Scarlet light flickered.
A meteor streaked across the sky, landing at the easternmost edge of the Central Continent and smashing heavily into a field.
The dull boom could be heard from hundreds of meters away, let alone by Wang Dashan, who was working the fields on his tractor.
"Damn... What was that just now?"
Startled by the noise, the unkempt man jumped down from his tractor, pulled out the hunting rifle hanging beside the cab, and loaded a shotgun shell as he headed toward the source of the sound.
This place lay on the frontier of Cloud Province, in its neglected northwestern corner.
Normally, no one came to this poor place. Even merchants thought there was too little profit to be made here and would rather travel farther to try their luck in the neighboring province.
But nothing was absolute.
Just last month, he had seen a few mutants—probably deserters scattered by Enterprise patrols.
Those ugly things made him sick even when he only saw them from a distance.
It was a crater more than ten meters wide, as though it had been blasted out by an artillery shell.
Seeing his ruined crops, Wang Dashan felt a sharp pang of heartache, but he still approached cautiously.
There seemed to be something inside the crater.
He glanced at the Geiger counter on his wrist and, after confirming that the radiation readings were normal, leaned closer to take a look.
A silvery-white metal sphere lay in the crater, wisps of heat rising around it. Its scorching temperature had even evaporated the moisture in the soil.
"What the hell is this thing?"
Wang Dashan studied the metal sphere in the pit for a long time but could not figure it out.
He pressed the communicator hanging from his shoulder and reported the situation