Necromancer, summoning 055? What the heck?

Chapter 404 The Situation of Blue Star is Inexplicable
The meeting at the summit of Ziyun lasted for two days and four and a half hours.

As the last document was circulated, signed, and the electronic seal lit up on the screen, a peculiar atmosphere, a mixture of exhaustion and excitement, filled the conference room.

Although most documents have long been digitized, such critical decisions still require physical circulation and signing. This is for the sake of procedural rigor, and also because these are momentous historical moments that will be recorded in history, and everyone wants to leave their name on the documents.

Even just being listed as a "participant" in meeting minutes is enough to bring glory to the ages!

After all the details were finalized, a proposal of over thirty pages was produced. The accompanying appendices, explanations, detailed plans, and implementation manuals were even more extensive, listing hundreds of related indexed documents.

This is the core way of doing things in Dongxia: extremely focused on practical results.

Break down a grand goal into countless small, actionable tasks; break down a complex system into a large number of interconnected small structures.

The plan developed for the "wandering son" is no less than a national-level operational plan for total war.

Of course, strictly speaking, this is war, a large-scale war launched by Dongxia against an unknown alternate dimension!

In the eyes of the bigwigs at the [Compassionate Voyage] project, the battle that [Wanderer] is going to fight in the Starry World is definitely much more difficult than the situation that Dongxia in the Blue Star World is currently facing.

Although, things are quite troublesome at home right now.

Our current situation can be described with an old phrase: forced, glorious isolation.

Over the years, it has been clear to discerning people that the East is rising while the West is declining. As a result, more and more countries are becoming increasingly friendly towards the East, and their cooperation is becoming closer.

But this absolutely does not mean they will sit idly by and watch Dongxia take down the bald eagle.

Throughout Earth's history, various powers have risen and fallen, each vying for supremacy. Among them, the strongest can be broadly categorized into two types of hegemony: world hegemons or regional hegemons.

In an era of extremely underdeveloped transportation, constrained by communication and delivery capabilities, Earth was primarily an era dominated by regional hegemons—each ruled their own territory, and when they occasionally met, they had already reached the limit of their power projection capabilities.

Achaemenid's expeditionary force and the border protectorates of the mighty Celestial Empire both eventually faded into a wisp of dust in history.

It wasn't until the steam engine revolutionized power and radio solved communication distances that Earth truly became a global hegemon capable of projecting its influence across most of the world.

Naturally, there can only be one world hegemon in any given era.

After the sun sets on the world's only planet, the white eagle reigns supreme.

While the white eagle was weakening, the Eastern Xia was making great strides forward.

Those who were strongly suppressed by the Bald Eagle, such as the Two-Headed Eagle and the Persian Cat, were once very close to Dongxia. In fact, it was precisely because of Dongxia's support that the Two-Headed Eagle survived the most difficult period of war transition.

However, the Northern Double-Headed Eagles wanted the Eastern Xia to win, but not easily; they wanted to overthrow the existing world hegemon, but absolutely did not want to see a new hegemon emerge.

"What they desire most is to become the world's dominant power. If that's not possible, then they'll settle for becoming a regional dominant power!"

"What they least want to see is the emergence of a new world hegemon, especially one with a culture different from theirs."

Therefore, the attitude of these countries is very subtle. On the one hand, they try to obtain all kinds of support from Dongxia—technology, funds, markets, and even political endorsement; on the other hand, they are cautious, restrictive, and sabotage it in the dark, and even secretly exchange favors with the bald eagle.

Of course, Dongxia had long understood this clearly, so it did not sell military supplies to any belligerent nation, not even nominal allies; it also sold civilian products to any belligerent nation, not even nominal enemies.

As for how you modify civilian goods after taking them, that's not within Dongxia's control.

Everyone had their own agenda and was taking advantage of each other.

History always repeats itself. Long ago, the double-headed eagle and the Iron Cross signed a non-aggression pact, tacitly agreeing to jointly confront the then-world hegemon, the British Empire.

Unexpectedly, the sun set too quickly, and Iron Cross immediately and without hesitation plunged his blade into the double-headed eagle's waist.

Now, amidst the upheaval sweeping across the entire planet Earth, it seems that only Dongxia remains unscathed. Countless hands are secretly gripping the sharp knives behind them.

This upheaval was caused by the undead infection trend triggered by bald eagles.

After the main conference agenda for the Starry World concluded, the bigwigs, who had been oblivious to the outside world for several days, took the time to catch up on the latest developments on Earth.

The main screen in the conference room lit up, and military technicians unfurled a huge, real-time updated global situation map.

