“She Let the Giant Wave Swallow Her Whole”
For the Tong family, the car had fulfilled its purpose the moment it delivered them safely to the shelter. As a result, Tong Yang hadn’t bothered to remove the keys when he got out.
Now, those keys conveniently became Wendy’s.
Closing her eyes, she recalled Tong Yang’s actions while driving. She stepped on the brake, released the handbrake, pressed the start button, shifted into gear, and the electric car started without issue.
She had never learned how to drive.
In this era of rapidly evolving transportation, driving had become little more than an expensive hobby for the wealthy.
More than sixty years ago, gasoline-powered cars had been commonplace. Within just a decade, they had been completely replaced by electric vehicles. Yet before society had fully adapted to electric cars, solar-powered hovercars had burst onto the market and made them obsolete overnight.
Only professional drivers, who needed them for work, had spent enormous sums obtaining hovercar licenses. But before long, self-driving hovercars entered trial operation.
As a result, aside from the older generation who had lived through the transportation revolution, only children from affluent families would pay the absurdly expensive tuition to learn how to drive—simply for fun.
She drove back toward the city along the route they had taken earlier.
Kangsong Road was broad and almost completely empty, making it the perfect place for a beginner to practice.
She was somewhat awkward when she first started, but within minutes she had found her rhythm.
The silver electric sedan glided steadily beneath rows of towering trees, while flocks of frightened birds occasionally skimmed low across the road in desperate flight.
The instant she emerged from Kangsong Road, no longer shielded by the dense canopy lining both sides of the road, Wendy finally saw the full extent of what lay ahead.
The rain clouds…
Were unimaginably thick.
Black.
Oppressive.
Endlessly churning across the sky.
Compared to when they had first entered Airport Road, the cloud layer had become several times thicker.
Never before had the clouds hung so close to the earth.
The sky itself seemed to have collapsed downward, pressing upon the land so heavily that breathing became difficult.
Far away, the city burned.
Towering flames illuminated the horizon like the fires of hell.
Yet amid the pitch-black world beneath the storm clouds…
Those flames were the only remaining light.
Order had collapsed.
The apocalypse had arrived.
Looking upon the scene, Wendy felt an excitement she hadn’t experienced in years surge through her veins.
A smile slowly spread across her lips.
She slammed the accelerator to the floor.
The car shot toward the ruined city at full speed.
Four or five fish-scale monsters crawled across nearby buildings on all fours.
The moment they noticed living prey approaching, they all lunged at once.
Wendy had intended to practice using her powers anyway.
Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, she stretched out her right hand and clenched her fist.
The monsters froze in midair.
Before they could react—
They exploded simultaneously.
Their bodies burst into chunks of flesh that rained onto the pavement.
Unlike before, when crushing a single monster had required almost no effort…
This time, destroying several at once placed a noticeable strain on her.
After the monsters exploded, she no longer had enough strength left to erect a spatial barrier to block the flying gore.
Blackish-green blood and shredded flesh splattered loudly across the windshield.
She frowned in disgust and switched on the wipers, scraping everything away.
Disgusting.
To avoid repeating that experience, every monster that attacked afterward was simply flung aside instead of crushed.
Basic manipulation appeared to be her most fundamental ability.
No matter how many fish-scale monsters she hurled away, she felt no real strain.
The silver family sedan drove boldly down the middle of the street.
Countless monsters leaped toward it—
Only to rebound dozens of meters away, as though they had slammed into an invisible wall.
Meanwhile, the little car continued smoothly through the forest of monsters without slowing in the slightest.
Wendy gazed at the familiar city.
In just a few hours…
The once-thriving metropolis had vanished.
Frequent explosions had knocked out power across the entire city.
Yet countless blazing fires illuminated the darkness beneath the storm clouds.
Sticky mucus coated skyscrapers where fish-scale monsters had crawled.
Pairs of crimson eyes watched silently from the shadows.
