Mirage

Earth.

Terrifying earthquakes and tsunamis were erupting across the world in succession, leaving rescue workers overwhelmed.

Six hours after the disasters began, the authorities established a special disaster response department.

In a large room holding some fifty people, everyone pored over reports, while vast amounts of information were compiled on a central screen.

"Things are relatively manageable here, but we can't rule out the disasters spreading farther and affecting more regions."

"What caused the earthquakes?"

"Perhaps tectonic movement, or possibly some change deep within the Earth's core..."

The saying "When Earth farts, humanity croaks" was no joke. As they studied the reports in their hands, everyone in the room wore a grim expression, brows deeply furrowed.

The director of the special department was named Li Xianfeng. After finishing a phone call, he cleared his throat softly. "Everyone, quiet, please!"

"Let's set the other matters aside for now. Our main task at present is to rescue citizens trapped in the Mysterious Zones."

"I just received a call. At least one of our citizens is trapped on a deserted island in the Pacific Ocean Mysterious Zone, and he briefly made contact through a satellite phone."

"The Pacific Ocean Mysterious Zone..." said a bespectacled man of thirty nearby. "That won't be an easy rescue. The tsunamis in the Pacific Ocean are towering walls of water. Even aircraft carriers can't get through. How are we supposed to rescue him?"

"How long can he survive alone, anyway? He's no wilderness survival expert."

Li Xianfeng sighed. "You're right. No matter how we look at it, a rescue operation will be extremely difficult."

"But we have to do something. Even using the satellites overhead to send him a few broadcasts would help."

Mysterious Zone: a brand-new geographical concept.

From the moment the earthquakes began, artificial satellites in space had photographed patches of fog, large and small, appearing across the four oceans: the Pacific Ocean, the Arctic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean.

A considerable number of planes and ships had become trapped in the fog and lost contact.

Only a handful of survivors near the edges had escaped.

Satellite signals struggled to penetrate this fog, leaving people with very little knowledge of the Mysterious Zones.

Stranger still, according to the scattered accounts of those few survivors, the skies inside were actually clear and sunny, completely unlike the "satellite fog."

It was as though they were... two different worlds!

Just then, the phone rang again.

Partway through the call, Li Xianfeng's pupils widened slightly.

"Something major has happened! Come outside with me, now!"

The group rushed out of the room and stared, dumbfounded, at the western sky.

It was evening. The last rays of the setting sun slanted down over fallen leaves beneath the plane trees, dappling them with light and shadow and evoking the passage of time.

But no one was admiring the scenery. Instead, they all stared fixedly at the sky.

The clouds high overhead had actually formed a hazy image. Through wisps of mist stirred by a gentle breeze, people and ships seemed to be moving among the clouds.

"A mirage?"

"It really is a mirage!"

The dark red sky resembled a projection screen divided into sections, showing several strange scenes at once: an iceberg expedition in the Arctic Ocean, an oceangoing oil tanker in the Atlantic Ocean, a survivor stranded on a deserted island in the Pacific Ocean, a star-studded group aboard a luxury cruise ship, and trapped fishing boats...

Altogether, there were sixteen scattered scenes of varying sizes.

In one of those images, Li Xianfeng spotted the wreckage of a plane broken into several sections, along with a bewildered man stranded there.

"That's..."

His mind buzzed as one thought after another surged through it.

Mirages... Mysterious Zones... stranded survivors?

Why are mirages appearing in the sky? No, it isn't just Zhang Ming. The other survivors are appearing in the mirages too...

Cars clogged street after street, and the ground trembled faintly.

Although the quakes in Cloudsea City were not particularly strong, they still left everyone terrified. Who knew whether some shoddily constructed building might suddenly collapse?

Mass evacuations were playing out across the megacity.

Beep, beep!

Honk, honk! Honk!

"Which fucking idiot was playing with his phone at the wheel this time? He crashed up ahead and blocked the whole road." A heavyset driver rolled down his window, lit a cigarette, and angrily hammered his horn.

There were so many cars that traffic crawled along more slowly than a person could walk.

His wife sat in the back seat, playing with their three-year-old daughter. "Don't swear in front of our daughter."

"Daddy, don't say bad words!"

"Heh, hehe. Daddy was telling them off. You shouldn't play with your phone while driving!" The heavyset driver, Wang Fumin, couldn't help laughing and changed the subject.

"Earthquake disaster bulletin: At 16:45 on December 28, a magnitude 4.2 earthquake occurred in the **** region (** degrees north latitude, ** degrees east longitude), at a depth of 35 kilometers."

"Emergency notice: Those affected by the disaster should proceed to the nearest shelter. Please do not drive on elevated roads, to avoid the risk of collapse. Roads currently experiencing congestion include..."

"Ugh, traffic jams everywhere. When are we ever going to make it back to our hometown?" Wang Fumin tapped the steering wheel in frustration.

Suddenly, his daughter called out toward the sky. "There's a movie playing in the sky! A big airplane fell down!"

"And there are big ships sailing up there!"

Wang Fumin took an unconcerned drag on his cigarette and exhaled a cloud of smoke, assuming his daughter was watching a cartoon. "Hey, boss, how much for a box of fried rice?"

"Seventy yuan a box."

With the roads completely gridlocked and the line of cars stretching for dozens of kilometers, enterprising vendors were weaving through the traffic, selling food.

At those prices, they might as well rob us, he grumbled inwardly. But his wife and daughter had to eat regardless, so he waved a hand. "Two boxes of fried rice. Give us extra rice!"

"Coming right up!"

"Daddy, the people in the sky are breathing fire!" his daughter cried excitedly.

"A mirage!"

"That's a mirage!"

More and more people noticed the strange phenomenon in the sky, and the discussions grew louder. Even the food vendor was drawn in, pulling out his phone to film the scenes overhead while selling boxed meals.

Wang Fumin couldn't help turning to look west as well.

Scene after scene unfolded in the mirages like a film, displaying all sorts of bizarre sights.

"There really is... someone breathing fire!"

"And someone's floating in midair. What's going on? Do they have superpowers?"

Even as earthquakes battered the entire world and disasters both natural and man-made kept coming, the internet's very nature was to chase the bizarre. Without novel topics, could it even be called the internet?

The mysterious phenomenon spread at lightning speed, attracting worldwide attention at an exponential rate!

Countless internet users let out excited squawks as they discussed the explanation: spiritual energy was returning!