True Apocalypse Game

Shen Feng couldn't help but frown at the mission objectives.

'There are a lot of objectives this time.'

'Fortunately, the system seems to understand my predicament. It knows that restoring sea levels and reviving human civilization is too much to ask right now, so those missions are optional, not mandatory.'

'Otherwise, I might as well just hang myself from this crane tower right now and save the system some energy.'

'After all, I have no Gray Tide to command, and this world's internet has long since collapsed. It's not an information society, so my Silicon-Based Brain is practically useless.'

'Right now, aside from being tougher and a better fighter, I'm just an enhanced normal person. There's no way I can fight those massive Exotic Giant Beasts.'

'I can only take it slow and plan carefully.'

The first three missions were primarily investigative and seemed relatively easy.

'But what is this Beast Gold?'

'The Super Giant Mechanical Armor Technology, on the other hand, should be the easiest to obtain. After all, I heard Old Bill mention that there are still ruins of damaged Super Giant War Armors that can be scavenged.'

As Shen Feng was lost in thought, a crisp, pleasant chime rang out. The Minstrel had taken out a string of glass lenses and shaken them gently. Then, amidst the swirling aroma of Dragon's Saliva Fragrance, he began to chant the three great epics.

The first was the *Epic of the Sinking World*.

"The World Ship sails the Cosmos of eternal night,

Birthing humble creatures named Man,

The creatures sailed through darkness, holding fire high,

Thinking they had mastered eternal light,

Until the beast from Hell tore a corner of the ship,

And an endless tsunami swept over everything..."

It began with an overture, followed by the account of an undersea wormhole appearing, the sea level rapidly rising, and the subsequent drowning of human civilization.

Shen Feng listened intently. Although this so-called *Epic of the Sinking World* had undergone some artistic embellishment, its account of the main events was likely to be largely accurate.

Many of the events described in the early parts of the epic corresponded with what Shen Feng already knew.

This included the complete annihilation of two of Eagle Country's fleets at the outset, with a colossal Exotic Giant Beast wiping out two carrier strike groups with a single tentacle. It also mentioned how the power of Hua Country's Electromagnetic Railguns was gradually diminished, and how major labs around the world began studying tissue fragments from the exotic beasts.

There was even a record of an Exotic Giant Beast attacking San Francisco.

Of course, in the epic, the human fleets' aircraft carriers weren't called "aircraft carriers"; they were called "island ships."

And the Electromagnetic Railgun was given the grand name of "Thunderbolt Staff."

According to the *Epic of the Sinking World*, when the Exotic Giant Beast attacked San Francisco, a mysterious force intervened and defeated it.

However, that beast was only a "small" one, merely three thousand meters tall.

After this small victory, the "gates of Hell"—the Space Wormhole—continued to expand, and eventually, even more powerful World Beasts arrived.

Earth's sea level began to rise rapidly, by several meters each day.

Massive tsunamis swept over coastal port cities across the globe.

At first, human civilization had only one strategy: build massive dams and coastal fortresses, using various turrets and missiles to fend off the advances of the World Beasts.

But they soon discovered that the giant beasts had little interest in destroying human cities.

They only needed to wait for the sea level to rise.

Humanity eventually figured out the cause of the rising sea levels. One reason was the continuous flood of water pouring in from the other side of the Space Wormhole. The other was the immense volume of the giant beasts themselves; as they entered the world, they displaced the seawater, causing it to rise.

Of course, the primary cause was the former.

Humanity changed its strategy. They began to take the offensive while also preparing to build colossal generation ships to allow a seed of human civilization to escape Earth.

As for the Super Giant War Armors—what are now called Holy Armors—they only appeared suddenly in the later stages of the war.

These Super Giant War Armors were the culmination of nearly all the remaining industrial power and resources of human civilization. In the end, a total of thirty-three were built, at a tremendous cost.

The smallest stood a kilometer tall, while the largest was in the five-kilometer class. They were essentially thirty-three mountains of metal.

Furthermore, because these Super Giant War Armors were built by different countries in different environments to combat different enemies, they had no unified design and varied greatly in form.

The Super Giant War Armors achieved considerable success for a time, destroying numerous Exotic Giant Beasts. But their numbers were far too few. Ultimately, they were defeated one by one and gradually faded from the stage of history.

The effort had simply exceeded the limits of what human civilization could bear.

In the end, neither the war fortress project, nor the Super Giant War Armor project, nor the "God's Finger" space-based Electromagnetic Railgun project—none of them could change the fact that the world was submerged and human civilization was destroyed.

Human civilization was completely devoured by the tsunami. A long rainy season followed, and for an entire year, the globe was battered by massive tsunamis, torrential downpours, and cataclysmic floods.

When the cataclysms finally subsided, the remnants of humanity became orphans abandoned by civilization, left to drift alone on the vast, endless sea.

Years passed, and generations were born and died. All that remained of that once-mighty human civilization were the songs passed down by the minstrels.