Bloodstains…
Mummified corpses…
Were everywhere.
Nearly the entire city had fallen to the fish-scale monsters.
“Beep! Battery critically low! Please connect to a charging station immediately!”
“Battery critically low! Please connect to a charging station immediately!”
At that moment, the dashboard lit up red once again, sounding another low-battery warning.
She had already reached East District.
Without hesitation, Wendy pulled the car over and got out.
The moment she stepped outside…
Nothing shielded the scent of living flesh any longer.
Instantly, every fish-scale monster lurking in nearby corners rushed toward her.
This strange human…
Had already killed many of their kind.
During the drive, Wendy had felt the exhaustion from overusing her powers gradually disappear.
So when the monsters charged—
She distorted and compressed the space surrounding them once more.
Twelve fish-scale monsters froze in midair.
The next instant—
They were crushed into pulp simultaneously.
She erected a spatial barrier, blocking every splatter of blackish-green blood and flesh.
Immediately afterward, weakness washed over her.
A piercing ringing exploded inside her head.
Something warm trickled from her nose.
She wiped it away.
Blood.
The smell of fresh blood drove the remaining monsters into another frenzy.
Wave after wave charged at her.
She simply raised her hand and casually flung them away.
Earlier, crushing four monsters had already left her feeling strained.
Now…
She had crushed twelve simultaneously.
Although the backlash was much more severe than before…
She could clearly feel her powers growing at an astonishing rate.
If there had only been eight monsters this time…
She knew she could have destroyed them effortlessly.
And…
Her recovery speed seemed to have increased as well.
The previous time, it had taken twenty minutes to recover.
This time…
In less than five minutes, her body was already rapidly returning to normal.
It seemed that every time she pushed past her physical limit…
Once she recovered…
Her strength multiplied.
Feeling power rapidly refill her body, Wendy smiled.
Her gaze swept across the ruined city.
She needed a massive number of fish-scale monsters to verify her hypothesis.
However…
The monsters seemed afraid of something.
The farther east she traveled…
The fewer monsters remained on the streets.
After a moment’s thought, Wendy fixed her gaze upon several shards of broken glass nearby.
They had likely fallen from a high-rise after evolved monsters smashed through the windows.
She walked over, picked up the sharpest piece…
Then slashed deeply across her upper arm.
Blood burst from the wound.
The rich scent of fresh human blood was carried by the powerful pre-storm winds throughout every corner of Linjiang City.
At almost the same instant…
Every fish-scale monster occupying the dead city lifted its head.
Their nostrils twitched.
All of them turned toward the same direction.
East District. Hongning District.
The instinct to feed overwhelmed their fear.
Drawn by the scent of fresh blood, countless monsters charged toward its source, desperate to feast once more.
Within moments…
Wendy found herself surrounded.
Fish-scale monsters packed together in every direction.
Drool dripped from their mouths.
Their crimson eyes glowed with ravenous hunger.
Watching the endless horde rushing toward her…
Excitement flashed across Wendy’s eyes.
The next second—
The twelve closest monsters exploded simultaneously.
No discomfort.
Only then did the monsters realize something was terribly wrong.
Their survival instincts finally overcame their hunger.
They turned and tried to flee.
But Wendy had no intention of letting them escape.
With a wave of her hand…
An invisible barrier sealed off every route of retreat.
The sounds of bodies compressing, deforming, and bursting from within echoed one after another.
Blackish-green blood and shredded flesh splattered across the unseen barrier.
Sixteen monsters. Mild discomfort. Recovery time: five minutes.
Twenty monsters. Slight discomfort. Recovery time: two minutes.
Twenty-five monsters. Slight discomfort. Recovery time: one minute.
Thirty-two monsters. Slight discomfort. Recovery time: thirty seconds.
…
Fifty. No discomfort. No recovery time required.
There were only a few of the fish-scaled monsters left after being lured in. All of them let out hoarse, rasping cries as if begging for mercy. Wendy stopped what she was doing and turned to look toward the eastern side of the city.
