Chapter 31

Lishan Martial Hall, in the study.

The light of the setting sun shone through the window, hitting the whole Sand Table.

However, there was no semblance of beauty in it.

Lin Tuo stood fixedly on the side, his face unable to contain his shock!

In his mind was a series of question and exclamation marks.

“What happened?!”

“I left for just a moment, how could it become like this?”

“Who moved my Sand Table?!” [1]

He saw that thick dust clouds had covered the huge Taklimakan’s continent and almost covered its sun. Which caused the entire continent to be dimly lit and disorderly.

If you looked from the side, avoiding the dust clouds that are surging quickly. You can see that the originally vibrant land had been turned into scorched earth.

On the outskirts, the field had turned black and yellow, as if covered with black ash. The plant had also withered.

The cities… are even more silent and frightening.

Large pieces of buildings collapsed, bustling stations and streets were empty, and the originally busy factories seemed to be abandoned for a long time.

The rivers that flow through the continent from west to east have turned muddy, like seaweed color; and the sea has also turned into an abnormal livid color.

If you look to the west. You can see that the closer it was to the west, the more severe are the damages to the environment.

Especially the mountains in the west.

There used to be a large forest, but at this moment, only wild flames were left.

The flames swept through the entire mountain range. Though under the acceleration of time, they flickered, but for a moment only, before leaving nothing but ashes behind.

Even the earth’s crust seemed to have been affected. Some volcanoes erupted as magma rolled out, spewing out thick smoke and dust as if connecting to the heaven and earth.

Only, because of the acceleration of time, it quickly went out again. And in his daze, countless dark gray-colored snow suddenly fell from the sky.

They quickly spread all over, and in the blink of an eye, everything had turned gray!

The entire continent was devastated!

“Adjust the time scale!”

Lin Tuo was stunned as he hurriedly changed the time scale back to 1:1 as fast as possible.

He had discovered that with the destruction of the entire human civilization. The social complexity had fallen, causing the Sand Table to speed up again.

He roughly estimated that right now, several years or even decades had passed since the time of the “disaster”!

As the time adjustment is completed, the scene in the Sand Table no longer changes.

Lin Tuo let out a sigh of relief. He then closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm himself.

After a while.

Opening his eyes again, Lin Tuo looked deeply at the Sand Table as doubts arose in his heart.

“Is it a natural disaster? Or a man-made disaster?”

The scene in front of him had far exceeded his expectations. You must know that as the civilization level of the Sand Table’s Empire approaches the Earth’s level, the time ratio will become low.

After fully calculating the time he left it, it should be at most a few years.

Who would have thought that in just a few years, a prosperous world would become like this?

And when he turned to look at the virtual panel, his face turned uglier.

[Current environment’s Ether concentration: Low]

Really?!

“Open the Operation Log.”

Lin Tuo endured the pain in his heart and began to retrieve the Operation Log, trying to find the root cause of this mess.

The interface expands, and sure enough, many lines of text have already stacked up.

Because this thing was obscuring most of his vision, Lin Tuo closed it most of the time. Otherwise, it would seriously affect his daily life.

Moreover, even if he had opened the panel when he was eating, it would still be too late to stop this disaster.

After all, this log only records major historical events that had already occurred.

Of course, while the Operation Log recorded the successful development of the annihilation bombs. He could never have possibly thought that the insane Emperor would make—three thousands pieces—and detonate them at the same time.

Which directly destroyed the entire Sand Table’s continent?

Anyway, Lin Tuo doesn’t have any regrets, as this was impossible to prevent.

He carefully browsed through the lines of records.

[In the 700,041,065 years of the derivative world. The Emperor of the new Empire detonated three thousand annihilation bombs in the Central Laboratory of the Great Western Continent in an attempt to destroy the isolation shield, but failed.]

[… the explosion triggered a series of chain reactions: the world’s ecosystem destroyed, dust blocking the sun, temperatures plummeted, the environment degraded, and everything died…]

[… human society collapsed, civilization regressed. Volcanoes, earthquakes, severe cold, famine, wars… soon followed.]

[In the same year… the strong radiation eroded the soil, life, animals, and plants. Abnormal changes happened… the world’s population dropped by 90%… And thus, the Apocalypse began.]

……

Lin Tuo’s face kept changing as he browsed through the written records on the virtual panel.

After he finished reading all of it, he was silent for a moment. Then he rubbed his face and laughed bitterly.

“What is it called? No zuo no die?” [2]

At this moment, his mood was extremely complicated.

It wasn’t a natural disaster; it was a man-made disaster. An incredible one at that.

To where it was incomprehensible with normal human logic.

The Emperor could have been a good emperor, but he ruined himself; he does it quick too, so it was impossible to stop him.

“I’m at fault too, I was too passive…” sighed Lin Tuo. His expression became heavy.

After all, he knew very well that this Sand Table was not a game, but a real world. The entire civilization, and the tens of million of humans inside it, were all very lively.

Each of them has their own life, joy, sorrow, and anger.

Because of this, Lin Tuo has always been cautious; he will not disturb the Sand Table world if unnecessary.

But who would have thought that, in the end, it was an insane emperor who led everyone to destruction.

“The key is that he succeeded…” Lin Tuo had a complicated expression. He didn’t think it through.

Shaking his head, he sorted out his thoughts.

“What is done cannot be undone. From the log, it seems that humanity is not completely extinct. There should be survivors…

“In other words, the fire of civilization is still there… as long as I treat it carefully, perhaps, there is still a possibility to save it…

“All in all… I must first understand the internal situation clearly. Only then, could I treat it in a targeted manner…”

Thinking of this, Lin Tuo subconsciously intended to release his clone.

Then it occurred to him that his own clone was still in the hot pot restaurant.

“Ugh. It’s so hard to have a good meal… “

Lamenting, Lin Tuo sat in the rattan chair again. Then he closed his eyes and switched his consciousness back to his clone.

……

“Guest? Wake up—are you okay? Sir?”

When Lin Tuo put his consciousness into his clone. He heard a somewhat worried voice in his ear, and it seemed that someone was shaking his shoulder.

He slowly opened his eyes and saw that it was a waiter looking at him nervously.

Behind her, there were two other colleagues who had also rushed in.

It looks like he left his “consciousness” for too long and was mistaken for something else.

“Well, I’m fine… just sleepy. Closing my eyes for a while.” Lin Tuo forced a smile.

The several waiters were obviously relieved, they smiled and said, “That’s good, sorry to disturb you.”

“It’s okay, I’m done eating, please take the rest,” said Lin Tuo, getting up.

……

A few moments later, Lin Tuo walked out from the entrance of the store and saw that the street was getting dark, and the traffic was also dense

Looking around, he cautiously avoided the cameras, then turned into an isolated alley. After switching back to the main body, he used the “observation mode” to bring back the clone.

……

After Lin Tuo retrieved the clone, he lit up the room and looked again at the devastated land; he felt the chill of the Sand Table. Then he took a deep breath and tried to find some human gathering places on the continent.

“This is it.”

A moment later, Lin Tuo raised his hand and probed into the Sand Table.

Then through the clone, once again, he descended into the wasteland!