Chapter 99: It’s All Over

Just three minutes after the colossal fish appeared, nearly everyone on Earth realized the dire crisis engulfing their world.

Griffith Observatory.

The engineer stood frozen, the coffee cup slipping from his hand and crashing to the floor. Hot liquid soaked his uniform, but he didn’t notice. He simply stared, transfixed, at the enormous fish looming in the Heavenly Curtain.

“It’s real… that prophecy was actually true!”

Only moments ago, he and his colleagues had been mocking the outlandish prediction. Now, it had been proven beyond doubt.

“I think I actually believe in God now,” the engineer muttered.

“Why not Allah?” his colleague quipped from the side.

The higher-ups weren’t fools kicked in the head by a donkey—they’d assigned tasks with real foresight. But what did it matter?

Against a creature on that scale—a fish larger than the edge of their universe—what good was spotting it, confirming it? They were utterly powerless.

Even if humanity detonated every nuclear warhead in its arsenal, the blast would at most shatter Earth, knocking it off its orbit. It wouldn’t even escape the solar system.

And that fish was out there, beyond the observable universe, at the very fringes humanity couldn’t reach. It dwarfed countless pinpoint universes like theirs.

How could they possibly strike it?

Forget striking it—they couldn’t even run. All they could do was watch helplessly as it devoured them, ushering in the apocalypse.

There was one other option: drop to their knees, repent their sins, and beg God for mercy—assuming the fish was divine punishment.

No, the engineer thought with a bitter chuckle to himself. That wouldn’t work.

The Bible said God created the world in six days. The tiny light speck before the fish was their world. What if God was even smaller than the fish?

Even God would end up as fish food!

“So, this is the end of the world?”

From atop a skyscraper, the engineer gazed down at the streets below, a chaotic pandemonium of screaming crowds like a horde of rampaging demons. He turned to his colleague.

“Look on the bright side,” the man said with a wry smile. “The fish is so damn big, maybe we’ll get lodged in its teeth.”

What else could they do but cling to that? A sliver of hope was better than plunging straight into oblivion.

“I never thought I’d live to see the apocalypse,” the colleague added. “Makes my life feel kinda meaningful, in a way.”

Sure, the idea of their world getting stuck in the fish’s teeth was pure fantasy, but he kept grasping at straws.

“Meaningful life?” the engineer sighed. “At a time like this? You need people to have meaning in the first place. Soon there won’t be any people left to talk about it.”

“Speaking of which, what the hell is that thing? And why is it so massive?”

“Think relativity,” his colleague said, forcing optimism. “Time dilation around huge masses. Maybe only a second has passed for the fish, but centuries have flown by here. We’ll all be long dead before it even reaches us.”

One moment he was convinced the world was doomed; the next, he was dreaming up ways it might not be. His emotions had gone numb, ping-ponging wildly.

“But even if it takes a hundred years for our little light speck to reach the fish’s mouth, the world’s already gone to hell.”

Out of habit, the engineer lifted his cup for a sip—and drew only air. He glanced down, realizing the coffee had spilled all over him ages ago. The motion had been pure reflex.

He turned back to the window. Firelight flickered in his dilated pupils.

“Someone’s set the observatory on fire…”

“That’s bad. They’ll put it out, right… maybe?”

The shockwaves rippled far beyond the observatory.

The Special Countermeasures Team Leader froze for a split second before bellowing, “A fish is really going to eat the world? Their dreams were literal?!”

Who could have predicted this? Past prophecies had always been vague mumbo-jumbo or cryptic symbols. They’d interpreted this one as metaphor, too—but it was stark, unyielding reality!

The realization hit him like a cosmic joke, Destiny toying with them all.

At the same time, it drove home humanity’s pathetic insignificance and helplessness.

With their current tech, all they could do was wait to die. But amid the despair, there was a silver lining: they weren’t just humans.

Luo Shang wasn’t human!

Luo Shang had the power to destroy worlds!

For the first time, the Team Leader was profoundly grateful that Luo Shang wasn’t one of them.

The former members of the Special Countermeasures Team had actually been quite dissatisfied in private with what Shen Changqing and Su Mingyao had done.

It was precisely because those two had pushed too hard, leaving Su Shang with no way to live on, that he had become Luo Shang—and that had sparked all the chaos that followed.

They had essentially strapped a time bomb named Luo Shang to their own world. No one knew when it might detonate and kill them all, so they could only handle things with the utmost caution.

Yet now, their opinion of Su Mingyao and Shen Changqing had completely flipped.

Had those two not driven Su Shang to transform into Luo Shang, they wouldn’t have the option of turning to him for help right now. They would have no choice but to sit and wait for death!

A blessing in disguise… the Special Countermeasures Team Leader thought to himself.

However…

Could Luo Shang really handle a fish that massive?

Truth be told, none of them had ever seen Luo Shang go all out. Every time he had shown his abilities so far, it had been utterly casual and capricious—profoundly deep, impossible to fathom.

Because of that, they had no way to gauge the limits of his full power, no way to compare him directly to the giant fish.

What if Luo Shang sized up the situation and decided he couldn’t drive the big fish away? What if he simply washed his hands of it and let them all get devoured?

Was the value they could offer him truly enough to convince him to step in?

…

None of these questions had answers.

All they could do was place their hopes on Su Mingyao!

Hoping that this divination reading was accurate… The Special Countermeasures Team Leader could only pray.

And the object of his prayers wasn’t God—it was Luo Shang.

~~~

At that moment, the armed helicopter had just touched down.

Su Mingyao would drive from there to the lakeside where Luo Shang waited.

“Good luck,” Roland said gravely, clapping him on the shoulder.

“You too,” Su Mingyao replied.

Roland had intended to escort him farther, but the emergence of the Heavenly Curtain had forced a change in plans. He needed to head back and keep things stable, to stop anyone from stirring up trouble amid the chaos.

Fortunately, the surrounding area had been cleared out well in advance. In the current state of pandemonium everywhere, who knew if Su Mingyao could have made it to Luo Shang safely otherwise.

After setting Su Mingyao down, the helicopter lifted off again without a moment’s delay, vanishing into the night sky.

Su Mingyao settled into the driver’s seat and drew a deep breath.

It was a solitary tightrope walk, a lone journey down the great path.

Make it across, and dawn would break. Fail, and it was straight into the Abyss.

Before, the omens of the world’s end had been abstract concepts. Now, they had taken solid form as the Heavenly Curtain—a crushing weight bearing down on his shoulders.

He flicked on the radio, letting sound fill the oppressive silence of the night.

Could he persuade Luo Shang?

Even Su Mingyao had no certainty.

But he had to try. Otherwise, there would be no chance of survival at all.

“Ants building a tower… Dust grander than planets…”

With the song echoing through the car, the Heavenly Curtain loomed perilously behind him. The giant fish bore the Deep Sea in its wake, threatening to upend the entire world. Su Mingyao slammed his foot on the accelerator and sped toward Luo Shang.