Guo Yun: Plays Ye Shunguang, teammate Ye Shiyuan

Ye Shunguang's words were completely blocked by an invisible force, and the gazes that had been glued to his live stream finally receded like a tide, refocusing on the red countdown hanging over the heads of everyone in the world.

【00:07:59】

Cold, impersonal numbers danced on every screen, and almost every live broadcast room around the world was watching this island, including TV Tokyo.

Although their signal vehicle had completely broken down half an hour earlier, they could only rely on the emergency transmission signal from the Lighthouse Army helicopter to transmit the choppy video to the audience.

The countdown numbers on the screen flashed an eerie red light, like the pupils of death, staring intently at this land about to face judgment.

The once dazzling streets of Ginza are now a living hell.

The glass windows of luxury stores were smashed by the frenzied crowd, and those limited-edition handbags, diamond-encrusted watches, and haute couture garments, which symbolized wealth and prosperity, were trampled under muddy feet and turned into garbage.

A Patek Philippe watch worth millions had its strap broken, its dial run over by the tires of a Hummer, its sapphire crystal shattered into a spiderweb pattern, and its hands were forever frozen at the last minute of the countdown.

A convoy of six black Hummers brutally crushed the designer goods scattered on the ground, the screeching of their tires drowning out the cries of the crowd. The modified bulletproof car in the middle of the convoy had thick one-way tinted windows, but it couldn't hide John Kramer's rapid breathing inside.

The regional manager of a multinational security company was yelling into a satellite phone, spittle splattering onto his expensive custom-made shirt: "Yes, the last batch, seventeen people on the list, not one less! Including the families of three board members! The helicopters are full? Then call another one! I don't care about the fuel, the company has backup reserves in Guam! Listen, if any of these seventeen people fail to board the plane, our contract is void, and we won't get a single penny of the final payment!"

He hung up the phone, irritably loosened his tie, and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. The cold sweat mixed with dust left several messy black streaks on his face.

Outside the car window, the scene was hellish.

Like wild beasts driven mad, the crowd surged toward the port, the airport, and any place where they could possibly leave this land. They carried bulging backpacks, dragged wailing children, and their eyes were filled with despair. Some fought each other for a boarding pass, while others knelt on the ground, kowtowing toward the direction of the foreign rescue team, their foreheads bleeding, repeatedly muttering, "Please, take me with you."

But all transportation hubs were already paralyzed.

The airport runway was filled with passenger planes unable to take off. Those steel behemoths that once soared through the skies were now piles of scrap metal—the engine bays looked as if they had been corroded by some kind of strong acid, the intricate parts were covered in rust, and even the propellers couldn't turn. In Narita Airport's control tower, all the screens were black, and only static could be heard from the communication equipment, like the whispers of the dead.

The cargo ships' rudders inexplicably jammed, and their engines exploded one after another, billowing black smoke that obscured half the sky. Several 10,000-ton cargo ships, their hulls twisted into bizarre shapes like crumpled paper by a giant hand, tilted and slowly sank into the sea. All the cranes at the dock malfunctioned, their steel arms hanging limply, like giants with broken spines.

The punishments imposed by the national destiny system are never instantaneous. They take effect silently from the moment the countdown begins.

It didn't directly unleash lightning, nor did it trigger tsunamis or earthquakes, but silently caused the entire "system" upon which this country depended to gradually collapse.

With intermittent power outages, neon lights in Tokyo went out one after another, leaving only the pale glow of emergency lights to illuminate terrified faces.

Communication base stations were paralyzed in large numbers, and mobile phone signals disappeared without a trace. People could no longer contact their relatives far away. They could only hold their mobile phones, look at the three words "No Service" on the screen, and burst into tears.

A water pump at the waterworks inexplicably burst, flooding the streets with murky water that carried a metallic, metallic stench. A natural gas pipeline deep underground began leaking, its pungent odor permeating every corner of the city. Firefighters dragged hoses around, but couldn't even find the source of the fire—there were too many leaks, far too many for them to handle.

This is a slow suffocation of a civilized society.

Everyone still on the island can clearly feel that some force beyond the laws of physics is draining the last bit of life from the land beneath their feet.

