Apocalypse Survival: Starting with a Shelter

Clicking open the newly built three-dimensional parking lot on the ground level, Su Wu's gaze swept over the rows of recently produced second-generation Heavy Main Battle Spider Robots parked inside. There were even more various models of Combat Drones, as well as the massive Pioneer-class Land Destroyer, which had to be stored separately due to its size. Finally, his eyes rested on the nearly completed Doomsday-Class Land Cruiser, which only needed a few more components to be ready.

These were all the formidable forces currently under Su Wu's control. Relying on them, even if the entire surface were occupied by the Amethyst Crystal Entities, Su Wu was confident he could carve out a safe passage, ensuring that the majority of the population and resources under his control could be smoothly transferred into the Farmhouse Shelter.

"Next," Su Wu thought, "perhaps it will be the full collision of two civilizations—"

Two hours later, at a subsidiary shelter district on the outskirts of Chongzhou City, underground level three.

Several well-dressed men and women, chatting and laughing, entered a room filled with rows of green plants. This was a place in Chongzhou known as a natural oxygen bar, where people could get close to fresh green plants and enjoy air that was relatively fresher compared to the generally stifling environment of the shelter.

"Isn't this place nice?" Huang Haihua modestly boasted to his companions about his choice of location. The C-level viewing room of the main shelter, which ranked quite high in the evaluation system of natural oxygen bars, was also quite expensive. A four-hour ticket cost enough for an ordinary Chongzhou family to live for a month. Even for middle-class individuals like Huang Haihua and his friends, it was a bit of a stretch, a mildly luxurious expense. But here, although the location was a bit remote, the ticket price was nearly a third cheaper. The money that would have only allowed them to visit twice now allowed them to come three times.

"Brother Huang really knows his stuff. Who would have thought such a great place was hidden here?" Qin Jun, Huang Haihua's colleague, felt fortunate to have come along this time. The reason they worked so hard was precisely to enjoy these kinds of privileges that ordinary people couldn't access. With the pricing here, he could come once a month, which was much better than at the main shelter.

"I heard that the public parks in Jianghe City have an environment even better than the top-tier A-level viewing rooms. It would be great if we could go there once," a female colleague said with a longing expression, talking about what she had recently seen online.

"Those parks are indeed beautifully built. I've seen many videos people took there, with flowers from different seasons blooming together to form a sea of flowers. It's a scene that wasn't easy to encounter even before the apocalypse," Huang Haihua nodded in agreement, his eyes also showing a hint of envy.

In Chongzhou, they usually couldn't even touch a single green leaf. If they wanted to see some plants, they had to pay a hefty price to enter a specialized viewing room. But in neighboring Jianghe City, even an ordinary person could easily buy a park ticket that was better than the highest A-level viewing room here. Even when they went out, they could enjoy free oak trees by the roadside. The gap was so large it was almost envy-inducing.

"I wonder how it compares to the Jingzhai Botanical Garden in our upper levels?" Qin Jun's curiosity was piqued. The Jingzhai Botanical Garden was a mysterious place for most residents of Chongzhou's shelters, existing only in word-of-mouth tales. It was said to be a private leisure spot exclusively for the high-ranking officials of the shelter. Ordinary people couldn't even get a glimpse of it, let alone know its exact location or what was inside.

"It probably can't compare. One is a private place for the big shots, and the other is a public park that ordinary people can visit anytime. Just think about it, the former must be more high-end," one of Huang Haihua's colleagues said.

"That's not necessarily true. The public park in Jianghe City covers an area equivalent to three Disneylands combined, and it's said to still be expanding. Even if the Jingzhai Botanical Garden is more expensively built, it's unlikely to surpass that," another colleague argued.

As they continued to debate, each of them developed a sense of longing to some extent.

"If only the journey wasn't so dangerous, I'd really like to go and see it," Qin Jun sighed and shook his head.

The distance between Chongzhou and Jianghe City was only a little over 300 kilometers, almost like neighbors in the pre-apocalyptic era. But now, it was an insurmountable chasm that they might never cross in their lifetimes.

Just as they were all feeling a bit regretful, a noticeable tremor suddenly came from beneath their feet.

"Earthquake! Be careful not to fall," Huang Haihua grabbed the railing in front of him and warned the others.

In fact, there was no need for him to remind them. The others also calmly found places to steady themselves, even continuing their earlier conversation. Since the apocalypse began, such tremors hadn't stopped. They happened every two to three days at the shortest, and at most, not more than a week or so apart. As residents of Chongzhou's underground shelter, Huang Haihua and his friends were used to this routine. No matter how fierce the commotion outside, it wouldn't really cause them any substantial harm. It was just like sailing through a storm on a ship.

However, this time, the tremor seemed unusually prolonged. A few minutes after the earthquake started, with a crack, a terrifying fissure suddenly spread open behind a row of plant racks. Then, in the next moment, a flood of rubble and mud surged out from the fissure. In just a few seconds, it buried half of a male colleague standing nearby.

Qin Jun, who was standing not far from him, was about to lend a hand to help the man climb out when he saw a cluster of dense, blood-red threads suddenly emerge from the pile of dirt. The threads quickly wrapped around the man, tightly entangling him. Qin Jun was so frightened that he immediately stopped in his tracks. Then, to his horror, he saw the man's body rapidly shrivel up. In less than a few seconds, he turned into a mummified corpse, as if he had been desiccated for hundreds of years.

"What the hell is this?" Qin Jun's mouth hung open, his legs feeling weak, barely able to stand. After half a second of dazed confusion, his mind suddenly cleared, and he immediately turned to try to escape.

