Versatile Mage c1-2021, page 863
"The storm is a little too big," Lingling grabbed herself a chair and sat down beside Mo Fan. She was hugging the warm Little Flame Belle and fondling her like she was a kitten.
"Yeah, it's been a while since I last saw a storm this big," Mo Fan agreed with a nod.
"Something bad is going to happen," Lingling said.
"You mean Feiniao City?" Mo Fan asked.
"I'm not sure, but it's already the third day. Not only is the storm still going, it hasn't shown any signs of weakening," Lingling told him.
"Are you telling me you have a bad feeling about this?" Mo Fan queried promptly.
Lingling did not respond. She was staring at the entrance like a cat with sharp eyes. Someone in a white outfit and a huge black umbrella was approaching them.
"Mo Fan!" The man took the umbrella down, and was promptly drenched in the rain. He spoke immediately, "I'm afraid I'll need to head south."
"Oh? Is it urgent? We still haven't found the guy with the Undead Magic. I don't think it's wise to leave Fanxue Mountain now," Mo Fan answered.
"I don't have a choice, something serious has happened. I am currently the chief of the South Wing Platoon, and I have to go," Mu Bai stated.
"Tell us what's going on first," Mo Fan cajoled him.
"Is it Xiamen?" Lingling lifted her gaze and spoke as if she could predict the future.
Mu Bai gasped, seeming a little surprised. He did not understand how Lingling knew it was Xiamen, since the information was kept confidential.
"Yeah, it's been raining for almost three days. The seawater has already drowned the bridges to Xiamen. The whole city is submerged in water now. The water is over a meter deep in most areas. The rain doesn't seem like it's going to stop, either. The whole island might be drowned eventually from the rain and the seawater..." Mu Bai confirmed.
The South Wing Platoon had only received a warning, but judging from the current state of things, Xiamen might become an important breakthrough point for the sea monsters. Many divisions were assigned to stand by at Xiamen. The South Wing Platoon was there to provide them with support!
"The city of Xiamen is located on a huge island, so it is also called Xiamen Island. It's connected to the mainland by only a few bridges. The rising sea level has already had quite a huge impact on Xiamen. Luckily, the island's terrain has a slightly higher altitude. It did not end up like the new district in Pudong, but if the storm keeps going..." Lingling explained.
"I just feel like now isn't the best time for us to go anywhere," Mo Fan sighed.
"We can't just hide forever if the guy doesn't show himself, right? If he's really after us, the trip to Xiamen might be a good opportunity to lure him out and get rid of him, so we won't have to stay on our toes," Mu Bai proposed.
"Mm, I do think we shouldn't be so passive. I'll go with you, too. Xiamen… I actually fought there once. Isn't the Donghai Magic Association's headquarters located on Xiamen's Gulangyu?" Mo Fan recalled.
"The Donghai Magic Association is the one asking for help..." Mu Bai trailed off.
They heard footsteps approaching the entrance while they were talking. They sounded like some kind of heavy boots tapping loudly on the pavement.
The three looked toward the entrance and saw a man in a military outfit. He had a tanned face and bright eyes. He initially had a stern look on his face, but his expression shifted as soon as he saw the trio in the garden. It was replaced with an excited grin.
"Brother Fan!" Zhang Xiaohou's voice pierced through the curtain of rain.
"Houzi, why are you here? Isn't the situation at the Qinling Mountains getting serious?" Mo Fan was surprised when he saw Zhang Xiaohou hurrying toward him.
"It's serious, but our troop just received a higher priority order, assigning us south to Xiamen! Our aircraft was surprised by the storm an hour ago. We were struggling to fly south any further, so we were forced to land in Feiniao City. I came to visit you since the plane won't be taking off for another hour or so.
