The dead city slumbered beneath a yellow-gray sunset, the drifting radioactive dust blurring the sun.
Rows upon rows of high-rises stood like tombstones. Not a trace of life could be seen through their hollow windows, nor the traffic and flashing neon lights of bygone days.
The white mist of his breath condensed into frost on the visor of his protective suit.
Only now did Yule finally understand why his seniors had repeatedly warned him to put on protective gear before heading to the surface. He also finally understood what the thousand cubic meters of nuclear fuel they had delivered were for.
His Adam's apple bobbed as he forced out a few words.
"...Nuclear winter?"
Zhao Feiyu glanced at the sky.
"It isn't just radioactive dust blocking us. There's also debris in orbit... Half a year ago, our space elevator disintegrated, and I only found out yesterday."
The radioactive dust spread along the edge of the atmosphere and the debris scattered through low orbit had blocked a great deal of the visible light reaching the surface.
Not only that, but industrial scale, energy use, production methods, and everything else had regressed to the Prosperous Era, or even earlier.
This was not a simple matter of adding and subtracting heat. The planet's ecosystem had already adapted to the production activities of the Prosperous Era, and now everything had violently changed back.
No one knew how long it would take for the planet to adapt again, especially while it was nearly buried beneath dust.
Perhaps humanity ought to adapt proactively to such drastic changes.
Interestingly, the mutant slime mold's life activities had not been affected by the radiation. Instead, the global cooling had reduced the scale of its activity.
Thanks to that, the Human Alliance could deploy more military strength to the front