Chapter 356 - Advent (4)
Chapter 356: Advent (4)
Proofreader: Arya
Let’s rewind time a bit.
At the time the Pope had received the call from the Seven Holy Apostles and had just returned to the church.
The Fiendkind had yet to begin their attack.
The Fuxi Empire.
The Empire’s Grand Holy Church.
Varona’s grand coronation was taking place.
The coronation of an Empress was a spectacle for the whole world to see.
Because Varona was going to become the first ever ruling Empress of the Fuxi Empire.
Every nation had sent their own team of news crew to directly record this historical moment.
At this moment, the TV announcers were discussing about the late Fuxi Emperor.
The real reason for his death was purposefully hidden by Varona.
Either to prevent massive panic or to preserve the honor of the Fuxi Empire, the late Fuxi Emperor was declared killed in action while fighting against the Frozen Hell.
Ever since the frost started to spread around the world, the Frozen Hell was no longer a secret.
In despair, riots broke out in many countries.
The rulers of the nations couldn’t help but use Mechs and Professionists to try and uphold the collapsing social order.
In the Fuxi Empire, Empress Varona had given the military the temporarily right to judge.
The military judging process was greatly simplified into only two steps.
Step one, confirm the truth of the crime.
Step two, executing the criminal on the spot.
Everyone across Fuxi, robbers, murderers, vandals and the likes were ‘cleaned up’ completely.
At this point in time, it’s been determined that hell was coming for them all, and humans could possibly become extinct in this calamity.
If someone still dared to use the panic to cause unnecessary strife, they might as well be shot dead before the Apocalypse claimed them.
In just a few days, corpses had littered the streets of Fuxi.
Such extreme measures would of course be met with discontent by a portion of the people.
And so a few rebel organizations tried reaching out internationally to pressure Empress Varona from the outside.
But this time, they made the wrong choice.
Across the entire world, no country even tried to speak up against these actions.
No one tried to criticize Varona’s methods.
Facing the Apocalypse, any half-decent leader would only seek stability for their own country.
The leaders of such rebel organizations were secretly judged and executed by Varona.
Following that, Varona begun a propaganda campaign, to officially ease the people’s minds and give them real-time update of the situation.
News channels begun 24-hour streams reporting detailed updates of the Frozen Hell.
Following Gu Qing Shan’s suggestion, Varona also captured a few dead people and threw them into cages, letting the citizens view them like zoo animals.
At the start, the viewing venues were packed full of people.
Due to the existence of the Game of Eternal and the Murder Clown from before, humanity did not feel too panicked at the spread of the ice.
When news become old news, most people found that there wasn’t anything that interesting to see.
——-the reason why so many people were afraid of death is because death is unknown.
No one knows for sure what death will be like.
Will they disappear completely?
Will they gather somewhere?
Now they have an un-living proof in front of their eyes that there is indeed a place to go after death.
Then death itself was no longer difficult to accept.
A few people speculated the possible existence of a Heaven or Nirvana.
Some people even began to do charity, hoping for a good life after death.
As more people did charitable and good deeds, society itself was becoming brighter by the day.
It got to the point where a random old lady crossing the street might be escorted with a princess carry ——-sometimes by more than one person.
Thanks to that, the Fuxi Empire society that was tethering on the verge of collapse, having been through a baptism of blood and fire, slowly stabilized.
In fact, public order in the Fuxi Empire got better compared to before.
Seeing how effective that was, other countries followed suit, with varying degrees of success.
Varona’s fame sky-rocketed, obtaining the support of the majority of large powers in the world and officially settling in her throne.
The situation was completely different from the past life.
Dead people eats people.
This is a known fact, but since dead people only appear from frozen grounds, as long as they’re discovered in time, no big problems arose.
Numerous teams were formed to locate and collect the dead people, sending them to space.
Society’s attitude towards this wasn’t too strong way or another.
Everything seems to be changing for the better.
All the way until a certain strange person was discovered within a frozen river in Confederate borders.
When he was discovered, he had already broken out of the ice.
He managed to kill a squad of 30 people and sucked their blood dry.
He became incredibly strong.
Fortunately, a mysterious powerhouse acted and killed him in time, preventing further casualties.
Then the top brass of humanity received a trustworthy anonymous tip.
These types of monsters will appear in undetermined numbers.
World leaders decided to gather on the date of Varona’s coronation at the Fuxi Empire to discuss emergency measures.
Now.
The Empress’s coronation.
Led by a Bishop of the Holy Church, 12 priests stood around the future Empress, heading out from the grand church hall.
The Empress headed from the church hall to a tower platform behind the church.
This platform was called Gods’ Blessing Grounds.
It was considered a most divine location in the Holy Church.
On the platform, the Bishop bestowed the Empress with a golden crown with 12 points.
This represents the Empress’ coronation to be bestowed by the heavens.
The guests stood up from their seats, following the Empress and the priests towards the tower platform.
Gu Qing Shan, Zhang Ying Hao and Ye Fei Li were also there.
The three of them followed the flow of people while whispering to each other.
“I feel like something is off” Ye Fei Li commented.
“Which part?” Zhang Ying Hao asked.
“There seems to be too few people here” Ye Fei Li replied.
“That’s obvious” Zhang Ying Hao told him.
“Why is that?” Ye Fei Li asked.
Zhang Ying Hao explained in a low voice: “The Fuxi Emperor uses his world-class might to rule over the powerful Professionists in the country, but now that he’s dead, the crowning Empress doesn’t have such might, so there are a few who aren’t willing to listen to her”
“Such a thing still happens?” Ye Fei Li asked.
“Yeah, quite a few powerful Professionists who hold authority didn’t show up” Gu Qing Shan told him.
