"For heaven's sake, it's August 2013! The whole 2012 doomsday myth has already been debunked. Who would still believe such ridiculous apocalyptic prophecies?"
"Li Jiayu, have you lost your mind?"
"Is this some kind of pathetic joke? Do you take us all for fools?"
"Talking about spatial tremors and parallel dimensions—honestly, have you been reading too much fantasy?"
His classmates erupted in laughter, dismissing Li Jiayu's words as nothing more than a ludicrous attempt to gain attention. Throughout history, doomsday predictions had been as numerous as fallen leaves, each one eventually exposed as false—especially after entering 2013, when people regarded such prophecies with outright scorn. Believing them was seen as the height of foolishness.
"Li Jiayu, stop this nonsense. Look outside—the sky is clear, the weather is beautiful. How could the world possibly be ending now?"
Sun Weiwei let out a derisive snort, pointing toward the window. Beyond the glass, the sky was a pristine blue, dotted with leisurely clouds. The campus lay serene before them, students laughing on the pathways, couples strolling hand in hand.
Li Jiayu approached the window, inhaling deeply, greedily breathing in the fresh air. He gazed into the distance, as if etching this final moment of peace into his heart. Watching his carefree, blissfully unaware classmates, visions of their gruesome deaths flashed before his eyes. His chest tightened with anguish, and he spoke hoarsely:
"Just wait, my friends. What is about to happen will terrify you to your core. If you survive, this moment will be seared into your memory forever."
Indeed, anyone who lived through the bloody cataclysm of the apocalypse would remember the exact second the world ended—down to the very tick of the clock.
August 29, 2013, 4:33:49 PM.
Li Jiayu remembered clearly: at that precise moment, unprecedented disasters erupted simultaneously across the globe. Violent tectonic shifts triggered a chain reaction of volcanic eruptions, mudslides, landslides, collapses, storms, floods, and tsunamis.
Countless cities were obliterated by earthquakes and tidal waves; the number of lives lost to natural calamities was beyond calculation.
Yet, Li Jiayu believed that those who perished in the initial disasters might have been the fortunate ones.
For the survivors would face far more horrifying threats, living each day in terror and despair, their existences worse than death.
In the first wave of attacks by otherworldly races alone, the death toll exceeded a billion.
Some would have Bloodsuck Insects burrow into their veins, gnawing them from within...
Others would have Soul Devourers crack open their skulls to feast on their brains...
Some would be wrapped in cocoons by Stench Spiders, their bodies dissolving into pulp...
Still others would be decapitated by Scythe Beetles, their skulls turned into nests for eggs...
A horrific tide of insectoids would unleash a massacre of unimaginable cruelty upon Earth.
Human warfare was often called brutal, but compared to the slaughter wrought by the insectoids, it would seem as gentle as a mother cat.
And yet, the insectoids were among the weakest of the races invading Earth. From the abyssal realms came zombies, the undead, skeletons, wraiths—countless non-living entities defying all scientific explanation.
The dawn of the apocalypse would also mark a new direction for a world once dominated by technology...
"Now, cover your ears. A thunderclap will soon deafen you."
"Who would believe you? Oh, the time is almost up. Five... four... three... two... one. See? Nothing happ—"
A classmate who had been taunting Li Jiayu stared at his phone, counting down aloud. But before he could finish the word "happened," an earsplitting thunderclap exploded without warning.
**BOOM**
The sound was deafening, rattling the windowpanes and sending sharp pain through their eardrums.
"Ah—!"
Unprepared, the girls clapped their hands over their ears. Some turned pale, screaming at the top of their lungs, their shrill cries piercing the air.
"It's... a bolt from the blue..."
The male students stared dumbfounded at Li Jiayu, who remained as composed—and burdened—as before. How had he known?
A blind cat stumbling upon a dead mouse?
Surely it couldn't be mere coincidence.
A sunlit thunderclap was rare enough; one this loud was rarer still. For Li Jiayu to have predicted it a second in advance was utterly uncanny. It was impossible not to view him differently now.
Unconsciously, a sense of dread began to creep into many of his classmates' hearts, along with a growing, uneasy premonition.
"Damn, have you mastered divination or something? How did you predict that? Are you really some kind of cultivator? Take me as your disciple!" one student joked.
"I have no time for jokes... Just wait. In two minutes, the sky will be blotted out by dense black clouds... Or try making a call now—see if you still have a signal."
