July 15, 11:58 AM.
The villa living room was dead silent, broken only by the faint electric hum of the digital clock on the wall.
Lin Chu held an ice-cold cola in her hand, her gaze locked tightly onto the massive surveillance screen in front of her.
On the screen, the sky—one that should have been blazing under the midday sun—had turned into a chilling, eerie dark purple. It wasn’t clouds. It was the precursor of an aurora-like phenomenon caused by high-energy particle disturbances in the atmosphere.
No wind.
Even the cicadas outside had gone completely silent at this moment.
The entire world felt like it had been paused, quiet like a massive graveyard.
11:59:50.
11:59:55.
11:59:59.
Lin Chu’s pupils suddenly contracted.
12:00:00.
BOOM——!!!
There was no sound, yet Lin Chu felt as if she had heard a roar from the depths of the universe itself.
The surveillance screen instantly turned blood-red.
A terrifying super solar flare erupted—billions of tons of high-energy charged particles carrying apocalyptic heat slammed into Earth’s magnetosphere at light speed.
Sunlight was no longer golden.
It turned into a blinding, pale-white, radiation-laced glare that poured down without any restraint.
Beep—beep—beep!
The industrial-grade environmental monitoring system installed by Qin Xiao screamed with a piercing red alarm.
The temperature display in the corner began to climb at a speed that defied all physics:
35°C…
42°C…
48°C…
55°C…
In just ten minutes—
The outdoor temperature soared to 60°C.
Ground temperature instantly exceeded 80°C.
“Chii—!”
On the surveillance feed, a sparrow circling in the air seemed to be stunned by the sudden heatwave. It flapped its wings desperately, trying to find shade.
But the moment it flew over the villa wall—
WHOOSH!
A flame ignited on its feathers.
It didn’t even have time to scream before it turned into a burning fireball and crashed onto the scorching asphalt, becoming a black lump of charcoal.
Then came the plants.
The once-lush ornamental shrubs outside the villa turned yellow and curled at a visible speed. Moisture evaporated within seconds.
WHOOSH—
Dry leaves ignited under the extreme heat, and flames spread rapidly through the greenery.
“BANG! BANG! BANG!”
From the distant city came dense explosions.
Not bombs—
Transformers.
The power grid simply couldn’t withstand the sudden thermal overload. Transformers exploded one after another like firecrackers, lighting up the sky in bursts of sparks.
The city’s dazzling lights were erased in waves.
One block after another went dark.
A full citywide blackout.
At the same time, asphalt roads began to melt.
Black highways turned into sticky, boiling tar swamps, releasing toxic fumes.
Cars driving on the road suffered blowouts and crashed into each other.
Drivers tried to escape, but the moment their feet touched the ground—
Their shoes began to smoke.
Screams filled the air.
Chaos.
Absolute chaos.
Modern civilization—once orderly and structured—was as fragile as paper under the judgment of the sun, instantly torn apart.
Lin Chu sat on her sofa in a perfectly stable 26°C environment, watching the hellscape unfold on screen.
Even though she had known this would happen, witnessing it firsthand still sent a deep, instinctive chill through her soul.
She tightened her grip on the ice cola in her hand. The coldness brought her a fragment of reality.
“So this is… the apocalypse.”
She turned her head toward a side monitor.
A familiar black BMW had stalled on the mountain road outside her villa, its hood spewing thick smoke.
Two tiny figures were jumping and screaming on the scorching pavement like ants on a hot pan.
Lin Chu took a deep breath and drained the cola in one gulp.
The carbonation burst on her tongue, dissolving all remaining fear.
“The gates of hell have opened.”
She set the cup down, her eyes turning colder than ever.
“Then… good luck to everyone.”