The emblems of various countries flashed around their controlled areas, and the scattered red dots were alarming within the boundaries representing continents, regions, countries, and powers.

The depth of the red dots indicates the density of infection; some areas are already dark red, while others are just light pink dots.

The person in charge of the report was Lin Xiangdong, who had already been promoted to senior colonel. This former leader of the "Stargazing" team stood up straight and spoke in a clear and loud voice.

"The map shows the major outbreaks of undead infection in all countries that have been documented up to last weekend!"

Without a doubt, the reddest area is the Four-Clawed Sea Serpent region and its surroundings; that group of islands on the map is almost like a radiant red sun.

With the four islands of the sea snake as the core, the closer you are to them, the more red dots there are. Only after you are a certain distance away do the red dots begin to appear in a sparse, scattered distribution.

"Currently, we do not have accurate data provided by the official sources of various countries. We can only make rough statistics through satellite imagery, communication traffic monitoring, social media information capture, and limited international intelligence exchange."

Lin Xiangdong operated the controller, and a data list popped up on the screen.

"The infection rate of sea snakes has reached 15% to 20%, and the estimated number of infected individuals is around 20 million."

"The total number of infections in East Eysia is likely no less than 26 million, and there is a trend of further accelerated spread."

“The situation in Nan Aixia is even worse. The population density there is high, the sanitation is poor, and the grassroots administrative capacity is extremely poor. After the Ganges Lotus Federation shut down its external network signal output, it has become a complete data black box. Nobody knows how many people are infected or to what extent.”

"Judging from the last few scattered images that have been released, the situation is extremely pessimistic. Some coastal cities have already shown obvious signs of large-scale disorder."

As the reporter continued to move the screen, the originally dense red dot area radiated outwards, gradually becoming sparser but widely distributed dark red spots, resembling a curtain splattered at a crime scene.

"Apart from Aisha Continent, the situation in other continents is generally under control!"

"Intelligence analysis suggests that the total number of infection sources spread by the four-clawed sea serpent is limited, with the main focus on our Central Asia and Eastern Merica continents, and limited investment in the northern and southern continents."

"At the same time, the infectious agent currently being developed is likely extracted and fused from a laboratory of a bald eagle, and its attack mode also exhibits significant genetic selectivity."

Another chart pops up, in which certain sequences are highlighted.

"This type of infectious agent mainly infects and attacks people with blood type O-related gene sequences, and has little impact on races such as blacks and whites."

"However, the negative impact was quite severe. In many parts of Earth, highly targeted slogans and voices emerged to expel the 'Yellow Peril,' and... there were also numerous bloody acts of violence against the Aisha descendants!"

The screen switches back to the map of Earth.

Geographically, inhabited areas are generally divided into five continents: Central Asia, Northern Asia, Eastern Asia, Western Asia, and the smallest, Southern Asia.

The focus of everyone's attention is definitely on the two white continents in the north and east, which call themselves "civilized world".

"Based on cross-validation using global monitoring networks and limited publicly available international data, the current status of undead infection in other major regions of the world is as follows—"

"The situation in Eastern Merica is quite chaotic, especially in the Bald Eagle region. As a country with a large immigrant population and a large mixed-race population, it is also a country with a serious problem of drug abuse. Currently, the infection rate in the country has reached at least 1% to 1.5%, and there is a trend of further accelerated spread."

"The distribution of infections within the country presents a very typical pyramid shape with a 'light at the top and heavy at the bottom' pattern. Along the southern border and coastline, where there are densely populated immigrant areas, several local hotspots with infection rates exceeding 4 percent have formed, while the central agricultural areas and major metropolitan areas on the east and west coasts have kept the infection rate below 1 percent."

"It is worth noting that the domestic control capabilities show obvious regional differences. Twelve states have taken the lead in declaring a 'health emergency' and have taken measures including curfews, restrictions on movement, and mandatory screening; nearly twenty other states have issued 'action recommendations' and implemented loose control; while the remaining states have an ambiguous attitude and are slow to act."

The map viewpoint is shifted upwards.

"In the north, in the continent of Loba, the infection rate in the core area is estimated to be between 0.02% and 0.03%, which is not high, but the impact on society is significant."

"Infection cases are mainly concentrated in international communities, transportation hubs, and ethnic minority communities in large cities. Small and medium-sized countries and cities rarely report infection cases, and even when isolated cases do occur, they are quickly eliminated."

"The distribution trend of infections is highly correlated with the concentration of Asya people in various countries and cities."

