Chapter 466: Frozen Life
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Luo Yuan left the office, as he got ready to patrol the volcano sites.
Heating lamps lit up the street to maintain the surrounding temperature. It was unimaginable how everything out there had frozen over.
There were not many pedestrians as it was only two o'clock. Perhaps it would be crowded later during dinner time.
Earlier, Hope City implemented a centralized cafeteria system to control the availability of food. Although the situation seemed to have improved, this system was not abolished due to several reasons and to prevent the wastage of food and resources
Not only the availability of food was considered, but a lot of utensils were needed if it were to be supplied for the cooking needs of each family. Under such circumstances, there would not be a supply of natural gas or coal gas, as only electronic kitchen appliances could be used.
Based on the current technology of Hope City and the materials stored, it was impossible to prepare all these things in a short period of time, and they were far from necessary.
However, there were only a few people walking on the street, possibly due to the city being governed by martial law at the moment; both sides were heavily guarded.
They had no choice, as survivors from the three cities had migrated to Hope City, resulting in a subsequent surge of the population. However, there were not many vacancies available in Hope City. In order to increase the rate of employment, the use of machines was reduced. There were several ongoing renovation works and construction activities offering job opportunities to the people. Nevertheless, there were still a lot of people unemployed.
Million people were at home doing nothing, and with the ongoing conflict between local and foreign citizens, the enforcement of martial law became a necessity.
It was believed that martial law would be exercised for quite a long period of time. Perhaps the situation would turn better after humans had all migrated to the spaceship.
...…
Luo Yuan walked out of the underground city.
It was snowing out there.
After the disaster, the city started to snow more frequently. Apparently, it had been snowing for a long time, considering the amount of snowfall that had accumulated on the ground.
The snowflakes were dark gray in color falling with a huge amount of dust. Before the snowflakes landed onto his body, the surrounding air was stirred. The snowflakes on his body were instantly drifted by his Will.
He stomped hard onto the ground and his body immediately propelled himself forward like a rocket. Suddenly, a very sharp hissing sound came from the air. His figure was now as small as a dot, flying towards the sky.
As usual, he headed toward the pit resulting from the explosion of the antimatter bomb. Everything was fine and the volcano beneath had been completely frozen, forming thick layers of ice. Sublimation of the ice layers did not happen, indicating that the initial plan was still effective.
He then headed towards the erupted volcano.
The volcanic activity gradually subsided after half a month. The red lava was cooled and covered by layers of ice. Other than some steam coming out of the volcano, everything was fine.
Luo Yuan was slightly relieved. Sometimes it was not too bad to have such a bad weather as the volcanoes were greatly influenced by such extreme temperatures.
The place was deserted. Countless gigantic plants were frozen and had turned black. They were dead and looked like gigantic carved metals.
Luo Yuan felt heavy-hearted to see this.
He walked into the forest. The place which was initially loaded with danger, filled with birds chirping around and the roaring of beasts. All these had disappeared now and most of the living creatures had perished.
He stood there for a while, getting ready to return.
At this moment, Luo Yuan's sensitive hearing senses had picked up a rustling and hustling sound.
He immediately switched his thoughts away and followed the direction where the sound came from. It was around six kilometers away. His vision was blocked by trees. However, thanks to Luo Yuan's four-dimensional vision, it did not affect him at all.
He saw a squirrel-liked mutant carefully squeezing out of the snow. Its body was half a meter long and was considered as a small sized creature.
It was covered with thick beige fur, making it look as plump as a round ball. Obviously, it was able to survive under such an extreme conditions.
It looked around with its dark small eyes, and as soon as it squeezed out of the snow, its long red ears were monitoring the surroundings, being extra alert.
Suddenly, it ran very quickly and climbed onto a frozen big tree. Its sharp nails were strongly embedded in the ice layers, ensuring its movements were not affected, being quick and agile.
In just a short while, it climbed into a tree cave and scratched the ice layers into tiny pieces and scattered everywhere.
Soon, a very small hole was formed. The size of the hole was to fit the size of its body. Soon, it climbed into the small hole with a little bit more effort.