According to Impartial Goddess’ analysis, over half of the Professionists who hold authority aren’t here.
Ye Fei Li questioned: “Hell is already here and they’re still in-fighting, is that really fine?”
Zhang Ying Hao answered: “Compare to uniting against an enemy, people in power usually prefer in-fighting first”
“I thought I’d come here to learn a bit more about the world, but I’d rather not learn THIS” Ye Fei Li complained.
Gu Qing Shan was also a bit annoyed.
The Frozen Hell is still silently spreading.
What I want to do next requires the full support of the Fuxi Empire.
——but it’ll probably take quite a long time for Empress Varona to thoroughly control the Empire.
There’s simply no time to wait for the Empress to slowly eliminate her competitions to settle and solidify her reign.
While he was thinking, Zhang Ying Hao came closer and whispered: “I heard there are a few people wanting to choose a grown male from the branch family to succeed the crown”
“There is indeed that, the military as well as a few other with authority support this idea greatly, Varona had to use all her wits just to barely push it down” Gu Qing Shan commented.
“They want a puppet Emperor?” Ye Fei Li asked.
“That’s right, that is the most beneficial for them” Gu Qing Shan answered.
“Aren’t they worried what state this country is going to become?” Ye Fei Li asked naively.
Gu Qing Shan and Zhang Ying Hao exchanged looks and said nothing.
Gu Qing Shan sat silently for a while before suddenly deciding on something.
The Empress had already walked onto the tower platform.
All the guests stood below, waiting for the most important moment of her coronation.
The Bishop was about to place the golden 12-pointed crown on Varona’s head.
Every member of every nation, as long as they aren’t busy with something, currently have their Holo-Brain turned on to tune in to this historic moment.
At this time, the number of people streaming the same video has reached a new record peak.
But at the scene of the Empress’ coronation, something strange was happening.
People were occasionally looking down at their Holo-Brain.
Some people were whispering, discussing something.
A sort of stifled worry and discomfort silently spreads.
Including the Confederate President, many politicians checked their Holo-Brain one after another.
As they listened to the report, their expressions became grim.
The world leaders then began giving out orders.
Even the President had remotely ordered the entire Confederate’s military to move.
“This isn’t right, something big must’ve happened” Zhang Ying Hao whispered.
“Impartial Goddess, what’s the situation?” Gu Qing Shan asked.
[…A certain something is happening across deserts all over the world]
[The corresponding intelligence is incomplete, unable to compile into a proper report] Impartial Goddess answered.
Gu Qing Shan was a bit surprised.
“Show me what’s going on” he said.
[Very well, sir]
A scene appeared on his Holo-Brain.
The Confederate’s Great Masala desert.
A giant figure that eclipses the sun was slowing moving in the desert.
This figure was as tall as a skyscraper.
A Giant.
A Giant has appeared.
It walked with quick strides, with each step it took, the desert trembled.
All the sand that touched its body were turned an ashen grey.
Heavy black shackles wrapped the Giant’s legs, occasionally bursting out bright orange flames, burning the Giant.
But it endured the pain, roaring thunderously:
“Move —–your ——-asses!”
It growled: “Before the living discover, we must finish building the capital of the dead!”
“Uhmmm!”
Hundreds, thousands of gigantic figures responded.
The grey desert city began to take shape.
The scene turned off.
Gu Qing Shan pinched his forehead, sighing deeply.
The worst that can happen always happen.
On the entire desert, there wasn’t even a shred of ice.
Those black shackles on the Giants’ bodies were also completely unrelated to the Frozen Hell.
They clearly aren’t from the Frozen Hell.
—–the second Hell has descended upon them.
Gu Qing Shan couldn’t help but glance at the War God UI.
A line of text floated in the middle.
[Estimated time until Huang Quan reinforcements arrive: 11 hours]
Damn it!
I delayed the Frozen Hell but another hell come early instead!
Gu Qing Shan asked: “System, why didn’t you tell me before?”
[Ting]!
The War God UI answered: [The System did not know that another Hell would descend, in fact, even the Frozen Hell was your discovery first and foremost]
Gu Qing Shan recalled and bit and found that really was the case.
“But you were able to summon the Huang Quan reinforcements” Gu Qing Shan questioned.
The War God UI continued to explain: [I only secretly reported it to them, they were already looking to get out of Huang Quan]
As Gu Qing Shan was about to keep talking to the System, he went silent.
The tower platform.
The ceremony was still continuing.
“Varona Medici…”
The Bishop spoke the Empress’ given name, about to give her the blessing.
Then the sky turned dark.
Something happened ——-
Everyone looked up.
“Something isn’t right; I can feel the disturbance in space” Zhang Ying Hao become serious.
“Something is coming —–look!” Ye Fei Li also commented.
They all beheld the same place in the sky.
The sun was blocked out by the blurry blowing wind.
A black hole opened up in the sky.
Then, a casket appeared in midair.
This casket was extremely large, almost as big as the church itself.
The casket was made entirely out of bones, occasionally some blood would drip down from the openings.
Bang!
A loud impact, like a cannon blast.
The casket’s door was knocked opened, a monster roared thunderously, struggling to climb out.
It was a jet black corpse.
Gu Qing Shan released his inner sight to check and saw that inside the casket, there were nothing but sharp spikes.
These spikes pierced the monster’s body, trapping it inside the casket.
That’s why it was struggling.
A casket and sharp spikes.
This was another form of Hell’s punishment, once again completely unrelated to the Frozen Hell.
Gu Qing Shan instantly understood.
In the meantime, he stared straight at the sky, unable to say anything.
That’s right, right at the scene of the Fuxi Empress’ coronation, under the watchful eyes of billions of people, the third Hell has descended on the Human Realm.