Mobile Shelter

Chapter 153 Prelude to the Cataclysm: The Fall of the City

Lu Ziye, who was able to assemble a car team and leave Kyoto at this time, was certainly not an ignorant person.

Furthermore, the research institute has information about awakened spatial ability users. The institute itself is not highly classified. Although ordinary people may not know much about this, as long as they have some connections, it is basically an open secret.

Just as the convoy followed Lu Ziye to a remote location to hide, not only Kyoto, which Dong Qi had just left, but the entire planet Blue Star began to experience turmoil.

Originally, due to the landing of mutated marine creatures, most of the residents in the coastal areas had already moved away because they could no longer bear the harassment from these creatures.

Only a few hunting teams remained, temporarily resting there to facilitate their hunting activities.

As the cold air descended and the sea froze over, the hunting parties, freed from the harassment of mutated marine creatures and their prey, naturally began their return journey to rest.

This is why, when Earth first entered the Great Ice Age, most people temporarily gathered in various cities.

Therefore, when the rainstorm occurred, although all the awakened beings received a reminder from the original will of Earth, some of them also spoke up in time to warn other ordinary people nearby to take shelter from the rain.

However, most residents who were out and about were caught off guard by the sudden downpour.

At that time, in all the cities of the planet Earth, the vast majority of people who went out were soaked to the bone before they could even react to the sudden downpour.

As a result, about one-third of the population on Earth mutated during the torrential rain.

Most of these mutants, just as Dong Qi saw, swelled and grew larger after absorbing rainwater, turning into muscular monsters with broad shoulders and thick waists.

However, some mutants, after being drenched by the rain, did not swell up from absorbing the rainwater. Instead, their bodies shrank as if being constantly tempered by the rain.

Some mutants, after absorbing the rainwater, did not change much in size, but they grew additional organs on their bodies. As soon as the rainstorm ended, those mutants who had been standing motionless in the rainstorm immediately rushed towards the ordinary people hiding in the nearby buildings like ferocious beasts the moment the rain stopped.

Facing the ordinary people hiding in the building, the muscular mutant punched through the thick wall, ignoring all obstacles in his way, and charged towards the ordinary person closest to him in the most ferocious manner.

Those mutants who shrunk their bodies in the rain were like agile monkeys, quickly finding the still-open windows on the building's surface and easily flipping over to enter the building's interior.

In addition, other mutated humans also used their respective abilities, whether violent or bizarre, to indiscriminately slaughter the humans in the surrounding buildings.

If there are awakened individuals nearby, that's fine. At this point, most awakened individuals, as long as they report and register with the authorities, can find a suitable way to use even the most useless superpowers.

Those Awakened Ones who had absolutely no combat abilities were basically thoroughly studied by the research institute, and most of them were assigned to positions that suited the effectiveness of their abilities, based on the effects of their special abilities.

Therefore, most of the awakened individuals who are able to stroll around the streets at this time possess combat abilities.

Therefore, when facing those suddenly appearing mutants, most awakened individuals, even if their own special abilities are not very effective in direct killing, are naturally not weak in combat power because they are equipped with weapons issued by the research institute.

While those mutants experienced significant growth during the torrential rain, they were still just ordinary people before, and they had only just completed their mutation. They were not yet fully familiar with their newly mutated bodies, let alone how strong they were in combat.

Therefore, if any awakened individuals were to step forward at this moment, even if they could not immediately kill the mutants, they could still engage in combat with them, which would be enough to protect the ordinary people hiding in the nearby buildings.

However, the number of awakened individuals in the city was only a minority, and because of the sudden downpour, many pedestrians on the road were soaked, so the number of mutants was quite large.

Those buildings that were not surrounded by awakened individuals had now become hunting grounds for those mutants.

At this very moment, they were hunting down ordinary people hiding in the buildings at incredible speed.

Those blood-red eyes seemed to possess X-ray vision; even when hidden in the most secret locations, these mutants could pinpoint the hiding places of ordinary people with remarkable accuracy.

When those mutants entered the building, it was a complete rout.

Those mutants who absorb rainwater, after finding ordinary people, will use various methods to first open the skull of their prey, and then eat the brain inside like eating jelly.

After that, he disregarded the remaining flesh and blood, casually tossing it aside.

But after those first-generation mutants left, those brainless corpses, whether their skulls were simply opened or their entire heads had disappeared, became headless bodies.

