Chapter 702: Zhou Tian World — Report No. 12
Under the pitch-black night sky, three figures walked through the ruins, occasionally bending down to gently rub the edges of buildings with their thumbs.
Luo Ying pushed aside a collapsed building, revealing the tragic scene hidden beneath.
When the disaster struck, the shockwave toppled the skyscrapers. The crowds inside the buildings had no time to dodge and were crushed to death by the falling structures, not even leaving behind complete corpses.
More than two hundred years had already passed. The corpses had long since turned to bones. Through the skeletons, the three of them could almost see the terrified expressions on these people’s faces at the moment of death centuries ago.
“Alas—” The three sighed and recorded everything they saw.
“Zhou Tian World Report No. 12, currently on an unknown planet. No survivors discovered yet.”
“The Zhou Tian World system is a planetary world. According to preliminary investigation, there are over a hundred planetary civilizations. Most planetary civilizations do not yet possess space migration technology. A small number of planetary civilizations are capable of space migration.”
“The planets surrounding the current unknown planet show signs of mining, but no large-scale colonization has been conducted. This unknown planet does not possess space migration technology.”
“Time flow comparison: Five hundred years have passed in the Nine Provinces, while two hundred and sixty years have passed in the Zhou Tian World (time flow test results are ambiguous, with a ten percent margin of error, for reference only).”
“This planet appears to have been destroyed. No survivors discovered yet. Cause of destruction not yet determined.”
The recording paused temporarily. Luo Ying looked up at the broken walls and shattered pillars, through which he could faintly glimpse the former glory of this unknown planet. “It’s truly tragic. The technological level of this planet seems to be similar to our Fengmo World.”
After comparing with the world coordinates and world names publicly released by Houtu Huangqi, the Zombie World was officially renamed the Fengmo World.
“But this planet doesn’t even seem to have a unified language.” Luo Zhu pointed at a street sign lying by the roadside and said.
The sign displayed six languages.
“This means this planet had at least six countries.”
“There were more than just six countries.” Ji Kongkong pointed at a map on the ground. The map had long been weathered and its original appearance was unclear. She traversed time to see the real map, which was marked with dozens of countries, large and small.
Both the Luo siblings and Ji Kongkong had chosen to explore the Zhou Tian World. The three had forged a friendship in the Ten Thousand Languages World and cooperated very well.
They had already visited eleven planets in the Zhou Tian World. The one they were currently on was the twelfth.
The three were the first Human Sovereign candidates to pass the test of the Ten Thousand Languages World. They had been exploring the myriad heavens and worlds for a year now, counting among the earliest batch of exploration cultivators and considered quite experienced.
Over this past year, they had seen worlds full of prosperity yet hiding lethal dangers, worlds that appeared prosperous but were actually teetering on the brink of collapse, and worlds that were on the verge of destruction or already destroyed.
The reputations of these three were extremely prominent among the cultivators exploring the myriad worlds. The Immortal Realm conspiracies of many worlds could be unraveled by them alone, without needing to seek help from the Nine Provinces, which was quite remarkable.
However, worlds on the verge of destruction or already destroyed were beyond their capabilities and could only be reported to the Human Sovereign Hall.
They had seen many destroyed worlds and should have remained unperturbed. Yet, the destruction of a world meant thousands of years of history rendered meaningless, and billions upon billions of people dead. Therefore, whenever they arrived at a new world and witnessed its shattered end, they couldn’t help but feel a wave of sorrow.
“These are marks left by weapons ‘plowing’ the land flat.” Luo Ying observed for a while and stated with certainty. This kind of scene was all too familiar. During the ten years of the apocalypse, he had looked upon ruins like these for a full decade.
“In the early stages of the apocalypse, the military mobilized extensively to exterminate zombies, unleashing many new types of weapons upon areas most densely populated by zombies. The city we are in now is just like back then, ‘cleansed’ by weapons.”
“But there are no zombies here. So who were their enemies?” Luo Zhu was puzzled.
“Fellow Daoist Kongkong, can you see anything?” Luo Ying asked. For matters like this, asking Ji Kongkong was the most convenient.
“I see all sorts of weapons being unleashed upon this place. The people firing the weapons are… the armies of other countries?!”
Ji Kongkong saw missiles and other weapons landing and exploding in this city. She followed the missile’s launch trajectory and saw it was an intercontinental ballistic missile launched by another country.
“No, it’s not just this city being attacked. The entire world was at war!”
While tracing the source of the missiles, Ji Kongkong arrived above an ocean. Countless missiles and other weapons streaked past her, traversing thousands of miles to fly towards their destinations, striking their targets. Countless civilians died tragically, without even a chance to cry out.
Chaos, everything was chaos. Ji Kongkong couldn’t see at all who had fired the first weapon, who had provoked this conflict.
The three left this city and, using High-Speed Movement, traveled to other countries. The situation in other countries was very similar to the one just seen, also ‘plowed flat’ by weapons, with not a single intact building to be found.
They also saw many strange buildings, quite distinctive, likely iconic structures of these countries. Unfortunately, under the relentless bombardment, nothing could be preserved.
“This planet is a purely technological civilization. No traces of cultivation.” Luo Ying said. He had seen many skeletons, belonging to people of all ages from various countries. From the bones, it could be seen that these people had never cultivated.
“Without cultivation, mere mortal flesh cannot withstand the attacks of artillery fire.”
“The flaw of technological worlds. They focus too much on the power of weapons, forgetting their own inherent weakness. It’s as if the strength of their weapons represents their own personal strength.”
“Technological worlds are like sitting on a powder keg. The more powerful the weapons, the higher the pile of powder kegs. When a single spark appears and ignites the powder keg, the entire civilization falls into the flames of war.”
“Whether a civilization survives the artillery fire or is utterly annihilated depends on their fortune.”
As the Nine Provinces continued to explore other worlds, a specialized field called Myriad Worlds Studies emerged, dedicated to researching the differences between various worlds and the reasons causing these differences.
Some scholars of Myriad Worlds Studies proposed a viewpoint: a qualified civilization must possess the most basic ability to ensure survival, namely, a balance between offense and defense. While developing offensive means, it should also develop corresponding defensive means.
Individuals in cultivation worlds can achieve this, but from the perspective of an entire world, those capable of this are exceedingly rare.
This viewpoint holds a certain market in the Nine Provinces.
“Look at this. This seems to be a dictionary.” Luo Zhu used a spell to lift a thick, heavy book. After two hundred years, this book had become so fragile it would crumble at a touch, requiring a spell to protect it properly.
To understand what happened on this planet, learning the language was crucial.
The three used their spiritual sense to scan the dictionary, summarizing the language rules. They quickly mastered one of the six mainstream languages.
Attached to the back of the dictionary was a flat, unfolded map of this planet. At the very top of the map was marked the name of this planet.
Blue Star Map.
“It seems this planet is called Blue Star.”
Luo Ying lowered his head and wrote a sentence in his notebook.
“Zhou Tian World Report No. 12, currently on Blue Star. No survivors discovered yet.”