth, it revealed a terrifying scene reminiscent of an apocalyptic apocalypse.

The man struggled to his feet. He clearly remembered that the place where he was before he lost consciousness was a plain.
-
In fact, there are no mountains around Buenos Aires, and even hills and highlands are rare.

But now, when he looked into the distance, all he could see was a vast expanse.
lowland.

To be precise, it's a basin.

A basin with a diameter of over 4 kilometers has almost completely swallowed up the entire city. Most of the buildings have disappeared, and only a few ruins of collapsed buildings can still be vaguely seen at the edge of the basin.

These ruins are like the thin layer of chocolate on the outside of a donut, surrounding the city that has been completely destroyed or even annihilated.

Compared to the completely silent central area, this thin boundary is the only place where a little life still exists.

The man took a few steps forward in a daze, just as a helicopter flew overhead.

The roar of the propeller instantly brought him back to his senses, and his previously numb limbs regained their strength.

There are still people alive!

We have to go save them!
The man stumbled and ran down the "mountain".

At that moment, he wasn't thinking about his own family.

It wasn't because he was particularly noble, but because he knew that his home, located at the very center of the void, must have long since vanished into thin air.

It's impossible for anyone to survive such a disaster.

But if we look at it from another angle, what if it is? Wouldn't that be a disaster?

What if it's just a kind of "teleportation" that neither I nor any humankind can understand?

In that case
Perhaps my family members have already gone to another world, another dimension, and are living a good life there?

It must be so.

The immense back pain and fear didn't even bring about intense emotional fluctuations, but rather a numbness bordering on indifference.

He walked forward, stumbling along, and the closer he got to the edge of the basin, the more the scene before him resembled a living hell.

Severed limbs were scattered all over the ground, and the collapsed and broken gas pipes were burning fiercely.

A corpse leaned against the flames, burned to the point that its bones were exposed.

He didn't glance at the corpse twice, as if it were some insignificant object.

He carefully avoided the flames and the scorching ground, trying to protect himself and conserve his energy as much as possible.

Gradually, the makeshift road came into view.

And finally, he heard the voices of official rescue personnel.

"hey-hey!"

"Get out of there!"

"careful!"

A man in a firefighter's uniform rushed up and abruptly pulled him aside.

The two had just left the spot when a section of the already broken floorboards collapsed instantly.

"boom!"

The firefighter glanced at the ruins not far away with lingering fear, then turned back to him and said sternly:

"Don't come here!"

"The aftermath isn't over yet; it's dangerous here!"

"No"

The man shook his head and replied:
“I can help. I’m an ASN member and I’ve received training.”

"No need! No need!"

The firefighter pointed to the temporary tent in the distance and said:
"Go stay there! We don't need you causing trouble!"

"And you're not in good shape either, oh my god, look at your arms!"

Upon hearing the other person's words, the man blankly reached out his hand.

It was only then that he realized that his left hand had completely lost its strength.

He must have suffered a severe impact in the previous "car accident," because his entire arm was hanging limply at his sides.

The bones were shattered, and even the muscles and skin had begun to swell and become congested with blood.

My condition is indeed terrible, but why didn't I notice it before?
The excruciating pain only reached his brain through his nerves at this moment. He groaned in agony and sat down. The firefighter quickly switched the fire axe in his right hand and then helped him up.

"go!"

He struggled to move toward the tent not far away, while in the open space in front of the tent, more and more wounded and dead began to gather.

A disheveled woman desperately grabbed the arms of the medical staff, pleading:

"Save my child. He's still inside."

"We'll go find him, you need to get some rest!"

Medical staff injected adrenaline into the wounded soldier's chest. In the absence of emergency medical supplies, the only thing they could do was to use this simplest and most direct method to keep the wounded soldier alive as much as possible.

"My home, my home."

"They're buried down there. I'm going to find them."

"Let me go too!"

"do not move!"

The struggling woman was subdued by soldiers who arrived at the scene.

"Leave it to us!"

"You guys?! Is this what you've done?!"

"They clearly gave us a warning! Those Chinese people clearly told us!"

"Why wasn't there an evacuation? Why?"

"I can't trust you. I'm going myself."

"wake up!"

Someone roared and pushed over the man who was still trying to break free of his restraints.

"Nothing was buried underneath!"

"There's nothing beneath this layer of soil and rock!"

"Everything has vanished!"

"All that's buried underneath is air!"

The woman paused, stunned, after he finished speaking.

"Where did they go?"

No one answered. Just then, a strong gust of wind blew by.

The wind carried dust and smoke.

The man with a comminuted fracture of his left arm suddenly felt something.

At that moment, an overwhelming sense of despair gripped his heart like a demonic hand emerging from the earth.

He spoke with difficulty, his voice low and heavy:
"them."

"In the Wind"

Jinling.

Inside the coordination group office.

Lin Xu sat in his office, listening to the latest report from the unconventional response team.

Chen Yixin was in charge of reporting, and he had the latest and most detailed information on the disaster.

"Judging from the current situation, the work done by various provinces, cities, and regions in responding to the disaster is effective and efficient."

"To date, a total of 46 high-dimensional overflow disasters of varying scales have been reported in my country."

"Among them, 38 were disasters below level three, 6 were level three disasters, and 2 were level four disasters, which are linear instability disasters."

