Varrela Calendar, Year 1; Old Calendar, 1801.
A sudden epidemic broke out in Varrela City.
Hair loss, bleeding, vomiting blood, diarrhea...
Just like that disaster long ago, that invisible force had returned, once again afflicting the Lord's devout followers.
The Archbishop led the Church and all the city's believers in prayer to the Goddess.
The Goddess answered the people once again.
She once again bestowed a miracle, using steel walls to block the Turbid Qi from outside and protect the believers within Varrela City.
Chen Fan silently examined the text in the holographic display. After Yi had processed and summarized it, the scenes of disaster described in the text had become far more detailed.
He could even feel, through those cold words, the despair and terror that the catastrophe sweeping the world had brought to humanity.
But...
What about the history before Old Calendar 1800?
Frowning, Chen Fan questioned Yi. Why is there still only history from the first year of the Varrela Calendar onward?
This unit searched the information from all books, but still found no detailed written records describing the period before Old Calendar 1800.
Among all the books, only one mentioned relevant information.
What did that book say?
Chen Fan's eyes lit up. He immediately felt that the breakthrough was within reach.
That was humanity's Prosperity Era. Unfortunately, prosperity was no more.
...And then?
That was all.
Yi's tone was extremely certain.
There was only that one sentence, and it had been found in a hidden compartment within a book.
As it spoke, a holographic image of a book appeared before Chen Fan.
"Simple Mechanical Principles"
There was still only the title, with no author's name.
Unlike the other exquisitely bound books, this book, titled Simple Mechanical Principles, was extremely old.
It had neither an ornate cover nor any fine decorations.
Its battered pale-yellow pages were exposed directly to the air, and the lettering upon them had become somewhat blurred with age.
Mechanical principles?
Chen Fan raised his brows. The Church library actually contains a book like this?
It was no wonder he was surprised. From the beginning until now, aside from all kinds of theological texts, he had hardly seen any books related to the natural sciences.
It was probably related to what the book recorded.
The author of this book... attributed all the beauty of machinery to the Goddess, claiming that she had created these exquisite mechanisms.
However, setting aside that meaningless rhetoric, the mechanical and mathematical principles recorded in this book were quite good.
At the very least, it could be considered an early work of natural science.
*...*
Well, damn. You could do that?
But then again, it really had worked—within a world where the Church controlled everything, the fact that it had been safely preserved was already a blessing.
That passage about the time before Old Calendar 1800 was hidden inside a compartment at the end of the book.
Following Yi's guidance, Chen Fan took the book from an overlooked shelf.
He carefully turned its somewhat damaged pages, his eyes full of emotion.
To tell future generations of the glory that once existed—perhaps that had been the author's final obsession?
As he looked at the book before him, a thought could not help but flash through Chen Fan's mind.
But unfortunately, after so many years, the book was still lying safely in the library—which meant no one had discovered that nameless author's painstaking effort.
That was both good and bad.
He sighed softly and brought the book back to the table. Yi, what do you think the truth behind this disaster was?
This unit's database contains no natural disasters associated with these keywords.
Chen Fan shook his head in frustration.
A mysterious force? An invisible thing? A citywide epidemic caused by Turbid Qi?
Chen Fan could not imagine anything so mystical.
A perfectly good technological civilization could not possibly have suddenly turned into some fantasy setting, could it?
Wait?
A technological civilization?
The vanished Prosperity Era before Old Calendar 1800?
Several clues rapidly connected in Chen Fan's mind.
His brows furrowed as he tried to seize that fleeting spark of inspiration, like a firefly vanishing in an instant.
"...Nuclear war."
After a long silence, he suddenly opened his eyes and forced out three terrifying syllables through clenched teeth.
Nuclear war?
It can't be wrong. It had to be nuclear war!
Realizing that the final veil before him was about to be torn away, Chen Fan's breathing immediately quickened. And it was a massive nuclear war!
The fireballs hanging in the sky were Nuclear Bombs in the midst of detonating!
The storms and gales were shock waves created by Nuclear Bomb explosions!
The invisible mysterious force was Nuclear Radiation produced by the explosions!
The rain the Goddess sent down was probably some kind of medicine that could deal with Nuclear Radiation.
A sharp light flashed in Chen Fan's eyes, and his emotions rose. As for the epidemic in the second year... I suspect it was an aftereffect caused by Nuclear Radiation.
And the Turbid Qi outside the city was simply air filled with radioactive dust!
Yi fell silent for a moment, seemingly calculating something.
The calculation results are available.
The probability exceeds 80%.
Taking into account the information hidden in the compartment, the probability can be raised to 90%.
No, something seems off.
After thinking it over carefully, Chen Fan faintly sensed some problems.
The timeline did not quite add up!
If the disaster had been a nuclear war, and if the time before Old Calendar 1800 truly had been an era of technological prosperity, then the people who recorded these words must have known the truth about the nuclear explosions. Why would they leave behind such obscure, mystical descriptions?
If it really had been an all-out nuclear war, those who witnessed the nuclear explosions should all have died.
Yi's words carried a darkly humorous edge. So the scenes you read were most likely passed down orally through countless people.
Combined with the Church's embellishment and revision, they naturally became the obscure version they are now.
Chen Fan's eye twitched slightly.
That made so much sense that he could not even argue!
Then...
Who had they launched the nuclear war against?
The Goddess?
No sooner had the first confusion been resolved than another wave of questions surfaced in Chen Fan's mind.
There is a certain possibility, but there is a logical conflict.
What?
If the target of the nuclear war was the Goddess, then in a sense, this confirmed that the Goddess was an alien civilization possessing advanced technology.
Is there a problem with that?
She could easily halt ongoing nuclear explosions, and she could even resolve the radiation created by them. That level of technology is advanced enough, isn't it?
Barely.
Yi's voice was somewhat disdainful. But the logical conflict this unit means is not there. It comes afterward.
If the target of the nuclear war truly was the Goddess, and the Goddess was an alien civilization, why would she save the survivors of the nuclear explosions?
*...*
Chen Fan immediately fell silent.
That was true.
If the other side truly was an alien civilization invading this planet, then she had no need to waste effort saving people at all!
Could it be...
Just as he had imagined before, this fallen alien civilization wanted to seek "help" from a lower civilization?
Stop daydreaming.
Other than a small amount of manpower, what else about the backward civilization you inhabit is worth mentioning?
For an early-stage Interstellar Civilization, the value of that small amount of manpower was far less than that of the planet beneath your feet.
P.S. Short is cute too. .JPG
Before you continue