488: Chapter 481: Changes in Heaven and Earth 488: Chapter 481: Changes in Heaven and Earth After the lightning and thunder, the entire world had turned pitch black.
This darkness wasn’t the black of the night; it was an extreme, pure black.
Stretching out your hand, you couldn’t see your fingers at all.
“Damn, what’s happening?
Is this a solar eclipse?
But even a solar eclipse shouldn’t be like this!”
“The apocalypse has come, it must be the apocalypse; hasn’t the Maya prophecy always mentioned the end of days?”
“Everyone, stay where you are, don’t move around…”
All around were cries of alarm, all around were shouts of anger.
Despite their reactions, because the darkness had just fallen, the people nearby mostly maintained their original order.
Their cries and roars were simply natural responses to the panic they felt.
Compared to ordinary people, Chen Hai quickly adapted to the darkness.
Even with his eyesight, however, in the absence of any light, he could only make out the scene within ten or twenty meters nearby.
“Chen Hai, where are you?
Are you by my side?” Ye Qingqing was just as panicked by the sudden occurrence.
Although she knew her man possessed divine skills, at this moment, she still exhibited a clear sense of panic.
“It’s okay, Qingqing, there’s no need to panic, I’m definitely by your side.”
“I don’t know what’s going on with the world, but this darkness can’t last for long.”
“Chances are, give it a few minutes, and when the darkness passes, the world will return to normal.”
As he spoke, Chen Hai had already moved from the balcony to the living room.
He intended to turn on the lights in the living room.
Unfortunately, he pressed several switches one by one, but to no avail, it was likely that a power failure had occurred for it to be this way.
Moreover, the Eastern Pearl Community where he lived was still shrouded in darkness.
Turning on the lights when it gets dark is a natural human instinct.
Standing on the balcony, Chen Hai looked into the distance.
Not only the Eastern Pearl Community, but the entire county town was without a trace of light.
It seemed that due to some unknown disaster, the power system had probably completely collapsed.
Thinking this, Chen Hai took out his mobile phone and turned on its flashlight feature.
Light blossomed, dispelling the surrounding darkness, and within a few steps, Ye Qingqing, with the help of the light, could see that Chen Hai was right next to her.
Finally, she breathed a sigh of relief and seemed much more composed.
Standing up from her chair, she walked over to Chen Hai.
From the balcony, they looked down into the distance.
The entire city still lacked power, but some lights had begun to appear.
Just moments before, the sun had been shining brightly, and it was broad daylight, but in an instant, the whole world was engulfed in darkness…
Faced with such a situation, a momentary panic was inevitable for any normal person.
The darkness had lasted for a minute or two, and many people had already started to come around.
Mobile phones, almost one in every hand, had long been common in Yanhuang Country.
Like Chen Hai, many had already turned on their phone’s flashlight feature.
The light, although limited in brightness, was enough to allow people to see their immediate surroundings.
With this light for support, devices like emergency lights and car headlights, which ran on batteries, began to light up one by one.
With the aid of these lights, one could see that the streets were in complete disarray.
In just these few short minutes, at least dozens of accidents had occurred on the streets around the Eastern Pearl Community alone.
These vehicles had been driving properly on the streets.
Suddenly, when day turned to night, no driver could have reacted in time!
In the pitch black, without any visibility, it was inevitable to crash into the vehicle ahead, into pedestrians, or into street-side obstacles or buildings!
Picking up his phone, there was no signal at all.
Whether to call the police or dial emergency services, it was already impossible to get through.
Truth be told, even if one could get through to emergency services, there was practically no good solution to the current predicament.
After all, on every street in the entire Liuyuan County, there were scenes of car accidents.
Liuyuan County Police Department, with its limited police force, wouldn’t be able to respond; merely appearing on the streets would get them hopelessly stuck in traffic.
Liuyuan County, with its paralyzed traffic, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say so.
Of course, if you’re just walking, then there’s not much of a problem!