【00:05:43】

Osaka, an underground bunker hidden halfway up a mountain in a wealthy man's private residence.

The heavy steel doors were tightly shut, but they couldn't block out the faint cries coming from outside. The air circulation system had long since stopped working, and the enclosed space was filled with the smells of sweat, fear, and a strange metallic rust that made it hard to breathe.

Six middle-aged men in bespoke suits sat around a large mahogany table. On the table were a map of Japan, satellite photographs, and a neatly stacked pile of gold bars. The glint of the gold reflected in their bloodshot eyes, but it couldn't illuminate the despair within them.

"Mitsubishi Heavy Industries also has a private jet," a bald man said urgently, his fingers gripping a document tightly, his knuckles white. "The engine is French-made, theoretically unaffected by the 'Made in France' curse. But they're asking for... fifty million US dollars per person, or the equivalent in gold, art, or real estate deeds."

"Give it to them!" Another man wearing gold-rimmed glasses slammed his fist on the table, his roar causing the gold bars on it to shake slightly. "Money can be earned back! But if you lose your life, you lose everything! So what if it's fifty million? As long as I can survive, I'll have plenty of money!"

The bald man shook his head with a wry smile and pushed the documents in his hand in front of everyone: "The problem is... they only accept 'transferable assets.' Real estate? Land? Company shares? These all have to stay on this island that's about to be punished; they don't want them."

The document contained a dense list of assets, but none of them could be taken away.

A deathly silence fell.

Only the clock on the wall ticked away, as if counting down the days of their lives.

One of the men, who had been silent all along, suddenly looked up. His eyes were red and bloodshot, and he was clutching a photograph tightly in his hand—in the photograph, a girl in a school uniform was smiling brightly at the camera.

"My daughter..." His voice was hoarse, as if it had been sanded, "My daughter is still studying at university in Kyoto. She said the school's air-raid shelters are very sturdy and can withstand tsunamis and earthquakes..."

No one responded.

After a long silence, the man with the gold-rimmed glasses finally spoke, his tone laced with a chilling cruelty: "Then you'd better pray for yourself... We can't worry about anyone else."

The man's body trembled violently, and the photo in his hand fell to the ground, cracking open. Looking at his daughter's smiling face in the photo, he finally couldn't hold back his tears, which streamed down his face.

【00:01:22】

A remote fishing village in Hokkaido.

Far from the hustle and bustle of the city, the same despair permeates this place.

The old man sat on his porch, holding a cup of tea that had long since gone cold. The teacup was made of coarse pottery, with a thin crack along the rim, a mark he had accidentally broken when he was fishing at sea in his youth.

He didn't look at the countdown floating in the sky; he simply gazed silently at the distant sea. The sea was hazy, as if covered by a thick gray cloth.

His son drove to Sapporo eight hours earlier, hoping to catch a ride on a foreign rescue team's ship.

As he left, his son patted his chest and said, "Dad, I'll come back to pick you and Nannan up."

There is no news yet.

It's probably... he won't be coming back.

Almost all the young people in the fishing village had left, leaving only a dozen or so elderly people who couldn't walk, and a few children who decided to stay and keep their parents company. The sea breeze carried a salty smell and made the wind chimes on the porch tinkle; they were Nannan's favorite toys when she was little.

"Grandpa." A little girl, about seven or eight years old, sat down next to him. Her two braids were blown loose by the wind, and her face was covered in dirt. She looked up at the old man's wrinkled face and asked softly, "Are we really going to die?"

The old man stroked his granddaughter's head, his rough hands brushing against her soft hair. He smiled, a smile that held a calm acceptance of life and death: "Perhaps."

"Then... will we turn into fish?" the girl asked innocently again.

"Perhaps." The old man looked at the distant sea and said softly, "Becoming a fish is quite nice. You can swim around in the sea freely, without worrying about war, famine, or... any kind of national punishment."

The girl thought for a moment, then tilted her head and asked, "What about Mom and Dad? After they turn into fish, will they still be able to find us?"

The old man paused.