With that, Li Jiayu turned and walked toward the classroom door. Sun Weiwei, flustered, called after him:
"Where are you going? Running away after spouting nonsense? The class meeting isn't over..."
Li Jiayu didn't look back. Clenching his fists, he felt a faint surge of battlelust. "To get a weapon!" he said as he walked.
"What?"
"A fire axe!"
"Are you insane? Taking the fire axe from the hallway will get you disciplined!"
"No time for this. Worry about yourselves first."
As Li Jiayu stepped out, Sun Weiwei moved to follow, but then she heard Qiao Nana's voice behind her: "My phone really has no signal."
Jiang Linchuan added:
"Mine too. The signal's gone."
One by one, the students checked their phones—all of them had lost service.
Now, Sun Weiwei began to panic. The thunderclap alone could have been a coincidence, but Li Jiayu predicting the signal loss? That was no accident. It had to be intentional.
"How... how did he know? Could it be that he wasn't joking after all?"
It wasn't just Sun Weiwei; every girl in the class felt a chill, their scalps prickling with fear.
"Everyone, stay calm! Signal outages happen all the time. We're used to it. Don't take Li Jiayu's words seriously—he must have taken the wrong medicine today. Let's not join his madness..."
A male student who didn't get along with Li Jiayu spoke up, but he quickly fell silent as he saw dark clouds gathering with impossible speed outside the window.
**RUMBLE**
The class crowded by the windows, staring in stunned silence as the clouds churned and converged. At first, they thought it was just an unusually fierce thunderstorm, but soon they realized something was wrong. The clouds were rolling and coalescing far too quickly—unnaturally fast, as if materializing from nothing.
Within a minute, the sky was roaring with thunder. Darkness fell rapidly as the sun vanished behind the encroaching gloom. The air grew cold, and a biting wind swept through, carrying a distinct chill.
"This... how did it get so dark so fast? Where did these clouds come from?... Oh my god, Li Jiayu said it would be overcast in two minutes..."
As they watched the boiling, spreading darkness, the entire class was struck dumb. The more timid girls trembled uncontrollably. By now, they no longer dared to doubt Li Jiayu's words—or rather, they lacked the courage to do so.
"It's fine... it's fine, what are you all worried about? Li Jiayu said the apocalypse would start with a blackout, all electronics failing. Look, the classroom computer is still on, our phones are still lit..."
Sun Weiwei tried to reassure everyone, but before she could finish, the classroom computer emitted a sharp "beep" and shut down, its fan whirring to a halt. Every student's phone screen went black simultaneously.
At the same moment, Sun Weiwei felt a wave of frigid energy sweep through her body, piercing to the bone as if freezing her marrow. Her mind reeled as if bombarded by dozens of explosions, buzzing and ringing. For an instant, she felt as though she were dying.
Fortunately, the energy vanished as quickly as it came. Sun Weiwei was the first to regain her senses, but she found cold sweat beading on her forehead and an indescribable weariness weighing her down.
"Ah, what was that? It felt like an electric shock!"
"I could barely breathe... like someone was choking me."
Everyone gasped for air as if they had just surfaced from deep water. Some stumbled, collapsing to the floor.
A few boys with weaker constitutions suffered nosebleeds from the energy surge—blood streaming down their chins, staining their collars a vivid crimson.
"Ah, I wet myself... I was so scared I lost control..."
Of the thirteen girls in the class, five had urinated in fright. Standing there, they had wet their white underwear, the warmth trickling down their smooth thighs...
Soiling their skirts and stockings in front of everyone filled the already shy girls with mortification. Their faces flushed scarlet, they nearly burst into tears.
To make matters worse, their damp underwear clung uncomfortably to their skin. If not for their weak, trembling legs, they would have fled to the restroom in shame.
But at a time like this, it hardly mattered. The boys weren't laughing—their minds were clouded by a spreading, unspoken terror...
One boy stared in horror at his blackened phone, his voice trembling:
"The cosmic storm!"
"It's the cosmic storm Li Jiayu warned us about! That energy that swept through us just now—it was the cosmic storm! It paralyzed all the electronics..."
"We're finished... even the emergency lights won't turn on..."
"Everything Li Jiayu said... it's all coming true..."
They exchanged terrified glances, their blood running cold.
Outside, black clouds churned across the sky, plunging the world into gloom. A fierce wind howled, whipping up dust and debris. The world had turned a uniform, ashen gray.
A flash of lightning the darkness, illuminating the desolate earth in a stark, blinding whiteness.