Chapter 544: The Disappeared Zero City

The World’s End!

The opportunity for resurrection.

Hearing that, Chen Xiaolian’s eyes shone. His palm slapped the surface of the table vigorously and he jolted straight up as he stared right at Miao Yan.

Miao Yan appeared taken aback by his action. She looked at Chen Xiaolian and said, “What is it?”

“That resurrection thing you said, is it real? How credible is it?”

Miao Yan looked into Chen Xiaolian’s eyes and saw an unprecedented level of seriousness within them – even when she had mentioned about the legend of the World Tree earlier, this expression had not appeared on his face.

“Who do you want to resurrect?” asked Miao Yan.

“One of my companions.” Chen Xiaolian then slowly continued, “An Irregularity.”

Miao Yan raised her brows and said, “Female?”

“… … …” Chen Xiaolian did not answer. He simply stared intently at Miao Yan.

Miao Yan sighed. “I understand.”

She pondered through it carefully before looking back at Chen Xiaolian. Then, she said slowly, “I don’t want to give you too much hope. How should I put it? You should understand, in this circle, there are many legends floating around.  Many of them are false. As for the rest, there are doubts about them. Even if one of the legends proves to be true, I fear that the requirements to pursue it would prove extremely harsh and difficult. Not to mention, the end result might differ greatly from the contents of the legend. Thus…”

“Just speak your mind.” Chen Xiaolian took a deep breath and calmed himself.

“I do not have a comprehensive grasp on this matter myself. So, if this thing is very important for you…”

“It is very important!” Chen Xiaolian interjected firmly.

“Very well.” Miao Yan nodded her head. “After I go back, I will carefully inquire about this matter. The reason for this is that the origin of this legend is rather mysterious. Thus, in order to know more about it, I will need to…”

Without waiting for Miao Yan to finish, Chen Xiaolian said in a determined tone, “All right! I will be depending on you for this, Miao Yan!”

Miao Yan raised her brows and said, “Is this something like a request?”

“A very sincere request.”

Miao Yan smiled and said, “I will be honest, this matter is very difficult. Even inquiring about it would be difficult. Well, since this is a request from you, I will do my best to find out about it. Having said that, I am unable to guarantee success. Moreover… … something this difficult will come at a price. I believe you understand.”

Chen Xiaolian exhaled. “Just say your terms.”

“Some time in the future, I want your help for something,” Miao Yan said coolly.

“Fine.” Chen Xiaolian nodded without hesitation. “As long as you can do this, you can order me to go through a mountain of blades and a sea of flames!”

There was a tangled look on Miao Yan’s face. However, she then slowly raised her hand and said, “You are the one who said that. I can order you. It is a deal!”

Chen Xiaolian nodded solemnly. “It is a deal!”

After they made the oath, a passionate look appeared on Chen Xiaolian’s face. As for Miao Yan, her face turned surprisingly cool.

She picked up the bottle of whiskey and waved it a bit before putting it down. “All right, the whiskey is finished and question time is over. Let us say goodbye.”

She jumped down from the bar stool, walked over and embraced Chen Xiaolian in a hug.

Miao Yan embraced him tightly and whispered into Chen Xiaolian’s ear. “Xiaolian, do your best to survive. Don’t die. I have a feeling that you might come up with a lot of interesting things in the future. I am waiting to see how the world would change then. So… … do your best to survive!”

Miao Yan’s move to hug Chen Xiaolian took his by surprise. Next, he felt her breath on his ear. It was a ticklish feeling. His nose could smell a fragrant scent from her body – it was not due to some perfume; instead, it was the scent of the shower cream from earlier. It had a more refreshing feeling.

“… thank you, I will do my best to survive.”

“I will give you the information I find the next time we meet. You know where to find me.” Miao Yan smiled and continued, “You had best hide for now. Shen will probably not let you go just like that.”

After saying that, Miao Yan turned and left the pub, disappearing somewhere outside.

Chen Xiaolian looked outside with a lost look. Next, he used his hands to knead his face as numerous complicated thoughts swirled within his head.

The things that happened during this Zero City trip were too complex, too monumental to the point where Chen Xiaolian felt a need to return and spend a good amount of time to slowly ponder them.

…

This was an unfamiliar city.

After finding a hotel to stay, Chen Xiaolian booked a flight to quickly return home.