"By the way, Brother Fan, what were the demon birds you brought to the Qinling Mountains? They are strong and fierce, and are seriously picking a fight with the White Magic Falcons, which helped to lift the burden from our shoulders. The White Magic Falcons won't be stirring up trouble anytime soon. I thought we finally had a chance to rest, but something has happened here in the south instead," Zhang Xiaohou half-sighed in exasperation.
"They even called the division posted at the Qinling Mountains over?" Mo Fan blurted out in surprise.
"Perhaps they are really lacking manpower. Many cities along the coastline that are currently experiencing the storm have sounded a Blue Alert. I believe the whole military is busy dispatching troops to the right places. Our troop at the Qinling Mountains happened to be free for the time being," Zhang Xiaohou answered.
"It seems like the situation in Xiamen is pretty serious. It's most likely the sea monsters of the entire Donghai (East Sea) and Nanhai (South Sea) are planning to invade our country through Xiamen," Lingling informed him.
Mo Fan thought Lingling was only speculating about the potential danger that the storm might bring when they were on the plane. To his surprise, a great disaster really was about to occur on the third day of the storm!
Rain, seawater, fierce winds, and stormy clouds… weren't these the sea monsters' favorite? With them, the sea monsters could finally extend their kingdom onto the land. They could finally conquer the human cities they had longed for!
"We are going to Xiamen too. Can you give us a ride? I think all the commercial flights have been canceled," Mo Fan said.
"I can certainly give you a ride if you're going too, but I'm seriously worried about it. It's rare to receive such an urgent order from the authorities." Zhang Xiaohou could feel how serious the situation was.
Chapter 1871 - Dropping from Ten Thousand Meters
Translated by XephiZ
Edited by Aelryinth
The rain did not weaken in the slightest, but the aircraft carrying the soldiers from the Qinling Mountains had no choice but to take off for Xiamen amid the fierce wind and heavy rain. The aircraft almost lost its balance while it was lifting off into the sky and heading for the stratosphere.
The military aircraft was capable of flying at a higher altitude, around fifteen thousand meters. However, one of the reasons why these tropical storms were so terrifying was because they could reach an altitude of almost ten thousand meters, which was pretty rare for a storm.
The black stormy clouds were currently around three thousand meters below the aircraft. It was absolutely terrifying to look down from the plane. Fear immediately arose from one's deepest heart, sending chills down their spines and then their whole body.
The clouds resembled a bottomless black ocean, a great hole that was spinning slowly. Even though the aircraft and the storm were almost five thousand meters apart, the people still had a feeling that the tiny aircraft was being dragged into the storm. The slashing wind, roaring thunder, and ferocious rain had combined into the darkest and scariest nest of devils, and this thing was currently looming over a city along the shore!
Zhang Xiaohou went up to Mo Fan and Zhao Manyan and said with a stern face, "The plane won't be able to land, we'll have to jump!"
"You're kidding me, we are fifteen thousand meters up!..." The expression on Bai Hongfei's face, who happened to be tagging along, stiffened.
"The city is right below us, dropping from the sky is our only way to enter Xiamen," Zhang Xiaohou went on.
The aircraft had no chance of descending through the storm; it would obviously be destroyed. It could only fly over Xiamen and drop them from a height the storm could not reach.
Everyone on the aircraft was prepared for a tough drop. There was no other choice!
"Someone might die if we are dropping from here," Mo Fan glanced at the rest of the Battlemages in their military outfits.
Their cultivations were not particularly outstanding. If they happened to be caught by a fierce wind during the fall, they might not even land in one piece, let alone being able to land safely on the ground!
"There's no other choice. It's an order from the high command. I'll jump first, the rest of you will follow me!" Zhang Xiaohou said. He was referring to the elite Mages he had brought with him.
"Affirmative!"
There were two troops on the plane. One was from the Qinling Division led by Zhang Xiaohou, and the other was from the Hongling Division, which was much larger in terms of men and material. They were also summoned to Xiamen, but their captain was someone different this time.
"Jump!"
"Jump!"
