Chapter 612 (1) The World's End

Chapter 612 Part 1 The World’s End

Bang!

Just an instant ago, the image before Chen Xiaolian’s eyes were that of Roddy’s distorted and distraught face. Next, another image had appeared before him. There were no gaps in between, as though all was seamlessly stitched together.

A partially broken and crumbling ceiling.

Chen Xiaolian flinched. He hastily climbed up and examined his surroundings.

He was within a standard room within a hotel. However, every corner of the room appeared devastated. One of the two beds inside the room had been smashed and its mattress lay overturned on the floor. Chen Xiaolian was lying on the other bed. This bed had a huge claw mark on it. The claw mark ran from one end of the mattress to the other end. In fact, the claw mark even made its way into the side of the wall where the mattress was pushed against.

The chandelier above, the television before him, all of them had been smashed to pieces and the remnants were scattered all over the floor. At the side, only one of the four panel windows remained intact. There was a pool of blood on the floor.

Chen Xiaolian walked to the window and crouched down to examine it. The blood had already dried up and was now black in colour. Judging from the looks of it, the blood should be at least three days’ old.

He then got up and looked out the window.

An endless number of congested buildings greeted him. Almost all of them were high-rise buildings, towering high above. Some had collapsed while some others remained standing. However, even those appeared damaged.

Among the buildings were two identical skyscrapers standing side by side. Seeing those two skyscrapers, Chen Xiaolian was taken aback.

The Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre.

The World Trade Centre buildings that were hit by the airplane in 2001.

In other words…

He was at Manhattan, New York City, before 2001.

What the hell is this?

Chen Xiaolian was utterly dumbfounded.

Before entering the Recycle Bin, Chen Xiaolian had made countless conjectures on what kind of place the Recycle Bin would be.

Perhaps it would be like the Hyperbolic Time Chamber from Dragon Ball; a vast, endless, expanse of flat ground with no other terrain.

Perhaps it would simply be chaos, devoid of the concept of north, south, east, and west; an existence akin to that of the void within space.

However, he never imagined that he would be able to see Manhattan in the Recycle Bin.

Furthermore, it was a Manhattan before 2001, before the Twin Towers’ collapse.

Additionally… what did the blood and signs of destruction within the room meant?

With the feelings of confusion still swirling within his mind, Chen Xiaolian peeked his head out from the broken floor-to-ceiling window and looked down.

The room he was in was at least 40 storeys high and over 100 metres above ground.

I’ll figure it out after leaving this place!

Immediately after Roddy opened fire, his consciousness had shifted over to this place, this Manhattan. However, according to the description given by the Lifehymn Music Score, 100 hours had passed since Chen Xiaolian ‘died’.

There were only 140 hours left.

He cannot waste even a single second of it.

Chen Xiaolian hastily turned around. Opening the room door, he rushed out.

There was no power within the building. When he was in the room earlier, illumination was provided in the form of sunlight from the outside. After Chen Xiaolian made his way into the hotel corridor, however, he saw that it was covered in darkness. 

Chen Xiaolian quickly attempted to retrieve a lighting device from his storage equipment only to find that he was unable to access his storage space, no matter how hard he tried.

Damn it!

Chen Xiaolian attempted to access his storage space several times but to no avail. He found that he could not even access his personal system.

In other words, in this place, his personal system… … would not work.

Chen Xiaolian swore inwardly.

Thankfully, after checking, Chen Xiaolian was able to confirm that his enhanced physical attributes were still in effect. Despite the darkness of his surroundings, it did not left him blind. Chen Xiaolian let his eyes adjust to the darkness and cautiously made his way forward through the corridor.

He carefully observed the floor before his feet as he walked forward. At the same time, Chen Xiaolian also took note of his surroundings at all times.

It was not just the room he was in. Even the hotel corridor was filled with signs of intense battle.

In addition to claw marks and bite marks, Chen Xiaolian also saw bullet holes. One of the doors in the corridor had been melted in its entirety, leaving only a puddle of solidified metal where it should have been. Clearly, the door had been liquidized by an energy-tier weapon.

All the signs indicated that the battle occurred at least a few days ago. Even so, Chen Xiaolian dared not view them lightly. Only Heaven knew when he might be subjected to an ambush.

Naturally, the hotel’s elevator had also stopped working. Chen Xiaolian found the stairs and ran down.

Likewise, the staircase was also filled with signs of battle. However, even after reaching the first floor, Chen Xiaolian did not see any moving object or person.

