Doomsday Earth

"What a beautiful sphere—not white, but she's so vibrant!"

The moment he caught sight of Earth's outline, Li Wei, after a brief jolt of awe, let out a heartfelt compliment for the breathtaking scenery that 99.999% of people could never witness firsthand.

A surge of poetry welled up inside him. After three seconds of emotional brewing, he opened his mouth and shouted: "So blue!"

Then his body was caught by Earth's gravity, and he began to drift slowly downward.

Sensing a little, Li Wei found that the viral abilities within him were still usable. He curled up, expelled the compressed gas from his cells, and adjusted his orientation outside the atmosphere, wanting to take a look at the true cosmos.

He didn't see the moon, but he did see the sun. It looked like an orange he'd once eaten—orange-red, seemingly juicy, and for some reason constantly spewing stuff outward.

He had less than three seconds to appreciate the star before he noticed the Key's energy beside his eye climbing rapidly.

It went from 0.1% to 1.3%, and after a few more seconds, the number reached 2.1%.

Seeing that the Key was still there, Li Wei felt a sense of dread. He hadn't pulled it out, so could it be that this still wasn't his original world?

He didn't need to breathe, nor did he need to worry about being smashed into paste when he fell, so he had plenty of time. He turned back around and observed everything on Blue Star from an altitude of about a thousand kilometers.

Then he saw a red dot appear in some jarring region of the Earth...

Li Wei had a terrible sense of direction and couldn't memorize maps, but from the vague outlines of the continents and fragments of memories from certain people in the Prototype world, he recognized it as Yellowstone National Park.

Yellowstone was one of the largest volcanic calderas in the world. A red glow in that area could only mean a volcanic eruption.

Ridiculous!

A ring of dark red flesh tendrils rolled across Li Wei's surface, shifting into an armored form, and he turned to fly toward Yellowstone in America.

As Li Wei passed through the Thermosphere and entered the Mesosphere, his field of vision shrank, and he also spotted some unpleasant things.

The ocean was churning. Under the broad daylight, there was no clear, bright sky—instead, he saw countless "tiny" cracks spreading across the land.

Li Wei abandoned his gliding mode, dropped headfirst vertically for a distance, and entered the Stratosphere.

Now he could see more. The boundless tsunami surging toward the city's edge inspired a primal fear and a sense of his own insignificance.

The waves toppled buildings like ants, and even smaller humans fled in the opposite direction of the tsunami, but Li Wei couldn't make out those running people clearly.

He spread his limbs and flew in the same direction as the fleeing crowd.

His descent speed plummeted. With his abilities pushed to the limit, Li Wei could hope to cover four or five hundred kilometers.

But his heart was ice-cold, and he wanted to shout: What the hell kind of world is this!

The infected hordes of the Prototype world were nothing compared to what he was seeing now!

A tsunami over a kilometer high swept across the land. Once-glorious buildings were easily toppled. People, animals, cars, houses—everything was swallowed beneath the waves.

He'd thought he might go home, but instead, the Key had given him a huge surprise!

Li Wei's flight speed wasn't fast. Before long, the land directly beneath him had already been devoured by the waves.

The Blacklight Virus hadn't yet evolved the ability to survive underwater. Elizabeth Greene had always been locked in a room, and for Blacklight to gain adaptation to seawater, it would need to contact the ocean.

No one could understand something that couldn't be observed.

Evolution depended on necessity. Creatures that had always lived on land had no need to live in the deep sea, so they wouldn't develop corresponding organs.

Suddenly caught up in this mess, Li Wei felt stifled. He could only adjust his direction and glide toward Yellowstone, where the terrain was high and the tsunami couldn't reach that far.

As his altitude dropped, relying on his exceptional eyesight, Li Wei saw the crowds running below like background props.

Panicked people were like ants being sprayed by a giant, fleeing blindly in all directions. But in the face of true terror, no matter where they ran, they would be drowned.

Rumble, rumble, rumble!

The roaring sound was like a giant's snore. The earth turned over. The tsunami, accompanied by earthquakes, painted a hellish scene before Li Wei's eyes.

Tiny humans were so fragile under the might of nature that even Li Wei, who had been feeling a bit inflated by his own power, fell silent and trembling.

His heart was like ice, cold and chilling.

As he pushed deeper into the American continent, Li Wei eventually reached the Troposphere. Beneath him was no longer seawater mixed with countless floating debris, but a stretch of land that was still intact.

Only the flames and thick smoke from the Yellowstone volcanic eruption ahead spoiled the view...

Suddenly, while gliding, Li Wei spotted a small white plane bursting out of the volcano's smoke plume ahead. Overjoyed, he immediately adjusted his flight direction to align with the plane's course.

If he landed now and couldn't evolve wings before the disaster struck, he might be finished on this Earth, which was experiencing a true apocalypse.

Even if he did grow wings, biomass wasn't infinite. Flying aimlessly without a destination, he could get lost in the ocean.

He glanced at the Key's energy. Just after arriving on this Earth, it had already reached 34.67%. The increase was now slow as a snail, probably because the sun was blocked by the thick smoke!

On the plane, the five people had just gone through a life-or-death trial...

Among the five were two men, one woman, and a little boy and a little girl.

They had just escaped the volcanic eruption and ground-splitting disaster of Yellowstone, found a map leading to the Ark, and planned to find a large enough plane to head to China and board the doomsday Ark to survive.

Looking down from the plane's small window at the terrifying scene of mountains cracking and earth splitting, they had already exhausted their energy. They silently observed below, wiping away the tears left on their faces from the tension.

In their hearts, they silently prayed for humanity as a whole, and for themselves.

After wiping the tears from her daughter's face, Kate turned to look at her ex-husband Jackson, who was still panting in the back seat, and asked softly: "Where should we go next...?"

Thump!

"Aaaaah! Mommy, look!"

Before she could finish speaking, the little girl Lily, startled like a bird, let out a terrified scream and pointed toward the front of the plane.

"My God! What is that thing!"

Gordon, acting as the plane's pilot, also let out a ghost-like cry, his voice filled with disbelief and fear.

Jackson and Kate looked over and likewise shouted in shock.

"Shit!"

"What the hell is that thing!"

A black humanoid creature descended from the sky and landed on the nose of their plane. Its angular body radiated raw power, and its faceless head turned toward them. The feeling of being watched by a wild beast made the hearts of the five people inside the plane race instantly.

What was this?

An alien?

In their eyes, the alien grabbed the top of the plane, tapped on the small window beside the pilot's seat, and in that series of movements, its fleshy tendrils contracted and churned, reshaping back into Li Wei's original form.

"My God!" Gordon saw this and nearly lost his grip on the control stick. The plane lurched, drawing startled cries from the others inside.

Li Wei was still lightly tapping on the side window, smiling broadly as he gestured for Gordon to open it.

Gordon nervously looked back. Seeing the others nod in unison, he finally opened the side window.

"Can I catch a ride?" Li Wei shouted amiably at Gordon inside.

Gordon swallowed hard and looked back again...

Kate and Jackson exchanged glances, their eyes filled with hesitation and struggle, shaking their heads slightly.

Then they saw the "forty-meter" blade Li Wei conjured with his left hand, and broke out in cold sweat, nodding frantically, leaving Gordon completely bewildered.

He turned back to look. Li Wei had already put away the "forty-meter" blade and wore a gentle smile.

The two kids: dare not speak.jpg

In the end, Li Wei climbed along the top of the plane to the cabin door, and Jackson opened it to let him in.

"2012" It didn't matter that he didn't know what world this was; the content wasn't much anyway.