“Chen Hai, what on earth is happening with the world?
Why is it still pitch-dark up to now?”
Ye Qingqing looked up at the dark sky where the sun seemed to have disappeared completely, with no sign of it reappearing.
With a puzzled face, she sighed.
“You ask me, but whom can I ask?” Chen Hai gave a wry smile and also sighed.
Furrowing his brow, he pondered for a moment before adding, “Years ago, I heard some rumors.”
“Some evil force summoned a strange bat from an unknown land, an entity that exists between reality and phantom.”
“That bat, seemingly in the midst of a sacrifice, brought death wherever it flew!”
“Over these years, the number of people who have died because of this bat probably has already surpassed a hundred million.”
“I’ve tried several times to find this thing, but sadly, I’ve never caught sight of it.”
“Perhaps, the root of the sudden changes in the world lies within this matter…”
When Chen Hai spoke these words, he hesitated.
After all, the deductions he made were just his speculations.
His existence was already no secret to the major nations of Blue Star.
Who knows what kind of bizarre experiments those countries might conduct in secret to create an ultimate human weapon like him?
It’s possible that the appearance of that bat is one of the evil experiments of some major country.
Chen Hai just wanted to live a peaceful life and not collide with the powers at the national level.
As long as things were still stable in Yanhuang Country, and his own Liuyuan County remained peaceful, the cataclysms outside were those countries’ own making.
With not much insider knowledge about the evil bat, after some thought, Chen Hai decided not to meddle further.
“A bat?
Indeed, enough people have died because of this thing over the years.
And it’s performing sacrifices?” Ye Qingqing exclaimed in surprise.
“Maybe?” Chen Hai nodded and added, “The higher-ups might know something about the bat, but they’ve never mentioned it to me, nor asked me to take care of it.”
“You should know a bit about the concept of Gaia consciousness, Qingqing.”
“Born from the collective consciousness of all living beings, eventually forming the will of the world—when the death toll in our world reaches a certain threshold, the world’s will also suffers a great deal of damage.”
“Perhaps, the world’s descent into darkness is somewhat related to the damage to the world’s will!”
As Chen Hai was speaking, he suddenly felt the ground beneath his feet begin to shake violently.
“Boom…
boom…
boom…” It was as if the sky and earth were about to split apart, and the roaring sound was deafening.
Feeling this upheaval, Chen Hai’s face immediately changed.
He scooped Ye Qingqing into his arms in a swift movement and, like a whirlwind, he began to dash frantically toward the outside.
His home was on the twelfth floor.
To open the security net and jump down would certainly be simpler and faster.
But jumping from such a high floor, the massive impact that followed, he could withstand, but he worried that Ye Qingqing could not.
After all, when it came to age, Ye Qingqing was really not young any longer; her physical functions could no longer compare with a younger person’s.
Even with Chen Hai’s protection, jumping from the twelfth floor, she could still face a deadly risk.
During an earthquake, the higher one is in a building, the more dangerous it gets.
The buildings in the Eastern Pearl Community were all above twenty floors; if such a building were to collapse, ordinary people would barely stand a chance to survive.
This was a fact that most people understood very well.
Feeling the ground shaking violently and due to the emergence of lights in the city, the people who had just calmed down a bit were thrown into utter panic again.
“There’s an earthquake, we can’t stay here, run!”
“Who the hell bumped into me, damn it.”
“Someone help me up, don’t step on me.”
…
With the elevators out of service, the only way down was the stairs.
Many people, in their urgency and panic, and due to the lighting problem, could barely illuminate much of the place with their mobile phone flashlights in the pitch-black stairwell.
In an instant, someone became a rolling gourd, tumbling down the stairs.
Chen Hai’s reflexes were quick, and his speed was astonishingly fast; he rushed down the stairs to the ground floor relatively unobstructed.
But outside the building, everything was still in disarray.
Making a quick judgement, Chen Hai dashed toward the banks of the Yuan River.