The familiar feeling of vertigo never came. It seemed his enhanced body was now able to offset the discomfort of spatial travel.
This time was different. Although his vision was once again plunged into darkness, faint scenes flickered within it.
The scenes were remarkably similar to the visions of the Parallel Cosmos he had seen in the Biohazard Apocalypse, like fleeting reflections from a speeding car.
Before Shen Feng could get a closer look, the scent of mildew filled his nostrils. His vision was still shrouded in darkness, but his feet were now on something completely different from the carpet he’d been standing on moments ago.
It felt like a concrete floor.
Darkness—a pitch-blackness so absolute he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face—enveloped him.
The darkness was as thick and viscous as ink, and even his enhanced eyes couldn’t pierce it.
Shen Feng frowned. He retrieved a passive night-vision device from his backpack, fitted it over his eyes, and scanned his surroundings again.
He could finally make out some faint outlines, but the clarity was nowhere near what he was used to in his own world.
He was still in the same apartment building he had rented back in Hai City.
Only, the building was a world apart from how he remembered it.
The windows were all shattered. On the floor lay charred furniture and cracked tiles.
It was as if the place had gone through a cataclysm.
Shen Feng strode to the window and peered outside from his vantage point, dozens of stories high.
Through the infrared night-vision device, he could vaguely make out the contours of this world.
Dilapidated buildings stretched out around him. The entire city had long ago turned to ruins, devoid of a single soul.
Amidst the darkness, everything was deathly still. The air was thick with the smell of something burnt.
Shen Feng suddenly looked up at the sky, only to find it devoid of starlight or any other glimmer of light.
’Is this the Dark Apocalypse?’
’It seems like a peaceful world. Other than the lack of light, everything else seems... fine...’
Just then, his wristband vibrated again, projecting a line of large text into the air:
"Welcome to the Dark Apocalypse Mission.
Mission Objectives:
1. Investigate the cause of the Dark Apocalypse.
2. Find human survivors (10,000 or more).
3. Save this world and make light reappear.
4. Revitalize human civilization.
Time Limit: None.
Players with a mission completion rate below ninety percent will be obliterated by the system."
Shen Feng couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the last sentence.
’Obliterated? Just like that?’
’You think you can just do it? Come on, give it a try. See who’s left to do your dirty work?’
After a few silent complaints, Shen Feng opened his backpack and pulled out a flashlight. With a wave of his hand, a cantaloupe-sized Nanomechanical Cluster leaped out like an eager pet and landed on the floor.
The moment it hit the floor, the Nanomechanical Cluster flowed out like mercury, enveloping the ground. It then began to devour the structure of the building Shen Feng was in.
Watching the Nanomechanical Cluster work diligently, Shen Feng revealed a satisfied smile.
’With the Nanomechanical Cluster, everything is so much easier.’
’Unless something beyond the realm of Science appears, I’m basically invincible in this world.’
The Nanomechanical Cluster’s consumption grew exponentially. It started with a single floor tile, quickly expanding to an entire room, and then the whole building.
Shen Feng waited a moment. The building he was in was soon completely consumed by the Nanomechanical Cluster, falling entirely under the control of his Silicon-Based Brain.
A long metal tube extended from his room all the way down to the street. The Nanomechanical Cluster surged beneath his feet, carrying Shen Feng down to the ground level.
The street was overgrown with moss-like plants. Some of them emitted a faint, ghostly luminescence, making certain areas slightly more visible.
All the surrounding doors and windows were gaping black voids, and the only sound was the whistling of the wind.
It was like a colossal tomb.
Shen Feng ambled through the city, the Gray Tide surging behind him like an ocean wave, sweeping into the surrounding buildings to investigate their interiors.
Judging by the level of decay and the thickness of the dust, this city had been abandoned for at least several hundred years.
’Has humanity been completely wiped out?’
’If all sunlight on Earth vanished, it would inevitably trigger a mass extinction event.’
’First, most plant life would wither and die. Crop yields would plummet or fail entirely. Countless animals would starve, and humans would suffer from all sorts of diseases caused by the perpetual darkness.’
The resulting famine alone would be more than enough to cripple humanity.
But even though many would die, given humanity’s cockroach-like tenacity, some would surely adapt and survive.
Moreover, these remaining survivors should be able to eke out a living by using the remnants of the old civilization.
At the very least, they could use fire. They could even harness the remaining hydroelectric, wind, tidal, and nuclear power plants to generate electricity and maintain a basic power grid.
With electricity comes light.
Logically, some structures, like apocalyptic fortresses, should still exist. Humanity might even have continued to develop under these desperate conditions, searching for the cause of the Dark Apocalypse.
But from what he could see, things were not as Shen Feng had imagined.
No humans, no animals... Even the plant life was limited to moss.
It was too quiet. Dark and silent. It was enough to make one wonder if they had entered a city in Hell itself.
Shen Feng flicked on his flashlight. A beam of light shot out, cleaving through a darkness that had reigned for an unknown length of time.
The Nanomechanical Cluster could also emit light, but Shen Feng wasn’t ready to use that feature just yet.
’Until I have a better understanding of this Dark Apocalypse, it’s best to keep my trump cards hidden.’
The flashlight beam revealed numerous damaged vehicles parked on the street. Here and there, he could also see decaying skeletons—clearly the remains of the city’s former inhabitants.
He occasionally passed piles of cold ashes, remnants of fires that had burned out long ago. It was clear the people trapped in the darkness had tried to bring back the light.
Shen Feng continued his walk through the dark city, taking in the reality of this ruined world.
Unlike the Stone Statue Apocalypse, the Biohazard Apocalypse, or the Water World Apocalypse he had experienced, this absolute darkness evoked a profound sense of loneliness and despair.
Soon, he arrived in an area surrounded by skyscrapers. His flashlight beam swept across a street sign, revealing a single, dust-covered word:
Lujiazui.
Beside it stood the former Global Financial Center and CITIC Plaza. All the former prosperity was now engulfed in darkness and silence.
Shen Feng’s brow furrowed slightly. ’Wandering around aimlessly like this isn’t going to solve anything...’
’Looks like I’ll have to find a former government building or research institution to figure out what happened here.’
’But hundreds of years seem to have passed. I doubt any of the data storage media are still functional. The integrated circuits, at the very least, must have degraded by now.’
’I might have to resort to finding newspapers or the diaries of the deceased.’
This reminded Shen Feng of his very first apocalypse missions.
He remembered how, back then, precious paper documents were his only way of understanding the end of the world.
RATTLE... A faint sound suddenly came from the glass curtain wall of the building ahead.
Shen Feng frowned and immediately aimed his flashlight toward the sound.
From within the glass curtain wall, a dozen grayish-white figures suddenly "emerged," scrambling towards him on all fours!