The tide-like humming rang in her ears once again. Unlike every previous time, this roar was so deafening that it made her whole body jolt.
She was currently in Gangning District, the easternmost district of Linjiang City, not far from the coastline.
Looking through the gaps between the skyscrapers, she saw the seawater on the beach receding as though being sucked away by an enormous pump. It withdrew at an eerie speed, faster and faster. Far out on the sea, not far from the city, a colossal tsunami tens of thousands of meters high surged forward with enough force to obliterate the world.
The wave-like ringing in her ears merged with the thunderous roar of the approaching tsunami.
Then, a single raindrop landed on Wendy’s forehead.
She looked up at the sky.
In that instant, countless raindrops raced toward the earth. Within moments, they formed a dense curtain of rain that enveloped the entire world.
Accompanied by the colossal waves capable of swallowing the land, the world-ending rainstorm that had been brewing for half a month finally descended.
The apocalypse had truly arrived.
The remaining fish-scaled monsters shrieked as they slammed into the barrier stained with the blood of their own kind, desperately trying to escape.
Wendy had already lost interest.
She merely glanced back at them indifferently.
They all exploded at once, as though ignited from within.
This time, she made no effort to use her barrier to contain the flying chunks of flesh and blood. The shattered remains burst apart in midair, scattering in every direction like fireworks made of flesh.
As the gruesome fireworks blossomed one after another above her, Wendy walked forward step by step like a devout pilgrim, allowing the monstrous wave to swallow her whole.
The instant the tsunami engulfed her, the blue bead she had worn around her neck since childhood suddenly emitted a brilliant azure light.
The glow grew brighter…
And brighter…
Until it completely enveloped her.
The next second, she lost consciousness.
No one knew how much time had passed before Wendy opened her eyes again.
Darkness surrounded her.
Bone-chilling cold embraced her from every direction. After a few seconds of adjusting, she gradually made out her surroundings.
It was the sea.
She was underwater.
The seawater around her was as black as ink—the lightless depths of the ocean where sunlight could never reach.
She lowered her head.
To her surprise—and yet somehow exactly as expected—her legs had become a fish’s tail.
It was beautiful, a deep blue-green color, faintly glowing in the endless darkness.
Her newly formed tail was powerful. Wendy swam a few strokes. Aside from the biting cold of the deep sea, the sensation of being completely embraced by the water was indescribably comforting.
She looked upward.
Above her lay nothing but endless darkness. There wasn’t the slightest sign of any living creature nearby.
How deep was this place?
Several thousand meters?
Or tens of thousands?
She couldn’t determine the exact depth, but she was certain of one thing.
This was a depth humanity had never been able to explore—a completely unknown region of the ocean.
There wasn’t a trace of light overhead.
Yet as Wendy swam deeper, she noticed a faint bluish glow in the abyss below.
She kept swimming toward the light.
After what felt like a very long time, she suddenly had the strange sensation of passing through a thin membrane.
The instant she crossed it, Wendy clearly felt the immense pressure of the deep sea—ten thousand meters beneath the surface—vanish completely.
Even the seawater around her was no longer freezing cold.
She looked down.
The blue light came from a massive stone suspended above an extraordinarily towering stone altar.
The giant stone emitted a faint azure radiance. The glow rippled outward in concentric circles through the seawater before gradually fading away.
By its light, she was finally able to see everything around her.
It was an enormous, magnificent city.
Or more accurately—
the ruins of a city.
Countless decayed yet majestic buildings clustered around the towering stone altar, spreading outward from high to low as far as the eye could see.
Broken stone pillars over a hundred meters tall lay scattered across the cracked ground, each engraved with mysterious writing and totems she had never seen before.
These structures belonged to another civilization unknown to humanity.
They had slept silently beneath the deep sea, crossing hundreds of millions of years before finally appearing before her.