Chernobyl!
The word that slipped from Angel's mouth left Klein rooted to the spot.
Although it was an English word, its Chinese equivalent was also a direct transliteration. Before his "transmigration," countless works of literature, games, and conspiracy theories had revolved around it. As someone who surfed the internet and argued politics online, Zhou Mingrui was naturally familiar with the place.
"The place they sealed off after the nuclear leak?"
He asked the question instinctively, yet inwardly felt as though the other shoe had finally dropped.
After all, half a year ago, he had already learned from Angel that the world beneath their feet was Earth—the very Earth where he had lived for over twenty years, with its thousands of years of magnificent human civilization. He was merely a "transmigrator" through time. Never mind an abandoned nuclear power plant; even if a satellite fell from the sky, or Armstrong's footprints still remained on the moon, he would not have been particularly surprised.
"Nuclear leak? There hadn't been any radiation here for a long time. They even reopened the site to study why the nearby dried-up oil wells had started producing oil again. But shortly after the research institute opened, strange incidents began occurring inside. Researchers kept going mad or disappearing, and only then was the institute sealed off again beneath a 'sarcophagus' built from thick concrete and lead plates."
Angel withdrew her gaze from the image of the sprawling grayish-white buildings in Klein's arms and explained with a grave expression.
"From then on, supernatural incidents began occurring frequently around the world. Ordinary people mutated into monsters, all sorts of abnormalities emerged, and eventually, devils appeared alongside sinister forces. The countdown to the end of the world began...
"That's why the Chernobyl incident, as the earliest documented 'strange phenomenon,' was widely