True Apocalypse Game

The moment they saw the endless expanse of floating garbage, the pirates on the ship erupted in a unanimous cheer, far more excited than they had been by the school of fish.

Old Bill was shaking with excitement, shouting at the top of his lungs:

"Brothers, get the nets ready! We’re rich!"

Then, suddenly remembering Shen Feng beside him, he quickly and cautiously asked:

"Captain, should we... should we start mining? Oh, and don’t you worry. According to pirate rules, half of whatever ’ore’ everyone digs up goes to the captain."

Shen Feng nodded with a complicated expression and said:

"Let everyone do as they please. I’ll give my share to the crew. Whatever anyone salvages is theirs to keep."

Old Bill’s eyes lit up, and he immediately shouted:

"The Captain said he’s waiving his share! Whatever you find is yours to keep!"

As soon as he said this, another cheer erupted from the pirate ship:

"Long live the Captain!"

"Hahaha, long live!"

"Thank you, Captain!"

"May your fish holds be full and your ore be piled high!"

"..."

The pirate ship had now reached the school of fish. Nets were cast at once, hauling in fish and dumping them into the vessel’s fish hold.

But the fishing lasted only a short while before everyone grabbed their oars again, rowing with all their might toward the not-so-distant garbage patch.

Judging by the looks of excitement and anticipation on their faces, you would think they were approaching a mountain of gold, not a floating garbage patch.

Shen Feng casually grabbed a fish. He cut it open with a small knife, descaled and gutted it, and began slowly slicing off and eating pieces of the raw meat, all while gazing at the distant garbage patch.

Endless. Boundless. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but floating garbage.

Plastic bottles, trays, shredded plastic wrap, cans, foam, rotten wood, car seats, tires, rubber mannequins—the list went on and on.

This motley collection of trash floated on the surface of the sea, forming a massive garbage patch.

After spending half a long day in a world of nothing but water, the sight of those brightly colored bottles and cans gave Shen Feng a strange sense of comfort.

Before embarking on his mission to the Water World Apocalypse, Shen Feng had already known of the garbage patches’ existence.

Beyond the seven known continents, in the most remote corners of the Pacific Ocean, a "New Continent" was taking shape.

This "New Continent," also known as the "Eighth Continent," was composed entirely of garbage.

Before Shen Feng had arrived in this mission world, the largest garbage island—the "Great Pacific Garbage Belt"—had already grown to six times the size of the United Kingdom.

It stood to reason that in a world where the oceans had swallowed everything, almost all of human civilization had been submerged, leaving behind an even greater number of abandoned, man-made objects.

They were simply innumerable.

The lighter of these objects floated to the surface and gathered on the water, forming one massive garbage patch after another.

To the once-glorious human civilization, these items had been nothing but useless trash, most of it non-recyclable.

But to the humans of today—who, after the great collapse of civilization, had almost no land left and could only drift on the sea—these massive floating garbage patches were bona fide mining deposits!

What was once trash was now considered treasure; basically everything was useful.

To the people of Water World, these things were like gifts from heaven.

Shen Feng looked down again at the pirate ship, patched together with all sorts of plastic items, cans, and bottles, and finally understood where the raw materials came from.

Finally, the pirate ship Swordfish crunched through a cluster of floating plastic bottles and entered the massive garbage patch.

The pirates on board were acting like it was a holiday. Several of them jumped right into the sea of garbage and began frantically gathering anything that looked usable.

Old Bill was the first to act. He threw a Fish Spear tied to a rope of woven hair, spearing a dilapidated, floating tire. After pulling it in, he used an old fishing net to rig the tire into a floating collection basket. Then, he leaped into the sea and began desperately gathering all sorts of trash.

The other pirates followed suit, jumping into the sea and starting to haul in everything they could grab.

They all wore expressions of pure joy, the kind you’d only see on someone who’d discovered a mountain of gold. Swimming through the sea of garbage, they couldn’t have been happier.

The sea was calm in this area, with no wind or waves—a rare opportunity indeed.

On the entire pirate ship, only Shen Feng remained, leisurely reclining and slicing off pieces of raw fish to eat with his knife.

Looking out, he could see that the garbage patch truly had everything, including a damaged motorboat and a small wooden skiff.

Most of the trash was already covered in green algae and plankton, which in turn attracted small fish to feed beneath it. The massive school of fish and the dolphins from before had also been drawn here.

Looking at this chaotic mess, Shen Feng couldn’t help but let out a long sigh.

’The once brilliant and powerful human civilization, wiped out just like that,’ he thought. ’Only these garbage patches remain as proof that it ever existed.’

’And when all this plastic and rubber finally decomposes in a few thousand or tens of thousands of years, the last traces of human civilization will be gone from this world for good.’

Just then, Old Bill swam back to the pirate ship, dragging his big tire. He tied the tire to the ship with a length of rope, then, as if presenting a priceless treasure, held up a square sign in front of Shen Feng.

"Captain, I found this! Something with writing on it! There are a few people at the Floating Island Market who can read, but I’m sure you can too! Look, the material is so clean and pretty. I think it might be a story about the Holy Armor."

Shen Feng looked up as a rectangular sign was placed in his hands.

It depicted a man in a military uniform standing before a colossal armored machine that towered into the clouds. The man’s sharp gaze seemed to meet that of the viewer, and it was accompanied by a line of text:

"To defend human civilization, are you ready?"

Below that were contact details and a registration email address.

It was a military recruitment ad.

The mountain-sized armored machine in the background looked to be several thousand meters tall, equipped with all manner of mechanical legs and various large-caliber cannons. He could count more than a dozen Electromagnetic Railguns alone.

The entire thing looked like a super-massive, multi-legged armored vehicle, thousands of meters tall.

The implication was self-evident.

The people of this world had once initiated a colossal mecha program.