For Cloak, a mere few dozen kilometers meant arriving in an instant. White Gorilla had been right: no one flying over this basin could possibly miss the sprawling complex of buildings stretching for hundreds of kilometers.
They looked like enormous flattened mushrooms, or a UFO landing field. Their silver shells gleamed in the sunlight, radiating an unmistakably high-tech feel.
"Is this New Jersey?" Little Lucky Ape took a puff from his pipe and narrowed his eyes. "In my memory, New Jersey was nothing but endless farmland and quaint little towns. How did it become a chain of basins?"
New Jersey lay right next to New York City, but housing was much cheaper here and transportation was convenient. Many people worked in the Big Apple during the day, then returned here to live after work.
"These are the scars left by the final battle."
White Gorilla looked at the nearly unrecognizable basins below, sorrow entering his gaze.
"My old friends chose this place to confront the enemy, avoiding New York's densely populated areas. The battle was fierce, and the enemy was powerful. Every basin you see now was once the imprint of one of the enemy's fists."
It was impossible to tell now. Earth -16's technology was decades ahead of Earth-0's. Buildings and venues had been constructed within these basins, along with landscaping and park development. Superstructures more than a hundred kilometers in diameter stood everywhere; the terrain here had been thoroughly reshaped by human hands.
Little Lucky Ape took another puff and slowly sighed.
"So who was the enemy you faced back then? Don't tell me it was Pralaya herself?"
"Hehe, no. You're quite the comedian."
White Gorilla smiled faintly, as though returning from sorrowful memories to reality. He took out a pipe as well, lit it, and began smoking.