This Spiritual Energy is Lethal!-Chapter 183 - Silence

Chapter 183: Chapter 183 Silence

Chapter 183: Chapter 183 Silence

Five people ascended the steps, with Sam in the lead and Chen Ke at the rear.

To get from the subway platform into the hall smoothly, they had to first clear the sandbags blocking the entrance.

There was a massive quantity of these sandbags, stacked one on top of another, almost reaching the ceiling. And that wasn’t all; behind the sandbags were more sandbags, with the passage nearly filled to capacity, allowing only slivers of natural light to penetrate through the gaps, bringing in wisps of cold air.

The people below the steps were drawn to the natural light at the stairwell entrance, looking up with expressions filled with unease and anticipation.

Some red dust accumulated on top of these sandbags. Out of caution, both Chen Ke and Sam refrained from touching them immediately upon arrival.

“Could it be poisonous?” Sam asked.

Chen Ke shook his head, feeling that was unlikely. Even if the outside was the Great Void, not just any object would be highly toxic. The Fan Hede Kingdom was still plagued by the Black Ring Disease, and it wasn’t as if one could be poisoned to death by just walking a few steps.

However, if this place was indeed the Great Void, then it was completely beyond Chen Ke’s understanding.

Chen Ke had once speculated that the Great Void represented an unrecorded era of humanity, with the Fan Hede Kingdom resembling a magically altered Medieval period.

This place, however, was clearly a modern city, not much different from the United Federation of 2009, and it couldn’t be a part of human history unless… human history had undergone several cycles…

Chen Ke swiped away the red dust on the sandbags, detecting nothing unusual; it seemed to be just ordinary dust. He pressed on the sandbags, which felt tightly packed with sandy material.

“It’s fine, let’s move them.” Chen Ke said, as he grabbed a sandbag and started passing it down the stairs.

Five people worked in two lines, joined by the remaining survivors in clearing the sandbags, transporting them down the stairs bag by bag. After almost half an hour of effort clearing more than sixty bags, they finally made a path.

Chen Ke was the first to emerge from the passage, surveying the surroundings. He found himself standing in a rather unimposing, standard modern subway station hall.

The security checkpoint was damaged and accumulated with much red dust.

The wall-mounted, once-illuminated billboards had lost their luster, with signs pointing towards the platform exit scattered on the ground, their text long eroded.

The floor of the hall was also covered with some black mud, but the situation was not as severe as below ground.

The subway station was connected to the above-ground rail system, hence it was open-air. The steel and glass dome constructed above was mostly shattered, leaving glass fragments everywhere on the ground.

Looking up through the dome, Chen Ke observed the sky, where a massive red cloud slowly drifted by, so close to the ground it felt as if one could touch it by standing atop a building’s roof.

It was still daylight outside, though the time was uncertain, it seemed to be before noon – perhaps around 9 or 10 a.m.

Sam also emerged, his hands empty without a gun, which left him feeling insecure. Noticing the nearby scenery, his face was full of questions.

“Is this… Opportunity City?” Sam inquired.

“I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like it.” Chen Ke responded while pulling out his phone to check for a signal, confirming there was none. It was becoming clear this was not their world.

“Can we go out?” asked the three volunteers eager to explore the outside world, huddled at the entrance.

“Be careful, it seems relatively safe.” Sam turned back and replied.

Chen Ke activated his Spiritual Vision, detecting no human-shaped entities around. He trod over the glass shards on the ground, looking to see if there were any objects that could serve as weapons. Ideally, finding something like a firefighter’s axe would be best.

After circling the subway entrance, Chen Ke picked up a piece of broken steel from the ground, likely fallen from the dome. It was nearly the right length to resemble a sword. He swept it up and swung it a few times – it would suffice as a makeshift weapon.

Sam also picked up a half piece of steel from the ground; although it wasn’t round and felt awkward in his hands, it was much better than being unarmed.

There were still some stores within the station, and Chen Ke was curious, so he headed toward a fast-food restaurant.

“Hey! Hey…” Sam saw Chen Ke walking off without any guard, called out to him worriedly, perhaps thinking his voice was too loud, lowered his volume with the second shout.

“What?” Chen Ke asked, turning his head.

“If this isn’t the United Federation, isn’t it too dangerous for you to walk over there like that?” Sam cautiously said, out of a soldier’s habit, he had started looking for places that could provide cover as soon as he arrived, and he was currently standing behind a scrapped security checkpoint.

The unit Sam belonged to, the Cavaliers, seemed to be a very ordinary mortal military unit, so they didn’t possess Spiritual Energy, and naturally, they didn’t have Spiritual Vision; he obviously didn’t know that the surroundings were actually very safe.

Chen Ke made an OK gesture and said, “It’s very safe here. Look, there isn’t even an animal around, and the underground entrance is clearly blocked with sandbags. It’s obviously an abandoned place.”

“Could there be monsters here?” asked Sam.

“Who knows, if I see any, I’ll tell you,” Chen Ke laughed and turned to continue walking toward the fast-food restaurant.

The restaurant looked similar to Burger King, and to Chen Ke’s surprise, the place was very clean, without a trace of rust. He pushed the door open and entered, carefully examining the remnants inside.

The tables, chairs, and various utensils looked as if they had just been washed the day before; menus were scattered on the floor as if they had just been printed.

Chen Ke picked up a menu which listed various hamburgers and fast chicken dishes with their prices, surprisingly including Pepsi. Of course, everything was written in English, and he also noticed that the prices were marked with the symbol for union coins of the United Federation.

“This place…” Chen Ke was taken aback. This wasn’t the Great Void! It truly was the United Federation! But something was different…

Sam also arrived at the restaurant with others, seeing Chen Ke standing there in thought, he asked cautiously, “Find anything?”

“Look, Sam, this is indeed the United Federation, but I don’t know which city this is,” Chen Ke handed the menu to Sam.

“This…” For a moment, Sam didn’t know what to say, took the menu to look at it, and frowned.

“Impossible. If such serious incidents had happened in the United Federation, there would have been news reports. Look, now that we’re up here, the cellphone still has no signal,” Sam said in confusion.

Chen Ke agreed with Sam’s view. A country’s response couldn’t be this sluggish, especially not the United Federation, the most developed place in Western capitalist society.

“That… Your friend, Diana, isn’t she from the Spiritual Ability Administration? Maybe she knows something?” asked Sam.

“Hard to say, but we can ask her. However, let’s take a look around first, at least check out the situation outside,” Chen Ke suggested.

Sam nodded and left the fast-food restaurant with Chen Ke, taking the other three survivors to move toward the station’s exterior.

Along the way, Chen Ke noticed that the rust and black creeping substances existed only around the subway and the underground exit; the rest of the places seemed perfectly normal. Considering the piles of sandbags blocking the doors, it was clear that the aberrations had slowly spread from underground to above.

The rust and black creeping substance, like fungus, could they be completely isolated underground just with sandbags? Were these things harmful to humans?

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At least up to now, Chen Ke had not discovered any human corpses.

The glass doors of the subway station were also shattered, broken into a carpet of glass fragments. Stepping out of the station, a cool, chill wind blew from the outside.

As far as the eye could see, the streets were vacant, cars collided with each other; the entire world was silent, as if humanity had vanished in an instant.

On the ground, occasional red dust stirred up by the wind, like the accumulation on the sandbags, quickly dissipated in the air.