After a while, they would shakily stand up again, and then, regardless of whether they had lost their heads, they could accurately avoid the nearby furniture and wander aimlessly around the building.

If those second-generation mutants are lucky enough to encounter ordinary people, they will stagger towards the location of the ordinary people, just like the slow-moving zombies in the movies.

When they approach ordinary people, their hands will unconsciously reach for the prey's head, and with a gentle twist, they can remove the prey's head and attach it directly to their own shoulder.

If those second-generation mutants who have lost their heads were to remove the heads of their prey and place them on their own shoulders, this act of head transplantation would at most only inspire fear.

However, those were second-generation mutants whose skulls had only been removed, and whose heads were still about 70% intact.

After obtaining the prey's head, they disregarded everything and installed the prey's head onto their original head.

Anyone who sees a second-generation mutant with two heads standing upright on its shoulders would feel fear.

Under the rampage of the first and second generation mutants, most ordinary people who originally lived in the city, except for a very few who received protection from the awakened ones nearby.

Unless they are extremely lucky, the others either have their brains eaten by the first-generation mutants or their heads removed by the second-generation mutants.

Most importantly, the corpses whose heads were removed by the second-generation mutants could stand up again after a short time and wander aimlessly, instinctively searching for creatures hidden nearby.

In fact, whether it's the first generation of mutants or the second and third generation mutants, they were all infected by tiny alien life forms, just like those mutant marine creatures.

Therefore, their targets were not just humans, but all life forms on Earth.

However, in cities, except for zoos or some extremely remote locations, in most areas, the only creatures that can move freely are basically humans.

As for those cats and dogs, whether they have owners or are strays, do you think they are in a time of food shortage?

When ordinary people see them, they kindly share a little of their meager food with them.

Even after encountering them, he sincerely thanked Heaven for bestowing blessings upon him today, allowing him to obtain meat from Yu Jing.

Of course, during this period of food shortage, although you can't see stray cats and dogs on the streets, rats hiding in the sewers are not uncommon.

Those second- and third-generation mutants, because they gained special sensory abilities towards living beings after their mutations, can still find even the most well-hidden rats in the sewers with great accuracy.

So when most ordinary people in the city either died and became second or third generation mutants, or were very lucky enough to escape the city, some strange mutants with human bodies but only a small rat head on their shoulders gradually appeared.

With the emergence of these bizarre mutants, the headless rat corpses mutated and came back to life once again.

Using its small size, it directly squeezed into the pipes that the humanoid mutants could not enter.

It's important to know that in most cities, although rats rarely appear in the public eye, the number of rats hiding in every corner of the city is definitely no less than the number of the city's permanent residents.

Therefore, when those headless mutated rat corpses appeared, the chances of even awakened individuals surviving safely in the city became extremely slim, let alone ordinary people.

No one could have imagined that a sudden downpour would turn a city where humans had lived for decades or even centuries into a forbidden zone.

Meanwhile, in most cities on Earth, including Kyoto, which the convoy had just left, the majority of the surviving survivors, upon discovering the appearance of the mutants, unanimously left Kyoto in the fastest way possible.

Lu Ziye was right. Those survivors who decisively fled Kyoto at the first opportunity basically had no extra time to prepare supplies in order to save their lives.

Whether they were driving, using other means of transportation, or simply fleeing the city on foot, the survivors had hardly any supplies with them.

Leaving aside the situation in other cities on Earth, the situation in Kyoto is quite special, as the vast majority of the original inhabitants of Kyoto were originally settled there.

Because of the common thought that arose in the minds of all awakened individuals, the vast majority of people, under the guidance of the imperial court, moved to the newly rebuilt survival base in the suburbs of Beijing during the initial stage of the cooling down.

Perhaps because this survival base was overcrowded, and in order to force the residents to leave voluntarily, or perhaps for ease of management, the base has always been under military control.

For this reason, before the rainstorm even started, after hearing the warning from the Awakened Ones, almost all the residents who were outdoors immediately returned to their base as ordered.

Only a very few unlucky individuals, because they were too far from nearby buildings and did not take shelter in time, were caught in the rain and were transformed into mutants by the rain.

The survival base was originally built to the scale of a doomsday fortress, so not only was its own defense capability not weak to begin with, but it had also received a reminder from all the awakened individuals inside.

Naturally, they also took the opportunity to observe the entire mutation process of those people in the rain, and immediately captured those mutants who had just completed their mutations after the rain stopped.

