Many hovercars smashed into the glass skyscrapers, like insects hitting a spiderweb. This city had too many glass buildings, almost forming sky-high glass curtain walls. Now the walls were riddled with holes, all from the cars crashing into them.
Later, Jiang Ye would learn why such a tragedy occurred. Some cheap hovercars navigated using signal devices buried beneath the road surface. When the earthquake hit, the road tilted, and the hovercars' automatic flight systems malfunctioned. Before the drivers could switch to manual control, they watched helplessly as their vehicles crashed into the buildings.
The cars that hit the buildings caught fire, the flames quickly igniting the carpets, desks, curtains, and electrical conduits within. Each skyscraper was like a city under siege by fire, instantly engulfed in flames.
Several buildings over a hundred stories high had already become dazzling, towering infernos.
These tall buildings originally had fire suppression systems, but the water supply pipes had been crushed by the earthquake. When the fire suppression systems automatically activated, not a drop of water was pumped to the upper floors. Instead, it all gushed like fountains into the ground floor and then cascaded onto the streets.
Looking down from high above, one could clearly see that the streets surrounding the base of each burning skyscraper were flooded. Drowned people floated like driftwood on the streets, along with large amounts of street garbage bobbing on the water. Some people who could swim struggled valiantly, but burning building sections and exploding glass were constantly falling from above, along with people jumping from the tops of the high-rises. The streets had become a slaughterhouse. Some of the water surfaces were even heated by the fires into boiling water, scalding people swimming in the streets to death.
The old city district suffered the most severe damage. Many buildings had exceeded their service life, and some ancient structures with poor seismic resistance collapsed like loose sand under an eight-magnitude earthquake. However, from high above, every particle of sand-like material was a steel and concrete slab weighing tens or hundreds of pounds. For those inside and near the buildings, such "sand" was enough to crush a person into a pulp.
Jiang Ye frowned and looked closely, seeming to see some pinprick-sized red marks in the ruins, unsure if they were bloodstains.
More than half of the city was without power. Only shops with backup generators and streetlights were still illuminated. Under the dim glow of the streetlights, dust clouds drifted like white veils, creating a scene reminiscent of a shelled battlefield or a minor sandstorm. Some figures and vehicle shapes moved through the dust, their destinations unknown.
Jiang Ye could see some rescue hovercraft returning to their nests, presumably having rescued people. The rescue hovercraft of his own forces had orange lights, scattering like embers. Besides these, some hovercars and small spacecraft had red and blue lights, likely belonging to the local rescue police of Hal Star. Their numbers were not small, and they were landing and taking off among the ruins.
These glowing rescue hovercraft were like fireflies hovering over a large lake, the lake being the dark and chaotic city ruins. There seemed to be many fireflies, but they appeared too small, making Jiang Ye doubt how many people could be rescued in time.
This city had a population of tens of millions. A place where so many people lived was suddenly destroyed or even leveled. Tons of building materials rained down, fires erupted everywhere like awakened lava pools, gas and unknown gases leaked, high-voltage wires lay like coiled snakes, ready to electrocute anyone who touched them. There were also malfunctioning robots, and dirty water flowed everywhere, along with terrified pedestrians and stray cats and dogs.
Jiang Ye had known that earthquake zones were extremely tragic, but now it seemed like a living hell. The casualty rate was even higher than in many fiercely fought battlefields. The highest casualty rate on the Verdun battlefield was seventy thousand per square foot, and that was due to prolonged sieges. In just a few minutes, this city might have suffered casualties equivalent to several Verdun battles.
Jiang Ye suddenly felt a chill. If Hal Star was completely unaware of the impending global earthquake period, then in a year, the casualty figures on this planet would make the death tolls of the first two world wars seem like child's play. Hal Star had over ten billion people!
Even if only one-tenth of them died in the disaster, that would be a horrifying one billion people. Moreover, according to the current predictions of Hal Star scientists, if the global earthquake tide fully erupted, the final survivors would absolutely not exceed 1%.
More than half the population would die on the spot from volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and tsunamis. The remaining half would face plagues, climate change, agricultural decline, and famine and drought. In the end, only a small handful of solitary survivors would remain, living like primitive humans, or even worse than primitive humans. At least primitive humans could go out hunting; in the ruins of the city, they could only scavenge for rotten corpses.
Jiang Ye suddenly felt fortunate that humanity now possessed many planets, so the destruction of one planet would not lead to utter annihilation. Expanding into the stars was the only way to survive.
"It's shaking again!" Cen Yemeng exclaimed.
Jiang Ye's thoughts were immediately interrupted, and he continued watching the holographic projection.
The aftershocks were also quite severe. Two hundred-story glass skyscrapers collapsed on the spot, appearing like burning sky-high towers being toppled in the night, their brilliant flames tearing through the sky. The collapse of the buildings crushed a large area of surrounding structures, raising mushroom cloud-like dust. Some glowing hovercraft hastily took off to avoid the debris, their movements like panicked flies.
The entire ground of the city undulated like waves. More road surfaces burst open with thick asphalt slabs, and cracks appeared on the streets like frozen rivers, swallowing many people running chaotically. Many dark areas lit up with flames. These aftershocks added over two hundred ignition points, which quickly spawned more fires in the surrounding areas, eventually developing into a dense, roaring web of fire. Many people ran in the streets as if under attack from flamethrowers.
One could see the lights of many rescue hovercraft concentrated in specific locations, all in densely populated areas such as schools, hospitals, and shopping malls.
Jiang Ye's mind involuntarily conjured up various scenarios. Students sleeping in their dormitories were suddenly awakened by the earthquake, some students leaping from their upper bunks in panic, breaking their legs on the spot. In a hospital operating room, a surgeon performing a critical operation was jolted by a tremor, the scalpel plunging into the patient's organs. The mall was full of shoppers, a wife happily looking at clothes, her husband sitting dejectedly waiting, when suddenly the lights went out, the mall shook, and screams erupted everywhere. After everything turned into ruins, now there were aftershocks.
When the aftershocks ended, thick smoke covered more than half the city. The streets were filled with corpses, as if an enemy army had just entered and massacred the population. However, the smell of blood was not yet strong; the air was filled more with the scent of burnt smoke.
The nest was too high, so the sounds of the city could not be heard. But Jiang Ye knew very well that the city below must be deafening at this moment, with explosions, the roaring of flames, hysterical cries, and the thunderous sounds of collapse all intermingling. The ears of the disaster victims would also be ringing.
Jiang Ye suddenly heard crying and thought he was hallucinating.
He turned his head and saw Cen Yemeng covering her face and weeping.
Jiang Ye walked over, hugged her, and gently patted her back.
His phone suddenly rang.
Jiang Ye took out his phone to look; it was a call from the High Priest of Hal Star.