Epoch of Twilight

Luo Yuan was panting as he had been running for almost four to five kilometers in less than a minute, which covered almost every part of the manor. The strenuous exercise had made his skin feel burning hot, his body scorching and his head fog up, which made him look like he had been set ablaze.

He held tightly onto the crazy Mr. Wang’s hair and looked at him in the eye, coldly, before he released his grip, turned around and walked back. In the beginning, he was still gasping for air but after only a few steps, he had recovered and could breathe normally again. His flushed skin had turned back to its original color.

The crazy Mr. Wang was paralyzed on the floor, not recovering for a while. A flicker of fear flashed through his eyes when he was looked at Luo Yuan, as he walked away. The two onlookers stepped aside when they saw Luo Yuan coming over.

The godlike speed that he showed when he went after crazy Mr. Wang had impressed them thoroughly. Therefore, no matter how confident they were, they would be afraid to face such an opponent as skilled as Luo Yuan was.

He walked into the lobby of the first floor to pick up his Zhanmadao. Minister Ren and the other two members of the sword unit tagged along.

"I’m going to report this matter to the superior," Minister Ren said coldly. Even in all seriousness, anyone could see rather plainly, that he was in a good mood. This incident had brought him great satisfaction, because these sword unit team members had been lavishly utilizing all the resources of Hope City, but never took their responsibilities seriously. They had been coming up with all sorts of excuses, and expressed dissatisfaction whenever they were asked to help, or to recommend a few people.

As he was the Deputy Minister of the organization, he was forced to come but each visit felt like it zapped a few years of his life away. Now, somebody was able to teach them a lesson, so that they would acknowledge that there was someone out there far more superior than they were, and will be more inclined to be humble. Particularly when he saw the formal look on their faces when the other two ran into Luo Yuan, he felt refreshed and relieved, as if he had drunk a glass of ice cold water on a hot Summer’s day.

Of course, Luo Yuan would be a member of the sword unit soon, but for now, he was yet to be!

The other two did not care, and completely disregarded the superficial threats of Minister Ren.

"Hello, I am Li Dong. Pleased to be your colleague and teammate," a middle-aged man mimicked a welcome gesture, with outstretched hands.

He was short, only about 1.65 meters tall, but he had a big round head. In addition to his homophonous name, no wonder the crazy Mr. Wang called him shorty Li[1].

"I’m Xie Junbang. Welcome to our team," another member said. He looked about the same age as Luo Yuan, about 25 years old, but he appeared to be rather uneasy and shy when facing him.

"I’m Luo Yuan. Pleasure to be part of team," Luo Yuan politely shook the two people’s hands.

As a saying goes, keep a low profile but let your work speak for itself. After humbling the members by showing off his abilities, Luo Yuan would have to keep a lower profile to quickly fit in. After all, the team members were not ordinary evolved people but were super evolved people selected from a large group of evolved people in the Reconstruction Area.

Even the crazy Mr. Wang who was beaten by Luo Yuan could easily kill any opponent that had slow reflexes, such as large-sized mutated beasts with low Agility, provided he had a strong attack power. Ergo, the crazy Mr. Wang could not get Luo Yuan because of his fast reflexes.

Being in power and holding a special position had caused many evolved people to be arrogant and vain. Having too high a profile would, in fact, cause others to feel slightly ostracized. When both Li Dong and Xie Junbang saw that Luo Yuan was friendly, they felt slightly relieved.

"Our team leader is currently not around, while our assistant team leader had brought Wu Qianru out for a mission. The only ones who stayed behind, apart from us, are Xu Qianshen and Fang Peobing," said Li Dong with a smile, as he introduced the team members to Luo Yuan. He then turned to Xie Junhui and asked, "Oh yes, do you know where they are?"

"They should be in the training room!" Xie Junhui replied, after a thought.

"Would you like to check it out? The training facilities are the best in the whole Reconstruction Area, after the headquarters at New Capital City. I’m not boasting, but you may not have heard of it," Li Dong kept Luo Yuan guessing.

"Now I’m curious. Is it nearby?" Luo Yuan laughed.

"It’s located in another building, very close by," Xie Junhui summed up.

In just a short span of time, with the casual demeanor they had built, their relationship had improved. The three of them went out of the lobby together, towards another building. As poor Minister Ren was completely ignored, he had no choice but to tag along.

"Where were you previously? At the front line or the mining area?" Li Dong asked curiously. The evolved people of their department were mostly from these two areas. The front line had the highest number of evolved people, and so it was common to have one or two strong and powerful evolved people. On the other hand, the mining area located outside the Reconstruction Area, had a large number of troops at the station, as their battles were more cruel and harsh. Therefore, the abilities of the evolved people were much stronger than those stationed at the front line.

"I just came here not too long ago!" Luo Yuan replied.

Luo Yuan response was rather unexpected to Li Dong. He stopped walking, and asked as if he had heard it correctly, "Just came? Just came to Hope City?"

"Just came to the Reconstruction Area; I was outside in the wilderness all this while." As the two of them seemed to be shocked, he explained, "Not the wanderer that you may think of. During the large migration, my city had been destroyed. Hence, we have been traveling this entire time, and only got here two months ago."

Li Dong opened his mouth in shock and was lost for words for a brief moment. As a member of the sword unit, their missions covered most parts of the area that were reachable by humans. He had certainly been in the wilderness a few times, but most of the time, he could only manage a peep from the plane.

The large world today, apart from human habitat, was covered by a large area of greenery. Traces of humankind, such as the high-density road network and the high-rise buildings in cities had already disappeared. Apart from parts which are no longer green, the ones left in green had remained a healthy green.

He could not imagine that someone could survive under such living conditions.

"Are there still any survivors in the area that was destroyed?" Li Dong asked.

"Probably not, we did not see anyone towards the end," Luo Yuan replied in a low voice.

The atmosphere suddenly became gloomy. After all, every one of them had lost contact with their family and friends. They were fortunate to be able to catch the last train, while many others were left behind, at the destruction.

...

Soon, the three of them had entered the building and went directly into the elevator. They pressed on the button to the fifteenth underground floor.

Luo Yuan realized that there were many buttons in the elevator. Nonetheless, it differed from the normal elevator, because it did not have any positive numbers at all. The negative numbers which began from negative one to negative fifteen, had shown that the underground space was very deep into the earth.

"Negative one to negative five are the warehouses; negative six to negative ten are the residential areas and the slightly polluted industrial area; while negative 11 to 12 are the agricultural areas. The last three floors are currently still empty, in preparation for the increase in population and industrial expansion. Those factories you have seen along the road are the heavily polluted industrial areas," explained Minister Ren, as he knew Luo Yuan had just arrived and knew nothing much.

Luo Yuan gasped in shock. No wonder he saw only factories along the way, as the residents lived underground! The factories were only just a small part of Hope City.

Even it was just a small part of the city, Luo Yuan was amazed as it was many times larger than any industrial area he had ever seen. It was, after all, a giant-sized industrial area, of about 300 square kilometers.

For a city with a population of more than three million prior to the apocalypse, the workers involved in industrial factories usually made up about one-third of the population, while the other two-thirds were mostly from the service line. Nonetheless, there was almost nobody involved in the service line during the apocalypse. The ratio of the population of industrial workers was higher than 90%, comparable to a large city with ten million people.

It was an insane generation. If it were to be compared to the underground world of Hope City, the underground refuge was still simply a work in progress.

1 Li Dong (李东) was also known as "shorty Li" because his name is homophonous with Li Donggua (李冬瓜) Likewise, when someone is called Donggua (冬瓜), it means the person is short and plump. Li or 李, refers to the person’s family name.