Naturally, what he was most concerned about was the current situation of Zero City. However, now that he had left Zero City, Chen Xiaolian found that he had no way to contact Zero City – he also had no idea how to re-enter Zero City.

Additionally, he was also worried about the others that were still in Zero City – the safety of Bluesea, Angel Wu and the others. He wondered if those who managed to get out from Zero City were doing all right.

However, Chen Xiaolian was unable to make contact with any of them. All he could do was rest in the hotel for the night before taking a plane back home the next day.

…

After 20 hours, Chen Xiaolian finally arrived back in China.

During this time, he had used the guild channel to contact his guild members who were at home, mainly Roddy.

According to Roddy, there were nothing unusual going on. During the time that Chen Xiaolian was not around, everything appeared normal with the world.

There was one exception. A large-scale refreshing process had appeared in the sky. It appeared as though a large-scale refresh was happening, but it then disappeared.

Roddy was unable to detect anything abnormal after that.

When Chen Xiaolian was on the plane, he drifted between the state of wakefulness and sleep as he went over what he had encountered back in Zero City repeatedly. He attempted to figure out clues from the incident.

Just… … just did I do back when I was in Room Zero?

…

Unknown to Chen Xiaolian, Roddy and the other members of Meteor Rock Guild…

In the past 20 hours, part of the Awakened circle in this world went mad as they spread a certain news.

Zero City could not be contacted anymore.

Disregarding the common Awakened ones, there were naturally some outstanding Awakened ones who would have some relationship with the resident guilds of Zero City. Some were the peripheral members of the resident guilds, some had cooperative relationship with the resident guilds and some had special qualifications to access Zero City.

However, in the past 20 hours, all of them were shocked to find that they had lost contact with Zero City, the final home of the Awakened ones.

No one could make contact with Zero City. No one could enter Zero City. No one could make contact with the people of Zero City.

Chen Xiaolian did not know about those matters. If he had known, he would find it very strange. The closure of Zero City’s passageways was not difficult to comprehend.

However, so many of Zero City’s people had escaped through the temporary teleportation portal. Yet, none of them could be contacted.

Logically speaking, some of the resident guild members should have some relationship or transaction-type of cooperation with the Awakened ones from the outside world.

Those people could no longer be contacted.

…

Antarctic.

At a certain location…

Strong winds blew in the air. Not even the seals could be seen moving around within this extreme cold.

This was the coldest period of the year in Antarctica.

If one were to look down from the sky, that person would find that all was normal in the Antarctic region.

However, densely packed camps had been set up on the ground there. Countless construction androids were at work as they pieced together the construction materials. Semi-permanent barracks were in the process of being built up one after another. Battle androids served as the garrison in the surrounding areas. All living objects in the immediate area – tens of kilometres around the area – would quickly be found and dealt with accordingly.

Among the camps was a barracks seemingly made from metal.

This barrack was a semi-subterranean building. The part of the barrack protruding above ground was only one storey high. Inside however, was an elevator going underground. Construction of the underground part of this building was now at three floors down.

On the very first floor was a treatment centre.

Five big treatment pods were placed side by side within the room. Each of the pods had several tubes plugged into them and there were several oval shaped life sign instruments beside the pods.

At present, the treatment pods were all filled with a special liquid. Likewise, there were people occupying each of the treatment pods. Tubes were into their noses and mouths.

Despite the high level of dryness in the air, there was a special scent there.

Guan Shan stood beside one of the pods and he looked at the monitor screen of one of the medical instruments with a solemn expression.

Beside Guan Shan was Theodore from the Knights of Darkness Guild.

The one inside the treatment pod before them both was the Guild Leader of the Knights of Darkness Guild, one of the titans of Zero City, Aderick.

After the medical instrument beside the pod flashed with green light, Theodore’s face grew less tense and he quickly moved forward to help open up the pod’s hatch. The liquid inside had automatically drained away.

Aderick, his body wet, stood up.

A layer of greasy looking slime utterly covered his body; his external skin quickly absorbed the layer of slime, transforming it into a thin layer of membrane.

Aderick struggled for a while to break out of the layer of membrane and took a deep breath.

“Guild Leader, how do you feel?” Theodore asked.

“I am all right.” Aderick nodded and accepted the piece of cloth Theodore handed him. After putting it on, he stood up and stretched for a bit before turning to look at Guan Shan. “How is the camp?”

“All constructions are under way. We have already started shielding this area with our screening instruments. We did not find anything suspicious in our surroundings.”

