True Apocalypse Game

First, darkness. Then, a familiar wave of dizziness. A flash of white light followed, and his body went weightless before plunging heavily into the water.

Shen Feng’s eyes snapped open. He fought his way upward, bursting through the surface and gasping for air as he scanned his surroundings.

All he could see was water.

A vast, endless expanse of ocean.

As usual, his clothes had vanished, leaving only his Quantum Backpack.

The pack was stuffed so full it was dragging him under.

He immediately started treading water, wrestling with his enormous pack. He quickly unzipped it and pulled out what looked like a rolled-up sheet of plastic.

He gave it a hard shake, spreading it flat on the water’s surface. Shen Feng then pulled a pump out of his bag, stuck the nozzle into the plastic sheet, and began pumping for dear life.

Luckily, as a nerd, he was all too familiar with the frantic motion of pumping. Just a few minutes later, a small, one-person inflatable raft had taken shape before him.

Shen Feng clambered into the raft. He then fished out a collapsible plastic paddle, snapped it open, gave the water a gentle stroke, and whistled.

Perfect.

Only then did he dig out a T-shirt and a pair of baggy shorts and start getting dressed.

To his relief, the temperature in this mission world was pleasant. It wasn’t winter, or perhaps the climate here had simply changed long ago.

In any case, he wouldn’t be needing a winter coat for now.

Jingwei’s voice, laughing, emanated from the silicon-based framework on his chest:

"Hahaha, where did you dig up this dinghy? It’s so tiny! Looks like a kid’s pool toy. Are we really supposed to conquer this world in *this* thing?! I have a reputation to maintain, you know!"

Shen Feng grinned, pleasantly surprised. "You made it through this time? Excellent! That electromagnetic shielding device really is the real deal. Too bad I couldn’t bring the Gray Tide with us..."

He picked a direction and began to paddle as he spoke:

"Got this raft on some online store for 86.09 yuan—a very specific price. The whole point was for it to be light and compact, otherwise I’d never fit anything else in my pack. Don’t you laugh. An object this cheap is a testament to a complete industrial system. This is serious business."

As he spoke, he pulled out a folding umbrella, opened it, and propped it over his head. It would have to do for a canopy.

"What about the Sail Warship? I want the big one! The pretty one!" Jingwei shouted, her disdain for the little raft obvious.

Shen Feng replied, exasperated:

"Whoa there, lady, let’s not be hasty. We just got here. Let’s scope things out first. We’ve only got one ship. What happens if I summon it right away and some monster sinks it? Who are we going to complain to then?"

Jingwei knew Shen Feng was right, so she dropped the subject of changing ships.

"What on earth happened to this world? Even if every glacier on the planet melted, the sea level would rise by a few dozen meters at most. But from the looks of it, it’s risen far more than that..."

They were supposed to be where San Francisco once stood, which had an average elevation of 45 meters. Even if the city were completely submerged, some skyscrapers should still be jutting out of the water.

Yet they saw nothing.

Then, Jingwei’s voice suddenly crackled with excitement:

"Shen Feng, I hear voices! A boat is coming! Quick, look! Ten o’clock!"

Shen Feng looked up. A silhouette of a ship had appeared on the horizon. Under full sail, it was heading rapidly in his direction.

A dozen or so figures were visible on its deck, shouting and paddling furiously as they raced toward him.

Seeing this, Shen Feng couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief.

He had expected a repeat of the Gray Tide apocalypse, where it took him days to find another living soul. He’d even braced himself for a year or more of solitude before he could get a handle on the situation. After all, finding survivors in a flooded, post-apocalyptic world was a daunting prospect.

It was like finding a needle in a haystack.

He never expected to be so lucky as to run into people right away.

Shen Feng waved cheerfully at the distant figures and shouted:

"Hello! It’s great to see you all!"

He then had Jingwei, inside the silicon-based framework on his chest, shout it again in English.

At the same time, he pulled an assault rifle from his backpack, happily slapped in a magazine, and peered at the distant ship through its scope.

Calling it a ship was generous; it was more of a large raft.

The entire thing was cobbled together from hollow metal pipes, plastic tubes, and assorted planks. Judging by what was left of its keel and some of the panels, it had once been a small yacht. But after years of decay and countless patch jobs, it had become something else entirely.

A Ship of Theseus, in a way.

The people paddling were all dressed in rags. Some wore nothing but a torn cloth wrapped around their groin. Their oars were makeshift and misshapen, not proper paddles.

In the center of the vessel stood an oddly constructed shelter, clearly built upon the foundation of the original cabin.

Under the shelter, on a halfway-decent chair, sat a shirtless man with a big beard. He was staring at Shen Feng through what was left of a pair of binoculars—only a single tube remained.

This man was clearly the "captain."

The seventeen sailors’ faces were all masks of greed. They paddled with all their might, their bronze skin glistening under the sun. The avarice in their eyes was impossible to conceal.

Piled near at hand were sharp fish spears fashioned from rebar, ropes tied to their ends. These were clearly their weapons.

The captain, meanwhile, held a crossbow. Its sharp tip glinted with a faint blue light.

The raft’s deck was stained with blood. Dried fish were laid out to cure alongside what were clearly decorations made from animal bones.

As Shen Feng observed them, they observed him.

They saw the gun in his hands but showed no reaction. Apparently, they didn’t recognize what a firearm was.

After experiencing a few apocalypses, Shen Feng was no longer surprised by civilizational gaps like this. People forgetting what a gun was—he’d seen it before.

The patchwork vessel was now a few hundred meters from his inflatable raft. The captain shot up from his chair and untied a cloth bundle on the mast.

A black Pirate Flag with a skull unfurled, snapping in the wind and radiating an air of brutal terror.

The paddling sailors and their captain let out a simultaneous roar, their faces twisting into excited, savage grins.

Shen Feng raised an eyebrow.

He hadn’t expected to run into a pirate ship.

He mused that even after civilization had been destroyed and fractured, the good old Pirate Flag had somehow been passed down.

’Goes to show you which parts of pop culture have real staying power,’ he thought.

The pirate raft was now only a few dozen meters away. The pirates dropped their oars, grabbed their fish spears, and let their momentum carry them closer.

The captain bellowed in a slightly strange accent:

"This is the Beast God Pirate Group! Hand over everything you have, and I mean *everything*—including your teeth and hair! Do that, and we’ll give you a dignified, painless burial at sea! That’s a guarantee from the Beast God Pirate Group!"

"Oh," Shen Feng said, and pulled the trigger.