Zhang Xiaohou stood at the exit. He put on a pair of goggles and dove towards the sea of black clouds.
Mo Fan, Mu Bai, Bai Hongfei, Jiang Shaoxu, and Lingling jumped at the same time as Zhang Xiaohou, followed by the hundred elite Mages from the Qinling Division.
The soldiers of the Hongling Division dropped rapidly out the other side too. Over two hundred tiny dots were now scattered across the sky, diving rapidly into the sea of black clouds below.
Lingling was with Mo Fan, hugging Mo Fan tightly like a little octopus. It was obvious that she had never fallen from an altitude of ten thousand meters before. Many Mages would not be able to endure the pressure!
Fortunately, Mo Fan had the Earth Element. He cast a spell and summoned a layer of rock attached to himself and Lingling, reducing the pain caused by air resistance.
The raindrops were dense. Mo Fan and his crew were falling through a curtain of rain while surrounded by darkness. Their vision was extremely limited. For some reason, they had a feeling they were going to smash into the ground soon, as they were unable to maintain their balance while falling rapidly from the sky. They were worried that they might fall to their deaths in the next second!
To their relief, the clouds were not thick enough to cover all the way to the land below. Mo Fan noticed a tall building soaked in water when he was around a thousand meters from the ground. He had to look very closely to see the ground under the water from his current height!
"Has the whole city been flooded? Unbelievable!" Mo Fan blurted out in surprise.
He had been to Xiamen before. He remembered what the city looked like in the past, yet the storm seemed to have merged the city and the ocean. The streets were covered in water, either from the rain or the seawater that was now pouring into the city. The pavements, plazas, parks, and bridges were all submerged… even Venice was not this shocking!
"Pull the chute!" Lingling yelled above the strong wind.
Mo Fan finally realized he was supposed to pull the parachute, but he was a little too slow.
The speed he was falling at was already faster than the wind. He was only a thousand meters above the ground when he saw the city. He could easily cover the distance in the blink of an eye. He was only around four hundred meters above the ground when he collected his thoughts!
The chute opened. Mo Fan immediately felt a strong force almost snap his body in half.
The chute was falling quickly too. It obviously could not overcome the speed that Mo Fan was falling at...
Mo Fan had a bad feeling about it. He decisively used the Shadow Element to adjust his fall.
He went into the shadows, but was forced to reappear. He tried again, but the same thing happened because he was falling too quickly. Mo Fan hugged Lingling and dived into the water when he noticed he was almost at the ground.
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Mo Fan climbed out of the water and carried Lingling onto the roof of a house, sneezing loudly.
The water just reached the window on the second floor, and looked like it was still going to rise further.
"Idiot!" Lingling glanced at her wet shirt and hair and snapped.
"It was a mistake, we were falling too quickly." Mo Fan dried his shirt off with his flames before taking out a huge raincoat and wrapping it around Lingling's petite figure.
"Where are the others?" Lingling hid inside the raincoat and put on a huge helmet. It felt like the huge raindrops beating down were going to crush her.
"They should have landed too, but they might land quite far from us, considering the height we jumped from," Mo Fan said.
Lingling looked around them and noticed they were in a residential area. It was more like a village inside a city. The houses were only ten meters high on average, but water was flowing rapidly everywhere. The second floors were half submerged, only the balconies were still above the water. Many houses that had been built in a simpler manner had turned into debris floating on the water. Lingling also saw dead bodies and people calling for help. The dead bodies floating on the water had become their last straws to clutch at.
"It all happened too quickly," Lingling murmured after observing everything around her.
Chapter 1872 - The Sea Monsters Are Here
Translated by XephiZ
Edited by Aelryinth
Mo Fan had a military communication device with him. He was planning to use it to search for Zhang Xiaohou and the others.
He roughly glanced at the locations of the green dots on the device and noticed everyone had landed in different places in Xiamen.
"Mo Fan, let's go to the bus rapid transit," Lingling pointed at a tall bridge that looked like a highway ahead.
