Inside the conference room of the Jiang City Eerie Investigation Bureau, satellite surveillance footage of the Shangri-La snow mountain was projected onto the giant screen.
The eternal glacier stood in silent stillness. There were no human figures, no ghosts—only the same loneliness it had known since ancient times. Then, without warning, the image on the screen vanished, replaced by a vast expanse of blank white. Everyone knew the final gamble had begun.
From that point on, no one knew what was happening atop the snow mountain. They could only wait anxiously for the outcome.
No one spoke, because no words could possibly be solemn enough for this moment. Everyone remained silent. Even if humanity was about to perish, their last words should not be spoken by them.
"Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock..." The Mechanical Clock installed in the conference room at the start of the century ticked at an irritatingly steady rhythm, yet no one rose to silence it. Under the immense pressure, they had forgotten even how to move. They sat like statues, motionlessly staring at the screen.
No one knew how long passed before rain began to fall outside. At first, it was only a sparse drizzle, but within seconds, it became a torrential downpour that poured from the sky.
Heavy clouds stretched across the gray-black sky for thousands of miles. A crushing curtain of water cascaded down like a waterfall, as though an ocean suspended in the air had been overturned onto the land. Gale-force winds howled and whipped up raging waves, while enormous raindrops spiraled through the air. Perhaps the flood that had drowned the world in myth had begun just like this, venting the gods' wrath without restraint.
The silver-white eye at the center of the dome shed tears of blood, then snapped shut the next second,