"The infection situation in West Firike and Southern Osya is not serious, but because the local grassroots organizations are relatively weak, the level of armed forces is backward, and the living resources are scarce, the resulting social disorder and collateral damage are actually greater."

"Of particular concern is that West Firrick, due to its traditional funeral customs and local witchcraft traditions, is experiencing unpredictable associations with the phenomenon of the dead."

"When we look at specific regions and countries, we can see significant changes in the characteristics of infection..."

Maps lit up one by one, data was reported one after another, and red dots were scattered across the entire blue planet.

However, on this map, there are two completely clean areas, untouched by any red stains. One is the Northern Mulan Kingdom.

This country, which was once one with the Nanmu Jin Kingdom but has now completely parted ways, is known as the most closed fortress on Blue Star. It has a somewhat irreconcilable hatred with the Four-Clawed Sea Serpent and the Bald Eagle. Therefore, not only can the source of infection not get in, but the information and data inside cannot get out either.

The other one is Dongxia.

The small area of ​​Bei Mulan Kingdom may not seem very obvious, but Dongxia, a behemoth with a long border stretching thousands of kilometers and bordering more than a dozen countries, appears as an unbelievable, pure blank space on satellite cloud map-like displays of infection density, from the snowy plateau to the coast of the East China Sea, from the Gobi Desert in the north to the rainforest in the south.

This is quite conspicuous.

Well, strictly speaking, it can't be said that Dongxia was completely without problems. It belonged to Dongxia, but the island areas that were scattered abroad were all crimson.

Looking at the clean and tidy land in the center of the screen, the people in the conference room felt gratified, but also couldn't help feeling a bit of a headache.

The reason why Dongxia was able to prevent the infection of undead is not only due to its own control capabilities, but also due to two core elements. First, the World Tree [Sprout], which has an influence covering the whole country, has a significant suppressive effect on these "evil spirits". Second, the undead detection array from the Misty Moon Divine Court of the Starry World directly blocks the possibility of the infection source entering the country.

Neither of these two elements can be mentioned.

Lin Xiangdong flipped through the notebook in front of him and lowered his voice slightly: "Previously, some departments in the security department had proposed a tactical suggestion... to consider whether to selectively create a small number of controllable 'infections' domestically to interfere with data."

"Rejected by higher-ups..."

"Yes, I sent it back!"

The second commander of [Cihang] waved his hand: "It's best not to engage in such crooked practices, as they can easily cause unnecessary panic in the country."

"Why stoop to the righteous path in secret?"

Lin Xiangdong nodded quickly, then added, "Yes, but because of this significant difference, the enemy is currently launching a new offensive in public opinion, trying to pin the source of the infection on us."

"We have released numerous examples to the public, resolutely and forcefully refuting and countering this fallacy..."

That's what they say, but in reality, these verbal battles don't really depend on whose arguments are more substantial or scientific; they mainly depend on who holds the power of discourse.

Dongxia has been stigmatized for so many years, and even with the facts right in front of us, people still slander us.

Those who believe the idiom "calling a deer a horse" are mostly bad, a small portion are stupid, and a few are blind.

Whether there's evidence or not doesn't really matter.

Therefore, according to Lin Xiangdong, Dongxia organized a "magical battle" of public opinion!
"Currently, we have released multiple versions of explanations for this infection phenomenon through various official and semi-official channels, academic exchanges, and non-governmental think tanks."

"There is now ample evidence to prove that the infection of the undead is closely related to the human body being affected by certain adverse drugs. Therefore, the most common explanation is that we and the Northern Magnolia Kingdom have relatively strict control over this area."

"Furthermore, the bald eagle's hogs, poisonous rice, contaminated food from four-clawed sea snakes, ghost statues, etc., are classified as top-level dangerous goods that are confiscated at customs here. We have provided a lot of information to the outside world, clarifying the relationship between these things and the infection of the dead."

"However, the most widely circulated explanation on the internet right now is this..."

Lin Xiangdong pressed the controller in his hand, and a post written in glyphs and translated into Xiawen appeared on the big screen. It has now been read over 100 million times and has received over 1 million comments.

Lin Xiangdong's expression was a bit strange. Of course, after seeing the content, everyone's expression management was not much better.

The post is titled "The Truth I Discovered—In a Socialist Country, the Dead Cannot Approach!"

The poster was a well-known professor from the Iron Cross, named Herman. As an expert on the history of all countries on the planet Earth, he was very knowledgeable about the history of each country, including Dongxia.

The very first sentence of his post clearly states:

In that ancient and ancient land, an unspoken rule has always existed: after the founding of the nation, becoming a ghost or a spirit is forbidden.