But by then, it was already a bit too late. The blood-red threads, having just finished digesting their first prey, almost instantly locked onto Qin Jun, who was the closest. Before he could run more than two meters, the threads wrapped around his legs, tripping him to the ground. Then, they continued to climb up his body.

The fate of the two unlucky men made everyone else in the viewing room dare not stay any longer. They all began to desperately rush towards the exit. Huang Haihua, who was the farthest away, was fortunate enough to be the first to run out the door. After him, aside from a few faint screams of terror from women, there was no other sound. It was as if the viewing room had become a bottomless abyss that devoured everything.

Not daring to waste time looking back, Huang Haihua stumbled through the corridor and arrived at the lobby outside. The lobby, which served as a restaurant, bar, and leisure area, was bustling with people. Most of them had relaxed expressions, chatting and laughing with each other. This scene, which looked no different from usual, made Huang Haihua feel as if he had escaped from hell to a peaceful paradise. A sense of relief at having survived surged in his heart.

He subconsciously straightened his appearance, not wanting to seem too out of place in the eyes of others. Then, just as he was about to seek help from a nearby staff member, he suddenly noticed that some people were shifting their gazes to behind him. Their expressions gradually turned to terror.

His body stiffened slightly, and before the ominous thought in his head could fully form, he lost consciousness.

A dozen minutes later, sharp alarm sirens began to echo through parts of Chongzhou's shelter. Large numbers of armed personnel, having received emergency orders, began to load live ammunition.

At the same time, Su Wu, far away in the Farmhouse Shelter of Jianghe City, also received the intelligence sent from Chongzhou. Their shelter had been invaded by the Amethyst Crystal Entities.

"So soon?" Although he had been mentally prepared, the fact that it had turned from a possibility into reality in just a few hours still slightly surprised Su Wu.

He clicked open the on-site video that had been sent along with the intelligence. The initial outbreak of the invasion had occurred in a residential area of a subsidiary shelter in Chongzhou. From the start of the invasion to the complete destruction of the entire residential area, with thousands of people killed, it had taken only 4 minutes and 11 seconds. The efficiency was almost comparable to a full-fledged Combat Drone Swarm.

"Humans, without weapons, are completely powerless against the Amethyst Crystal Entities at close range," Su Wu muttered to himself as he carefully observed the video. He saw strong, adult men wielding fire axes, chairs, steel pipes, and other objects, trying to cut through the approaching blood-red threads. But in the end, it was all in vain. They couldn't even delay the inevitable by a few seconds.

Su Wu's brows furrowed slightly. This kind of one-sided massacre was not the scene he wanted to see.

After quickly watching all the videos at 5x speed, Su Wu pondered for a moment. He then used the artificial intelligence on the control console to run a simulation. The results showed that the same invasion method would be difficult to replicate here. Given the thickness of the Farmhouse Shelter's outer walls, even a magnitude 9 or higher earthquake would almost certainly not be able to tear it apart. The only way for the Amethyst Crystal Entities to enter the Farmhouse Shelter would be to attack head-on.

"Theoretically, that's the case. But just to be safe, perhaps we should consider further reinforcing the isolation walls and adding a few more buffer isolation zones," Su Wu thought to himself.

In the Farmhouse Shelter, there were already quite a few isolation zones and isolation walls. But these were originally built to prevent virus outbreaks. Their physical protection strength, compared to the outer walls, wasn't particularly outstanding. According to Su Wu's vision, it would be best to increase the thickness of these existing isolation walls and deploy some defense weapons suitable for use inside the shelter.

After carefully reviewing the shelter's defense system, Su Wu finally had time to continue paying attention to the situation in Chongzhou. In this short period, what had happened in Chongzhou had already caused an uproar across the entire internet.

Unlike the one-sided slaughter videos of Amethyst Crystal Entities that Su Wu had previously released, this time, what was uploaded to the internet was a scene of humans being massacred. Moreover, it had happened in Chongzhou, one of the super cities of East Continent that everyone was familiar with. In the face of such a bloody example, all past fantasies and wishful thinking could no longer be sustained. People had to consider a reality: if a massacre by the Amethyst Crystal Entities could happen in Chongzhou, which was 300 kilometers away from Jianghe City, then why couldn't it happen elsewhere?

More and more people began to anxiously worry about the safety of their own shelters, praying that they wouldn't be the next unlucky ones.

Unlike them, who could only speculate, Su Wu, who had firsthand intelligence from Chongzhou, knew that the next shelter to be attacked would likely appear within a few hours, and it would be within a few dozen kilometers north of Chongzhou. This was because the surveillance cameras Chongzhou had placed on the surface had captured footage of a flying Amethyst Crystal Entity taking to the air and disappearing to the north.

"Maybe I should intervene a bit. See if I can save them," Su Wu hesitated for a few seconds, then dispatched several sixth-generation fighter jets to track in the direction captured in the video.

After all, those were valuable tools that could continuously produce Spirituality. If possible, it was best to save as many as he could.

However, Su Wu also knew that this was just going through the motions. With the spread of the Amethyst Crystal Entities already a fact, it wouldn't be long before he would be overwhelmed and unable to rescue everyone. And the entire human population of the East Continent would face a crisis of drastic population reduction.

After browsing through all the intelligence, Su Wu stood up. He left the control console and went to the metal platform nearby, switching the projection to strategic mode. Instantly, countless slowly flashing and moving green markers began to appear on the entire East Continent map. These represented all the regions and armed forces currently under Su Wu's control.

Next, he needed to readjust these areas. Which ones needed to be heavily defended, and which ones could be abandoned at critical moments—all needed to be planned in advance to minimize potential losses.

"On the surface now, transportation and production efficiency are no longer the primary considerations. Safety is. Without safety, nothing else matters," Su Wu thought.

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