Unlike in those movies and TV shows, it wasn't brought into the survival base and then somehow went out of control, leading to the destruction of the entire survival base.

Faced with an unknown mutated entity for the first time, even if the base's management were foolish, they wouldn't bring it into the survival base to capture and control it alive for their own lives. Although it would also be for research purposes, the researchers would have to rebuild their laboratories far away from the survival base if they wanted to conduct their research.

Compared to the Kyoto survival base, which suffered minimal damage during the torrential rain, the Kyoto city area itself did not last long after the rain stopped.

The main reason for this situation is the chaotic management.

Under normal circumstances, even the vast majority of people who settled in Kyoto at this time were people who had migrated from Phoenix City. Once they arrived in Kyoto, they should have been subject to the jurisdiction of the Kyoto government.

Unfortunately, because they learned of the prophecy, most of the high-ranking officials in the court and the majority of the officials in the capital moved to the survival base in the suburbs of the capital as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, the Phoenix City government officials, who had brought all the Phoenix City residents with them, discovered that the officials from the capital had disappeared. They then conveniently moved into the capital's government office and continued to manage the Phoenix City people they had brought.

This is why, regardless of whether the original homeowners lived or died, all the Phoenix City residents who had moved there were resettled in existing housing.

Phoenix's takeover of the situation naturally angered Kyoto.

Therefore, after initially discovering that the outside world was only experiencing a drop in temperature and there was no other danger, the local officials in Kyoto and Phoenix continued to follow the established procedures.

However, the higher-ups on both sides began to argue, since each radish has its own hole, and the higher the level, the fewer radish holes there are.

Phoenix City officials, who had expected to be demoted upon arriving in Kyoto, found that after the officials in Kyoto left, they naturally and without hesitation took over these positions.

Kyoto naturally disagreed, and the two sides continued to argue over their respective jurisdictions.

Although Phoenix City forcibly took over, it naturally wouldn't hand over the reins to Kyoto. So even though it became the actual manager, for various reasons, it was still in an unknown and exploratory phase, let alone having complete control.

Therefore, after the torrential rain arrived, they did not know the situation in the city immediately. Before they could react, the city's residents had already been slaughtered by the mutants.

Therefore, it was impossible to form a cohesive force within the city, and they could only temporarily disperse and attempt to break out.

As a result, Kyoto fell much faster than other cities in the Great Xia Dynasty.

Although the survival base in the suburbs of Kyoto was already full, the Phoenix City government officials who had fled to seek refuge with them did not turn them away, but simply placed them in a nearby observation room for quarantine.

Although the top officials of Kyoto and Phoenix argued heatedly over the management rights of Kyoto's urban area, it was all for work. Apart from work factors, the two cities are adjacent, and many officials from both sides have good personal relationships in peacetime.

In this critical moment of life and death, the higher-ups in Kyoto naturally wouldn't hesitate to turn away anyone who could offer help.

Although Lu Ziye led the convoy to a relatively remote area, everyone was still very concerned about the situation in Kyoto.

Dong Qi had originally planned to expose the drone to investigate the situation in Kyoto.

Unexpectedly, he wasn't the only one in the convoy who owned a drone. After the convoy stopped and set up camp, many people took out drones of different sizes and models from their vehicles.

Seeing what the others were doing, Dong Qi also pretended to open the trunk and took out a reconnaissance drone.

Several drones took off together and then flew at high speed toward the city of Kyoto.

Because the convoy deployed a large number of drones, the drones did not gather together during the reconnaissance. Instead, as they approached Kyoto, the drone swarm immediately dispersed in different directions.

The drones entered Kyoto city just as the mutants were resuming activity and entering buildings to hunt.

Therefore, from the aerial view of those drones, most people in the convoy could only see chaotic streets and people fleeing their original buildings with expressions of panic, as if being chased by demons.

Because very few drones are equipped with recording devices, most convoy members can only see the cold, hard images and have no idea what is causing the fear in the crowds running wildly through the streets.

Until a mutant with an appearance extremely similar to the one they had initially controlled appeared.

After the drone shattered the wall and jumped from about the fifth floor, all the convoy members who had been observing the other drones gathered together, their eyes fixed on the screen.

At this moment, the mutated creature appeared to be several times larger than the mutated creature they had controlled and abandoned.

Despite its enormous size, its speed was beyond everyone's imagination. With all four limbs working together, it leaped directly to the side of an ordinary person fleeing in the street.

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