Luo Yuan waited for a while and he got curious as he did not see the mutant coming out from the hole.
His body levitated slowly and flew next to the big tree. With his sensitive hearing, a chewing sound was heard.
Was it possible that the squirrel-like mutant had hidden some food over here?
Luo Yuan felt interested but he did not want to disturb the "squirrel" while it chomped down its meal, apart from the King Kong, which was the first creature he met after the disaster.
He waited patiently for another ten minutes. Perhaps it was full now and was squeezing out of the hole. It first exposed half of its head, looking around vigilantly. It waited for a moment to ensure that its surrounding was safe.
Eventually, it got out of the hole. With its claws, the tree cave was carefully covered with snow. The mutant then jumped down from the tree and disappeared as soon as it got back into the hole beneath the ground.
Luo Yuan did not feel anything uncanny. Compared to the tree cave, the cave under the frozen ground would certainly be warmer.
After the "squirrel" had disappeared, Luo Yuan looked at the big frozen tree curiously. The layer of ice had accumulated on its surface and was reaching 30 centimeters thick, surrounding the tree like an armor. He pressed against the tree and tried to put some force on it.
The extremely cold ice layers were solid yet fragile, as it could easily crack into pieces.
The original color of the bark was exposed as soon as a large amount of crushed ice fell off the tree.
The tree looked bald and bare since the leaves fell off together with the crushed ice. Luo Yuan then immediately cleaned up the tree cave that the "squirrel" had entered from.
There was nothing special about the tree cave. There were no dead bodies or fruits stored inside. However, he was surprised to see when there was a white and creamy fluid seeping through the bottom of the tree cave. It was the position where the mutant scratched off the ice layer.
He wiped away the fluid, exposing the wood which was light green in color.
He was astonished to see the tree still alive, as the inner part of the wood was not frozen. It seemed like it was in hibernation, reducing the metabolic activity while waiting for the sun to shine on Earth again.
The plants were stronger than one could imagine. Luo Yuan thought in his heart that these creatures were no ordinary living organisms. They were mutated creatures. Their ability to survive had gone beyond the ordinary and it would not have happened before the apocalypse.
Luo Yuan was happy with the discovery.
The humans were going to migrate and leave the Earth temporarily as to protect themselves against the threats of the Glassians. However, one day, humans would still return to `Earth.
Perhaps the day would not come so soon, but Luo Yuan strongly believed in this.
...…
Luo Yuan left the big tree, continued to look around.
He noticed that there were a lot of big trees that were still alive. Generally, the size of the tree would be bigger if it had a higher level in which it would also have better ability to survive under extreme weather conditions. Most of the low-level trees had been found frozen to death.
He discovered that some of the trees had undergone special mutation when they were trying to survive and withstand the cold.
There was heat releasing from the tree trunk of one of the trees. Luo Yuan did not see any ice or snow around the tree. The trunk was not bare and bald like the others but it was growing densely with large branches full of leaves. The tree branches grew like an umbrella, covering the large region, making it look special in the deserted forest.
Its presence had created a shelter for the creatures and a simple food chain.
It provided a habitat for the birds and living organisms. The crowd was huge. Fortunately, the tree was big enough, resembling a small forest.
Of course, this was not the only place with a shelter. He flew across the sky and discovered that despite some of the regions that did not have such species that undergone such an evolution, they were still emitting a large amount of heat due to the extreme weather, forming an oasis. It was the miracle of life, allowing life to go on into the restricted area.
However, most of the oasis was small. The largest oasis that Luo Yuan found was only 100 square kilometers, whereas the smallest one was around 100 square meters. The deserted forest and still air were what was often being seen.
Subconsciously, Luo Yuan had come to the ocean. He stopped and stared at the terrifying scene in front of him.
The entire ocean had frozen. But this was not the reason that Luo Yuan was terrified.
He gradually landed, standing at the coastline.
The sea had frozen over but the coastline was still visible. The top layer of the seawater was frozen, and as the ice was less dense than water, it resulted in an overall increase in the level of ice layers, as if a highland was formed.
He stared at the glacier that had grown a lot bigger, not recovering for a while.