Translated by XephiZ
Edited by Aelryinth
The Magic City was split into Puxi and Pudong, with the Huangpu River as the boundary. Puxi was the historic center of the Magic City, but Pudong had been developing rapidly over the years, and had become an important part of the modern city. It was like a new generator helping the city to develop at an insane rate.
Baoshan District was located at the estuary of the Huangpu River to the north of the Magic City, Shanghai. When Mo Fan looked down from the wall, he discovered that the other half of the land split by the Huangpu River, the land of Pudong, had completely disappeared. It was replaced by the gray-blue water of the ocean!
An entire landscape of remarkable size had disappeared just like that. Mo Fan would never have believed it if he did not see it with his own eyes!
“Now do you realize how terrifying the rising sea level is?” Zhao Manyan inquired bluntly.
Mo Fan nodded with a blank face.
Mo Fan initially thought the sea level had only risen by a little, so it was nothing worth mentioning. However, the truth was that every meter that the sea level rose was already quite terrifying. Most lands consisted of gradual slopes that slowly slid down into the ocean. If the sea level rose by a meter, a few hundred meters, or even thousands of meters of land, could be submerged. Countless islands would vanish, while peninsulas would end up becoming new seas and coasts…
“What happened? How did it end up like this all of a sudden?” Mo Fan blurted out.
It felt like he was in the middle of a dream. Half of the Magic City had been submerged just like that. What exactly had happened in the past half a year!?
“It was already happening when we were in the North Valley. It’s the reason why a part of the army was allocated elsewhere. The sea level has risen significantly, submerging the former coastline along the east. Almost every city was drowned, expanding the area that the sea monsters can be active in. If the land is submerged, we just needed to evacuate the people further inland. It’s inevitable, but the sea monsters are our biggest threat now. The coastline is no longer safe; we’ve allocated almost every land force to the coastline and are barely holding our ground,” Zhao Manyan said.
“But… the sea level wouldn’t just rise for no reason, right?” Mo Fan was still struggling to accept the truth.
“Some experts say that something serious and unknown has happened in the Antarctic and the Arctic, causing the sea level to rise crazily. However, the Antarctic is a forbidden area to us humans. Even Super Mages will most likely die there. We have yet to find out what exactly happened there… but we just heard that a Forbidden Mage from England has died,” Zhao Manyan said.
“But how?” Mo Fan was astounded.
Someone at the level of a Forbidden Mage had died…
“He died in Antarctica when he was searching for the truth… as a matter of fact, the Antarctic, Sahara Desert, and Bermuda Triangle are three forbidden areas we humans could go. Even the strongest Mage will have trouble coming back from them alive. It’s likely that the Forbidden Mage from England knew he had almost reached the end of his life, so he decided to go and seek the truth… but he still died in the end,” Zhao Manyan told him.
Mo Fan fell silent. He had heard about Antarctica from Pang Lai before. The Flying Creek Snow Wolf’s impressive lineage was said to have originated from Antarctica, but Mo Fan did not expect such a distant land to be the cause of the great disaster.
It was too sudden and too unacceptable!
“I had the same reaction as you when I first saw it, but I can’t help it. Despite how much I was struggling to believe it, despite how ridiculous it sounded, our territory has indeed been drowned by the seawater. The cities have become a part of the ocean. It’s not just happening in our country; other countries along the coastline suffered the same fate! Our country is already quite fortunate; Chairman Shao Zheng spent a long time preparing for the disaster to minimize the loss, but the Threat-Elimination Strategy that he came up with only covered five thousand kilometers of the coastline. Even he did not expect we’d be losing almost twenty thousand kilometers of the coastline…” Zhao Manyan murmured.
Mo Fan sat down on a rock. He needed some time to digest the information. It was already happening in the East when they were fighting the Black Vatican and the Pyramid in the North Valley. It was serious enough to leave anyone helpless!
“I guess I’ll try to accept it…” Mo Fan leaned against the rock and glanced at the vast ocean.
“By the way, how is your cultivation going? How many of your Elements have reached the saturation stage of the Advanced Level?” Zhao Manyan asked.
“My cultivation is as insignificant as a fart compared to the matter on hand!” Mo Fan grumbled.
“Don’t be so dispirited. Every Forbidden Mage at the top of the world has gone through our current stage, too,” Zhao Manyan said.
Mo Fan always dreamt of saving the world when he was young. He was still proud of stopping the invasion of the Great Pyramid of Giza and capturing a Red Cardinal alive. He believed his contributions were enough for his name to be recorded in history.
To his surprise, Mother Nature immediately gave Mo Fan a slap to the face!
The layout of the entire world had changed when they were fighting the Pyramid and while he was convalescing at the Parthenon Temple. He felt he was about to suffocate when he realized how unfamiliar the world was to him.
“Even those that were enjoying their power peacefully in the cities are no longer able to rest easy. We don’t even know how many years this war between humans and sea monsters is going to last,” Zhao Manyan said.
“To be honest, I’m missing Mars. Earth is too dangerous,” Mo Fan replied with a wry smile.
Mo Fan lit a cigarette. It was strange how he was able to relax after taking a deep breath of the tobacco after learning the unbearable truth.
Zhao Manyan was planning to talk to Mo Fan about Feiniao City. He believed Mo Fan was still unaware of the plans to turn it into a Headquarters City. He believed it was necessary to explain things to the brainless Mo Fan, since it was going to multiply Fanxue Mountain’s value at least a hundredfold.
He was about to speak when he saw several men and women in streetwear approaching them. The man leading them was wearing a headscarf. His arms were exposed, revealing the tattoos on them.
The man walked up to Zhao Manyan and yelled fiercely, “Kid, aren’t you the one that gave me the middle finger!?”
The others behind him immediately gloated. Everyone in Baoshan knew their Brother Qiu’s temper. He would even berate someone from the military if they dared to step on his tail!
Mo Fan was smoking his cigarette on the side. He realized something when he saw the people hooting at them.
It did not matter how the world’s layout had changed, these brainless rascals would always be around, and were as reckless as usual!
However, he was quite relieved when he realized that the world still felt familiar to him.
