“Long live the NAC! Long live the General!”
“HOHOHO!”
“Holy Shield! Holy Shield!”
“…!”
October 1st, eight o’clock in the evening.
Without the interference of a single cloud, the pristine Moon gleamed down onto the streets.
The suddenly lit lights illuminated the center of the stage into daytime and simultaneously, it ignited the enthusiasm of the audience. Cheers and shouts filled the entire circular venue and amplified the hyped atmosphere.
If one could ignore the ruins and wreckages behind them, it was difficult to relate the inside of the stadium with the apocalyptic world after the nuclear war.
The survivors released all the excitement in their hearts with pure roars and loudly declared their final victory to the end of the apocalypse.
Barbarism and civilization coexist, chaos and order coexist. It was the culture unique to the survivors.
“…I have nothing more to say, please enjoy this great moment, this is a victory for all citizens of NAC!”
At the highest point of the stadium, Jiang Chen announced the beginning of the celebration.
The moment after he finished the sentence, gorgeous and vivid fireworks decorated the night sky above Wanghai. The fireworks illuminated the entire stadium and surrounding ruins together. Amid thunderous applause and cheers, Jiang Chen looked around the entire venue, bathed in the zeal and admiration of everyone, waved his hand, and a touch of pride was seen in the upward bent corner of his mouth.
After he had delivered the opening speech of the celebration, he turned and returned to the VIP room covered by ink-colored glass at the highest point of the gymnasium. Sun Jiao, Yao Yao, and the others were all here. Today, almost all the survivors of Fishbone Base were here. Only a few on duty and a large group of drones stayed behind.
“I like this place very much,” Jiang Chen walked next to Sun Jiao, focused his attention on the stage in the center, and said. “Our Army once thwarted the conspiracy of Harmony here. Two thousand NAC fighters now sleep peacefully here. The God’s Cane had blasted a huge pit here as a scar left by the war. Whether it’s a memorial or something else, it’s an impeccable place. If we have the opportunity to further refurbish this place, this can be a new landmark in Wanghai, maybe let’s call it…City Center Stadium.”
“…I wonder if anyone said this to you before?”
“What?” Jiang Chen smiled.
“Your taste in naming things is really bad,” Sun Jiao rolled her eyes and joked.
Jiang Chen’s face turned red and he coughed to hide his embarrassment.
“This is not the point, the point is the connotation, right, Yao Yao?”
Yao Yao, who was watching the performance on stage, turned around and cutely spat out her tongue. Then, she subtly looked away. Lin Lin’s shoulders vibrated as she tried her best to hide her laughter. Finally, she turned around and made a funny face at Jiang Chen.
Jiang Chen looked to Xiaorou with the intention to seek comfort, only to see that she was looking at him with a caring smile.
Suddenly, Jiang Chen felt that he had received 10,000 critical hits, and he protested in his mind.
WHAT?!
REALLY?!
Is my naming skill that bad?
Amongst the wild rock music, the celebration was pushed to a climax.
The band that performed on stage was called “Arrogant Girls”, and it was said to be a top band from before the war. Most of the singers who appeared on stage afterward were stars from the pre-war world. In addition to singing performances, there were also some performances with defining wasteland characteristics.
For example, a well-known lone traveler soloed a Death Claws and a certain veteran scavenger used the garbage he picked up to create a robot acrobatic troupe…
When the clock hit twelve at midnight, the atmosphere reached its peak.
The great moment had finally arrived, and the Holy Shield restarted.
The brass-colored light curtain turned into a solid-looking vortex right above the venue and began spreading layers of pale golden ripples around. The sky was framed with a faint gilt-edge that extended to the unreachable horizon, and the whole city was secluded by the rhythmic graviton flowing in the air. From today on, this city would become a paradise for survivors in Asia and the world, and the term apocalypse would no longer be associated with this city.
At this moment, there was only silence.
Everyone gazed up to pay the highest respect to the sky and the Holy Shield.
Like the other survivors, Jiang Chen also looked up at the endless vortex that shrouded down, and a bold idea suddenly came into his mind.
Should I build several urban defense systems in the other world?
With this thing, strategic weapons will be useless…
Just as the thought was forming in his mind, a knock on the door suddenly interrupted his thoughts.
After the door opened, Jiang Chen was slightly taken aback when he saw Wang Qing, he asked.
“Is there a problem?”
…
“We have lost contact with the North American colony.” Into the hallway outside of the room, Wang Qing said solemnly to Jiang Chen, “It was our eleventh attempt to get in touch with the colony, but so far we have not received any response.”
“What happened?” Jiang Chen frowned.
“It’s not clear for the time being,” Wang Qing said seriously, “At first we thought it was electromagnetic turbulence, but the electromagnetic turbulence could not last for so long. We can only make the assumption that something happened to the colony… ”
Electromagnetic turbulence was a special phenomenon in this world. Under normal circumstances, the interference of radiation to electromagnetic waves was negligible, but the premise was that this radiation would not interfere with the Earth’s magnetic field. This was an issue for central Pacific because it was the hardest-hit area for nuclear weapons and most of the nuclear explosions occurred in Low Earth orbit above the atmosphere.
As we all know, the Low Earth orbit and the synchronous orbit were covered by the wreckage of space elevators, spacecrafts, and space stations, and had almost formed a ring of space junks. These space junks created a special effect under the action of radiation. The specific manifestation was that an unstable external magnetic field was applied to the original geomagnetic field.
Affected by this external magnetic field, ultra-long-distance communication had become extremely unreliable, especially for trans-oceanic communication, where the frequency of communications was erratic, and loss of contact was a common occurrence. NAC researchers defined this phenomenon as “electromagnetic turbulence” to explain the loss of communication between the colony and the NAC headquarters.
Wang Qing’s tone was uncertain when she said this.
Although NAC established an outpost in North America only a year ago, it had never experienced such a long communication interruption. However, it did not mean such a situation was impossible. Now he could not determine whether the colony experienced issues, or electromagnetic turbulence occurred on an unprecedented scale.
“How long has the last cargo ship departed?” Jiang Chen frowned.
“Twenty-three days ago.” Wang Qing gave a definite answer.
“Typically, how long will the cargo ship between the colony and the Port of Wanghai stay in North America?” Jiang Chen thought while he touched his chin.
“Under normal circumstances, about a week. However, that does not rule out any accidents, which may delay the cargo ship for a few days,” Wang Qing replied hesitantly.
“It’s October 1st. Let’s wait two more weeks.” Jiang Chen turned on the holographic screen of his watch and selected the calendar. His index finger swept along the number of days in the calendar, and finally stopped on October 14th, and he quickly made a decision, “If there is still no news from the colony after two weeks, then we will send an army there.”