"I'll gather the people nearby first," Mo Fan noticed a few people floating in the water. He grabbed them with his Telekinesis and gathered them on the roof of the building he was standing on.
The people turned out to be from the same family. The water must have broken into their home. They had no choice but to grab a few wooden boards and place their fate in the Heavens' hands. The Heavens had been kind to them by sending Mo Fan from the sky.
"Blink!" Mo Fan teleported everyone to the highway Lingling had pointed to previously.
Mo Fan had to cast Blink twice due to the number of people with him to move everyone onto the bridge.
"This is a very long highway." Mo Fan looked into the distance and noticed he could not see the end of the highway. He had no clue where it was going.
"It's not suitable to build a subway due to Xiamen's geography. The rapid transit for the busses is the equivalent of the subway in the Magic City here. It goes from the south to the north through the city with a few routes. Most of the roads are submerged now, so the rapid transit, which is twenty meters above the ground, is the only clear path left." Lingling had obviously done some homework before coming here. She was very familiar with the situation, even though it was her first time in Xiamen.
Mo Fan did not spend a long time in Xiamen the last time he came to the city. He assumed the spacious bridge was some kind of a highway. Now that he took a closer look at it, he realized the bridge was indeed sturdier and wider than usual highways. Even the pillars were a lot thicker. Its height was double of a normal highway, actually around the height of the fourth floor of the buildings nearby!
Currently, the combination of seawater and rainwater had reached the first floor of most buildings. Only the roofs of two-story houses were still above the water. The rapid transit highway was obviously the safest place people could move freely, since the water was around ten meters below it.
The huge rainstorm had come so quickly. The people in the city were still living a normal life two days ago. They were quite used to tropical storms , but the rain soon drowned the streets and the roads became a swamp before they realized what was happening. They had no choice but to stay on the roofs and watched the ground floor get flooded.
Floods were quite common in the southern cities. Every ten years or so there would be a flood where the ground floors of the houses would turn into pools. They thought the water would fall on the second day after they moved up to the first floor, but the storm never stopped. The ground floor was completely drowned and began to rise to the first floor. Some houses were even swept away by the current!
As Lingling had mentioned, it had all happened so quickly. Even if the government had long given out warnings, many people had assumed it to be the typical flood they had encountered in the past. They only realized the city had turned into an ocean when the storm hit them in the face. The water even destroyed the dam and went a few meters higher!
By the time everyone realized what was going on, the city was already drowned in seawater. As they glanced across the water, they saw the rapid currents carrying corpses, broken trees, and metal sheets away. The taller buildings were like isolated rafts carrying many survivors. They were standing close to the windows, observing the unfamiliar city in fear.
The civilians were stranded in buildings surrounded by deep waters.
On the other hand, the people on the highway had plenty of space to move around, yet they were constantly in the storm and strong winds in the open. Their faces and lips were pale from the cold.
"Lingling, does the rapid transit route reach the mainland?" Mo Fan asked indifferently.
Xiamen was different from most cities along the coastline because the city was located on an island, while other cities were on a peninsula or a bay. When the huge storm came, the bridges connecting the island and the mainland were no longer accessible. Xiamen and its people were now completely surrounded by water.
Mo Fan now understood why the situation was such an emergency. Many places had gone through disasters, but the government could at least evacuate the people to safety by moving them where the seawater could not reach. Unfortunately, Xiamen was stranded by the seawater. The civilians had nowhere to escape to. The tall buildings and highways had become their only shelters!
"Sea monster! It's a sea monster!" someone screamed all of a sudden.
Lingling was holding a map in her hands to point out the routes of the rapid transit system to Mo Fan, but she immediately put it away when she heard the cry.
The cry scared everyone that was hiding from the storm at a station.
The stations had awnings to provide the people with temporary relief from the storm. It was very crowded with people. They had no idea where to go when they heard the scream. They started screaming too!