He raised his head and looked south. There, in the direction of Honshu Island, the sky had turned an eerie dark red, as if the entire sky was on fire, burning half of it crimson.

"Yes," he said softly, his voice carrying a certainty that even he himself didn't believe. "We're family. No matter what happens, we'll always find each other."

The girl nodded, seemingly understanding, and nestled in the old man's arms. The sea breeze grew stronger, causing the old man's clothes to flutter loudly. On the distant horizon, something seemed to be surging.

【00:00:30】

Yokohama Port.

The last US military CH-53 heavy transport helicopter was slowly taking off. Its massive rotors whipped up a fierce wind, sending rubble and dust flying everywhere on the dock, and shattering the cries of the crowd.

On the ground, hundreds of people who were unable to board the helicopter stretched out their withered hands, crying and cursing in the direction of the helicopter.

Some people held up their children, trying to get the pilot to see them; others waved their passports and banknotes frantically; and several strong young men even tried to grab the helicopter's landing gear, despite being tossed about by the rotor's fierce winds.

A Lighthouse soldier stood at the doorway of a helicopter, his face expressionless, rifle raised. His finger was on the trigger, his eyes cold and devoid of warmth. That look said it all: If you come any closer, I really will shoot.

The commotion in the crowd gradually subsided.

Despair overwhelmed them like a tidal wave.

The helicopter finally took off and began to slowly climb.

The cabin was packed with people, the air thick and murky, filled with the smells of sweat, perfume, and fear. There were businessmen in suits, carrying bulging briefcases; women in expensive clothes, tightly clutching their children; and several middle-aged men who looked like government officials, their faces pale and their eyes vacant.

Everyone seemed to have had their souls ripped out, sitting there blankly, as if they hadn't yet recovered from this sudden nightmare.

A man in an Armani suit suddenly clutched his stomach, knelt on the ground, and began to vomit violently. He didn't vomit food, but rather yellow bile and blood, splattering onto his expensive suit trousers and leaving a stain. "My company…" he muttered, his voice hoarse, as if he had gone mad, "My house… my collection… my yacht… all gone… all gone…"

A woman holding a baby next to him gave him a cold look, then silently turned her face to the window.

unlucky.

If you've survived, why bother with material possessions?

Outside the window, the land recedes into the distance. Those familiar streets, houses, mountains, and rivers are shrinking little by little. That's where they've lived their entire lives, their roots. It's also where they can't take their wealth, memories, and… people they didn't have time to say goodbye to.

【00:00:01】

【00:00:00】

The moment the countdown reached zero, the whole world seemed to be paused, frozen for a single frame.

The wind stopped.

The waves seemed to freeze in mid-air, the water droplets on their crests hanging there as if frozen.

Even the cries, curses, and prayers seemed to have been strangled by an invisible hand, disappearing without a trace.

Then--

[National Fortune System Notification: Sakura Kingdom is facing national fortune punishment. All personnel from unrelated countries are requested to immediately evacuate the area!]

A cold, mechanical, and emotionless voice didn't emanate from a loudspeaker, but resonated directly in the minds of everyone still hovering over the archipelago. It was like an icicle piercing deep into everyone's heart.

The people in the cabin stared wide-eyed in horror, all looking out the window.

They witnessed a scene they would never forget.

The entire edge of the Sakura Archipelago, from Hokkaido in the far north to Kyushu in the far south, began to sink simultaneously.

It wasn't a collapse caused by an earthquake, nor a submersion caused by a tsunami, but rather a kind of... smooth, uniform sinking, as if the entire continental shelf were being slowly dragged downwards by some invisible, enormous force.

Instead of surging onto the land, the land slowly sank, forcing the seawater to disperse and forming a ring of sea walls hundreds of meters high.

That sea wall, like a blue wall of death, rose from the sea level with a destructive force, spreading outward at an astonishing speed.

The color of the sea wall gradually transitions from the deep blue of the ocean to a light blue, gleaming with an eerie luster in the dim light of day.

whool whool Pull up!

An alarm immediately went off in the cabin!

"Pull up! Pull up now!" the helicopter pilot roared into the radio, his voice trembling with despair. "We're being swallowed by the sea wall! Hurry! Hurry!"