I always thought this was an absurd rumor, until the recent global outbreak of ghost stories made me suddenly realize that skeletons and zombies should also be considered a type of ghost! Perhaps that's why they were excluded from this special land.

[With these doubts in mind, I continued to search for various pieces of evidence. The increasing amount of truth I encountered in this process sent chills down my spine.]

The entire text is lengthy and eloquent, citing numerous sources, and ultimately veers towards the so-called "earth-shattering truth"—the main structure of the Dongxia social emblem has a strong restraining effect on "evil spirits" such as the dead, causing them to dare not approach.

A positive supporting example is the Kingdom of North Mulan, a different country with the same political system, which did not suffer from undead infection.

A supporting example is that this small island, within the same country but with a different political system, was utterly infected.

Just two days ago, close-up photos taken by the Dongxia reconnaissance drone showed a long-haired zombie climbing on the spire of the Xinyi District International Financial Center.

This sensationalist article immediately attracted a large number of comments. Interestingly, most of the comments from foreigners were in agreement, while most of the comments from Xia Wen were rebuttals.

The most upvoted reply came from a professor at a well-known university in Xia Guo. He pointed out righteously that, as a socialist country, why was the long and narrow Hai Ma Guo in the south so significantly affected?

Your theory is utterly untenable in the face of facts. It is purely a far-fetched pseudo-academic attempt to attract attention, and it is absurd beyond comprehension!
Hermann retaliated without hesitation.

You probably haven't read Mr. Li's works, so you don't know what revisionism is!

[Rotten armor is no better than a piece of cardboard; a fallen knight cannot uphold justice, just as you, a teacher with a rotten mind, will likely only produce morally corrupt and illogical scum.]

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

If the outbreak of undead infection across the entire planet can be explained from the perspectives of metaphysics, reality, related factors, and organizational capabilities, then there is another matter that Dongxia cannot clear its name about.

Everyone in the know avoids talking about it because it's simply impossible to discuss.

Minister Lu Haibo of the Meteorological Department presented a map showing the latest global distribution of atmospheric particulate matter and radioactive dust, synthesized from data from multiple meteorological and environmental monitoring satellites.

Due to the undead infection causing the nuclear power plant to go out of control, a thick, ever-expanding cloud of radioactive dust has accumulated above the Four-Clawed Sea Serpent. This dust cloud resembles an ugly, venomous giant jellyfish, extending its polluted tentacles.

Pollution bands, whether dense or light, wide or narrow, light or heavy, drift around the world along global atmospheric circulation patterns such as the westerly winds and trade winds.

Dongxia was another exception.

These polluting dust clouds stopped abruptly as they approached the East Xia coastline, then some turned around and others turned back.

From the satellite image, the distinct outline of the boundary can be seen very clearly, especially on the land border. The boundary of the pollution cloud fits perfectly with every corner and bend of the border.

The key point is that these are cloud images that can be taken by publicly available satellites from multiple countries, so Dongxia cannot conceal or modify the data.

This is truly inexplicable!

"Currently, the countries on Earth that have observed this phenomenon seem to be more concerned than we are about it becoming known to the general public, so they have deliberately blocked information from the public."

"Privately, we have received a lot of inquiries from various countries, mainly out of curiosity and doubt about this phenomenon, and also hoping that we can provide a solution."

"How...how should we respond?"

No matter how you respond, it's wrong.

Clearly, Dongxia's self-defense mechanism originates entirely from the World Tree [Sprout]. This magical territorial protection mechanism keeps these polluting clouds and dust outside the border.

They wouldn't even reveal the reason behind it, let alone help others with it.

According to the highest directive received by the security department, anyone who intends to leak information about "Budding" will be executed first and then interrogated.

Under such a high level of secrecy, even the foreign affairs department itself didn't know the reason. They could only desperately try to communicate with other countries on Earth in official jargon and make small talk while urgently requesting guidance from their superiors.

A long silence fell over the room.

These people, who are among the most intelligent and emotionally intelligent in Dongxia, racked their brains but could not come up with a reasonable explanation.

"Then I won't explain!"

Finally, the number one commander of [Compassion] tapped on the table, setting the tone.

"If they're interested, let them send their own scholars to study it. Their scientific level is so high, and they've won so many international awards. Maybe they'll figure it out soon?"

"Our technological level is still in the catching-up stage. We don't have the strength or the obligation to figure out such a global problem. Our primary task is to protect our own people and maintain domestic stability."

"As for what others think... let them think what they will."

(End of this chapter)