Aderick nodded before sighing. “This is not Zero City after all. Not having a sense of security is only inevitable.”

He turned back to look at Guan Shan. “About contacting Zero City…”

Guan Shan’s face quickly became ugly to behold. “No response. We cannot make contact. All passageways have disappeared. They cannot be opened.”

“Bluesea, Angel Wu and the others…”

“No news about them as well.” Guan Shan gritted his teeth and said in a hushed tone, “I had inquired the last to come out from the passageway. After asking many of them, I gathered this information. On the whole, they all saw a burst of light shining out suddenly in the last moments… … after that, nothing.”

“The last to exit the passageway said that?” Aderick frowned.

“Yes, they arrived at the temporary teleportation portal during the final moment and saw a burst of light. Next however, they entered the passageway and arrived outside, so they do not know what happened after that.”

“How many people did not make it out?”

“All of the Angel Squad under Angel Wu, majority of the combat personnel from the Angel Corps, Sir Bluesea and several combat personnel from each guild who chose to stay behind to help the defence efforts… … and 16 transport aircrafts. All in all, a total of 168 members did not make it out from the passageway before it closed.”

The room fell silent.

The expressions on all three were ugly to behold.

“Guild Leader, why are we not making contact with the outside world?” Theodore asked. “We still have some guild and peripheral members in this world. Additionally, there are also those Awakened guilds that have been cooperating with us for a long time. As of right now, we need to gather more strength.”

Aderick shook his head and looked at Theodore. There was a hint of disappointment in his eyes. Next, he turned to look at Guan Shan and found that Guan Shan’s face was calm. It seemed as though he possessed an understanding of everything. Aderick was unable to stop himself from sighing inwardly: Although this man Bluesea trained is now somewhat weaker in terms of strength, his state of mind is outstanding.

“Security,” Aderick replied to Theodore. “At present, security is of top priority for us. We lost Zero City and so much combat personnel. The damage we took is devastating. In fact, we have suffered from life threatening wounds. Most importantly, we have lost pretty much all the combat powers of the Angel Corps in this battle! Making contact with the outside world at a time like this… who knows what the repercussions would be?

“Assistance?

“Or covetous eyes?”

Seeing the puzzled look on Theodore’s face, Aderick sighed and continued, “You need to understand. All this while, our strength was because we had an impregnable home, Zero City. There, we possessed our own factories and resources provided by Zero City. That allowed us to sustain ourselves.”

“At present however, we have lost our home. Although we brought much of the resources with us, a great deal of them could no longer be re-produced. Using a little of it means losing a little of it! Losing Zero City, we would likely grow weaker in the future. And then there are the lost combat personnel. Those elite warriors cannot be replenished anytime soon.

“If we had once been the tiger inside the jungle, we are now a whale stranded on the beach!

“The outside world, the Awakened ones, be it the peripheral members or the Awakened guilds with cooperation relationship with us… … who knows what their minds may think under such circumstances?

“At this juncture, if they were to find out about our weakened state, would they continue to regard us as the leaders of the Awakened circle or… … a juicy meat to be seized?

“The human heart is unpredictable!”

Theodore gritted his teeth and said, “Being unable to beat Thorned Flower Guild is one thing, but those Awakened guilds, with their abilities, they dare look upon us with such intentions?”

“Currently, we are still stronger in terms of strength. However, should we reveal our situation and the coordinate of our new camp, it would be hard to stave off covetous eyes. Don’t forget, Thorned Flower Guild is not merely made up of Players. They have many Awakened ones among them.

“Thus, I had issued that order. Everyone who made it out must maintain a strict code of silence. No one is allowed to make contact with the outside world! All forms of communication are to be blocked off!

“We must safeguard our safety here and build a secure base first. Build a den and slowly lick our wounds and recover. Settle down first and gain a firm foothold.

“Before then, no one is allowed to leave this encampment or make contact with the outside world without my command. Have all the shielding instruments activated and scan!

“If any abnormalities are found and someone is found violating this command…”

After saying that, Aderick’s eyes gleamed with killing intent. “Kill regardless of who they may be!”

“Affirmative!” Guan Shan and Theodore nodded as they replied.

At that moment, Aderick was the only member from the Board of Patriarchs who made it out from Zero City.

He was also the only [S] class expert to make it out.

Presently, he was undoubtedly the one with the absolute authority over this group of people who had escaped from Zero City.

…