The CH-53's engines emitted a piercing shriek, like the howl of a dying beast. The propellers revved to their maximum speed, the fuselage shuddered violently, and it climbed upwards with all its might. The people in the cabin were thrown about by the enormous inertia; some slammed against the bulkheads, letting out painful groans, while others gripped the armrests of their seats so tightly that their fingernails dug into their flesh.

With the pilot's best efforts, the helicopter barely grazed the top of the sea wall and escaped.

Looking down from 10,000 meters above the ground, the entire Sakura Archipelago is slowly sinking into the sea in a way that defies all common geological sense.

The snow-capped mountains of Hokkaido gradually disappeared below the water's surface, leaving only a white dot on their peaks; Mount Fuji on Honshu Island, the mountain symbolizing the land of cherry blossoms, suddenly spewed out billowing black smoke as it sank, as if uttering its final lament; the ancient temples of Kyoto and the skyscrapers of Tokyo vanished below the sea level one by one, without a ripple.

The whole process lasted about ten minutes.

For a country with an area of ​​370,000 square kilometers, this speed is breathtakingly fast.

The seawater filled the void left by the disappearance of the land, forming a massive whirlpool with a diameter of over a thousand kilometers. At the center of the whirlpool, the water level was at least several hundred meters below sea level, dark and seemingly leading straight to the Earth's core.

At the edge of the whirlpool, the ring-shaped seawalls formed by the displaced seawater finally lost their thrust and began to collapse inward.

Billions of tons of seawater surged towards the center of the whirlpool from all directions. The deafening roar from the impact was like thunder, clearly audible even at an altitude of ten thousand meters. It was a thunderous roar powerful enough to shatter eardrums, like the roar of the creation of the world.

The water vapor shot into the sky, forming a giant column of water hundreds of kilometers in diameter and reaching the stratosphere. Sunlight pierced through the water vapor, refracting countless dazzling rainbows.

The scene was so beautiful it was heartbreaking.

Then, everything returned to calm.

On the sea surface, only a huge, slowly rotating whirlpool remained.

The Sakura Archipelago, which once existed here, along with its 120 million inhabitants—except for a very few lucky ones who managed to escape in time—all vanished.

Clean and spotless, as if it had never existed.

Oh, by the way, Okinawa didn't sink.

[National Fortune System Notification: The Sakura Kingdom's national fortune penalty is that the archipelago will sink for three days!]

[The National Destiny System has detected hazardous substances discharged by the former Sakura Kingdom in the nearby waters. Therefore, when the archipelago sinks, the National Destiny System will gather all the hazardous substances above its original land. When the submersion ends and the islands rise again, the hazardous substances will all be deposited on the land!]

The cold, impersonal system notification sounded in my mind once again.

Inside the cabin, the man in the Armani suit suddenly burst into hysterical laughter.

He laughed so hard he was doubled over, tears streaming down his face, until he collapsed to the ground, curled up in a ball. "Hahaha...hahaha..." he laughed, coughing up more blood, "It's all back to us...all that nuclear wastewater...it's all back to us...hahaha..."

No one speaks.

The cabin was deathly silent.

Everyone stared silently at the vast expanse of sea below, at the enormous whirlpool, and at the column of water shooting straight into the sky. Sunlight streamed through the portholes, illuminating their faces, but brought no warmth whatsoever.

They knew what awaited them when the land resurfaced three days later.

That's not home.

That was a grave.

A grave poisoned by its own hands.

Meanwhile, in live streams around the world, the chat was already exploding with comments, the screen filled with dense text:

"Holy crap?! It's really sunk?!"

"Holy crap! This system's execution is incredible! It sank right away!"

"Awesome! This is what you call punishment for a nation's fate! It's so shocking!"

"Is this '666' national fortune system inspired by disaster movies? Do you just watch our movies when you're out of inspiration?"

Please enter text.

"A stunning debut!"

"Serves them right! They let them dump nuclear wastewater! Now they're getting their comeuppance!"

"Although... more than 100 million people... I feel a bit sorry for them..."

"Every cause has its effect, and their current predicament can only be explained by the actions of their ancestors."

……