He opened the door at the end of the stairs and exited. He then walked into the hotel lobby. Similar to the room and corridor, the walls of the lobby were filled with marks. The various sofas lying around had been smashed apart and their remnants strewn about.

Clearly, the battles that occurred here were more intense compared to the battles that occurred in the other places he had seen on his way down.

Even so, there was no one in sight.

After pondering the matter for a moment, Chen Xiaolian then stepped through the broken revolving door and moved out of the hotel. Reaching the street, he stopped.

Tens of cars were left in disarray within the street. Some were intact while others appeared to have been destroyed in a fight. Some of the cars had part of their bodies destroyed while some others were left overturned. There was even a sleek looking red-coloured sports car with half its body embedded into a wall.

Chen Xiaolian looked around and deduced that he was likely somewhere in the centre of Manhattan Island.

Since he had no identifiable objective, he would have to… … wander around.

Chen Xiaolian randomly picked one of the sports cars on the street. It was a roofless sports car. He got in and saw that the car key was left inside the keyhole, thereby saving him the need to hot-wire the car.

After starting up the car, Chen Xiaolian drove through the street aimlessly.

A trail of destruction greeted him along the way. And yet, he did not see any survivors.

The feelings of doubt in Chen Xiaolian’s heart grew.

This place… … it was not what he imagined the Recycle Bin to be. Rather, it seemed more like an instance dungeon.

He had participated in the Tokyo instance dungeon before. The current state of Manhattan before him was nearly the same as what he had witnessed back in the Tokyo instance dungeon.

Chen Xiaolian could already picture it in his mind. This was a large-scale instance dungeon with at least hundreds of Players and Awakened ones. Additionally, there were also the monsters spawned by the instance dungeon. Only with all those factors combined could Manhattan be reduced to such a miserable state.

However, a question remained…

Where did they go?!

Even if he were to discount the game participants and the instance dungeon monsters…

This was Manhattan.

In all of New York City, all of America, it would be impossible to find a second place with such a high population density as the bustling Manhattan Island.

There was no way the ordinary people here were all killed off.

Even if he were to grudgingly accept that all the people had been killed, there should at least be corpses left behind.

After driving around for 10 minutes, all Chen Xiaolian saw were bloodstains, damaged cars, and collapsed high-rise buildings, but no living humans. 

This place was too strange.

As he was feeling perplexed about the matter, Chen Xiaolian suddenly heard the sound of a roaring engine coming from somewhere in front. It sounded rather distant.

There is someone!

That was Chen Xiaolian’s first thought.

Next, a jeep barrelled through an intersection before him, appearing and disappearing in but a flash.

Since arriving here, that was the first moving object Chen Xiaolian saw.

He hastily slammed his foot on the accelerator and the sports car he was driving charged forward.

Chen Xiaolian had just stepped on the accelerator when he suddenly saw a shadow dashing forward in pursuit of the jeep.

Due to how narrow the intersection was, Chen Xiaolian only had enough time to note that the shadow was a thin man wearing a jetpack.

The figure was not flying too high in the air. There was only a distance of less than 100 metres between the figure and the ground. Even so, the figure was moving at a faster rate compared to the jeep.

The sports car that Chen Xiaolian was presently driving was a Ferrari California. It only needed 3.6 seconds to accelerate to 100 kmph. In but an instant, the sports car reached its maximum velocity and it turned around the corner.

The jeep in front was rushing forward wildly, swerving left and right as it did. As for the thin man flying after them, he had a large gun barrel attached to his right arm, which he used to aim and open fire at the jeep.

Following every flash from the muzzle, a beam of light would blast out at the jeep. However, it would appear that the jeep driver was fairly skilled. The driver was able to splendidly calculate out the trajectory of the blast in advance and avoid the attacks by a hair’s breadth. Despite the tens of craters on the surface of the street, not a single one of the beams had managed to hit the jeep.

By then, the pursuing man had noticed Chen Xiaolian’s sports car. Thanks to the roaring sound from the Ferrari California’s engine, it would be impossible to miss.

The man looked back, giving Chen Xiaolian a glance. While maintaining his forward velocity, he turned his right arm to aim the gun barrel at the sports car that Chen Xiaolian was in.

Seeing a red light flashing out, a chill gripped Chen Xiaolian’s heart. He frantically slammed the brakes as he turned the steering wheel to the left. Skidding sounds came from the tires as four black skid marks were imprinted upon the surface of the street.

At the very moment Chen Xiaolian hit the brakes, the man’s energy weapon fired out.

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