"Of all the disasters, a total of 44 occurred in or near residential areas, of which 12 directly hit densely populated areas."

"Fortunately, of the two level-four disasters, one occurred in the uninhabited area of the Greater Khingan Mountains and the other occurred on the edge of an urban area where evacuation had been completed. Both caused serious casualties."

"The total number of casualties reported so far is 1,340."

"Another 45 people are missing."

"Overall, thanks to timely early warnings, we successfully avoided large-scale personnel losses."

"However, the probability cloud in the first wave did not completely collapse."

"We anticipate that more high-dimensional overflow disasters will occur within the next 12 hours, with four probability clouds potentially falling in densely populated areas."

"The evacuation is underway and is progressing smoothly."

After reporting this, Lin Xu let out a long sigh of relief.

Fortunately.

The expected severe losses did not materialize, and the country I live in has finally withstood the first wave of impact.

Luck played a part, but it was by no means just luck.

It's important to understand that the casualty figures were reduced to below five digits because almost all evacuation work was completed before the probability cloud collapsed and the high-dimensional overflow disaster occurred.

The closest point in time, even just two minutes after the evacuation was completed, was hit by a Level 3 disaster.

The intense thunderstorm, coupled with gravitational runaway, lifted all matter within a 600-meter radius to an altitude of 1200 meters. Under the plasma baptism, all matter turned into scalding, molten lava, which then fell like a rain of fire.

Numerous buildings were destroyed, and even urban areas not directly affected by the gravitational out-of-control forces were completely engulfed in flames and engulfed in massive fires.

If they hadn't evacuated in time, the toxic gas cloud caused by the fire alone would have been enough to take countless lives!

Similarly, the "secondary disasters" that follow a catastrophe, and the social unrest that may accompany it, can also be deadly.

However, thanks to meticulous planning and highly organized coordination, no serious incidents were reported in any of the affected areas.

On the contrary, a large number of people spontaneously participated in the rescue efforts, and with precise coordination, even the fires ignited by the "fire rain" were completely extinguished in less than 4 hours.

This is simply a dreamlike ending.

However, it seems that Chen Yixin is not satisfied with this.

He is still summarizing the various loopholes in this handling and is constantly providing new suggestions for adjustment.

After all the suggestions were compiled, he finally slowed down his speech a little.

"In short, we have already paid such a high price, almost bringing the entire society to a standstill, to deal with this crisis."

"Therefore, we must strive for perfection."

"The casualties of more than 1,300 people are not a remarkable achievement—we should remember that people have died in this wave of disasters."

"This should have been avoided—we must avoid it in the next wave of outbreaks!"

"clear."

"receive."

Everyone present nodded in agreement, and no one raised any objections.

Chen Yixin looked up at Lin Xu, noticed his gaze, and Lin Xu slowly nodded before saying:
"We must strive for the best possible outcome, but at the same time, we must understand that there are force majeure events in this disaster."

"The most casualties were caused by the 'cavitation disaster' located at the edge of the seismic plate. This disaster led to a chain reaction triggered by geological activity. To be precise, the cause of the large-scale casualties was not the high-dimensional overflow disaster itself, but the subsequent high-intensity earthquake."

"The ability to quickly organize rescue efforts after a disaster, given the unpredictable probabilistic cloud and the chaotic system that lacks any data support or model description, is indeed the limit of current technology and human capabilities."

"so."

Lin Xu didn't finish his sentence, but everyone present, including Chen Yixin, already understood what he meant.

In terms of propaganda, we cannot simply exaggerate the severity of the disaster; we must clearly explain the reasons that led to this outcome.

Otherwise, in an environment where information spreads rapidly, the public will eventually be exposed to more and more information about disasters.

And if they don't do any positive publicity or explanation...
A snowballing panic effect can devour all previous efforts.

Thinking of this, Chen Yixin asked:
"Do we need to temporarily block or shut down external disaster information?"

"What I mean is, compared to the losses that are somewhat understandable domestically, the situation externally is really not optimistic."

As soon as he finished speaking, Lin Xu frowned instantly.

The situation is not optimistic?

How dire is the situation?

Chen Yixin let out a soft breath, then replied:

"Buenos Aires, the entire city was almost completely destroyed."

"In the central area, a vacuum bubble with a diameter of nearly 600 meters completely engulfed the internal materials, and the subsequent implosion released energy equivalent to 600 million tons of nuclear bomb, destroying most of the buildings in the city."

"The soil in the plains where Buenos Aires is located has permanently subsided by more than 12 meters, and the resulting shock winds have even triggered a small tsunami."

"The total number of casualties caused by this disaster is approximately 600 million."

"This number is still a conservative estimate."

"In fact, the chances of survival for all the residents in the entire city of Buenos Aires are slim."

600 million.

It should actually be over 1600 million.

Lin Xu's skin broke out in a dense layer of goosebumps, not from fear, but from a deep-seated aversion to death ingrained in his genes.

Chen Yixin didn't notice his reaction and continued talking.

"It's not just Buenos Aires; the situation in Africa is equally severe."

South Africa, Cameroon, Morocco

"Compared to other countries, their capacity to handle such situations is far less adequate."

"Although the initial impact didn't cause significant damage, the subsequent secondary disasters were."

"understood."