The Dawn of the New World

Anywhere where humans and Orcs lived had been bombarded with so many weapons of war over the six or so centuries that their civilization had managed to drag itself along for that, now, the entire land had turned into one giant swamp.

There was not a single piece of land solid enough to support Hao Xuan's weight, forcing him to continuously run over patches of black quicksand and hidden whirlpools.

Bringing the floodlight proved to be the right choice as well since without it Hao Xuan would have had to move at a snail's pace and even then it would have been extraordinarily dangerous.

Although there were no living beings present to get in his way, the terrain proved to be more than deadly enough on its own. There were some areas that he couldn't even get close to because the rampant energies were so strong there.

These areas were like little mini black zones that rendered all sensory methods ineffective. And perhaps the most baffling aspect was not their existence but the fact that they were still expanding.

Hao Xuan paused momentarily outside one of these zones and noticed the boundary subtly drawing more to the east...from where he was coming from. Just as he started moving again a faint ping sounded in his ears.

*beep*

An automatic notification popped on the side but it disappeared before he could even take a look at it.

"What was that?" he inquired curiously, this had never happened before.

"Some of the settlement sensors accidentally got patched through to the host's neural network during the system update. That was one of the proximity sensors going off. I have removed the connection as it does not appear to be important," Baracus explained but despite that being exactly what Hao Xuan would have wanted himself, he could not help but wonder what had triggered it.

"Why is it not important? If a proximity sensor has been triggered, doesn't that mean there could be someone or something nearby?"

"Unlikely. Over the last 350 years, various proximity sensors have gone off on an average of 7 times a day at random. The exact cause remains unknown and requires a more in-depth study but it has been deemed irrelevant given the current circumstances."

"Hmm, as long as it's nothing serious. I still want to go back and pick up as many things as we can. Especially that strange cube. What was that?"

"Records indicate that it was an experimental energy source that the overseer unit had created sometime during the first World War. The exact details appeared to have been voluntarily erased."

"They were deleted? Why?"

"The overseer unit was under the impression that the Orc named Lucious was after the blueprints. After the initial prototype was created all related data was expunged so as not to let it fall into the wrong hands."

"Is...it really that impressive? I got a strange feeling when I was looking at it earlier but didn't know how exactly to put it into words. It felt almost alive in a sense."

"Unable to answer. Not enough data. Once the prototype has been properly secured and moved into the storage space more accurate figures can be extrapolated after proper experimentation."

"Guess I will have to come back then..."

**

After almost four hours of continuous running and dodging various anomalies the terrain slowly began to change. The ground became solid and the miasma was barely present in the surroundings anymore but for some strange reason, the visual range was reduced even more now.

Nothing outside of 5 meters was visible, even with the floodlight directly positioned forward.

Hao Xuan came to a gradual halt to examine this new environment in a little more detail. There were loose rocks and pebbles at every step and if he had to guess based on what little was visible, there was really only one conclusion.

"Feels like a mountain...or desert maybe?"

He bent down to feel the earth and picked up a couple of pebbles on the way up. He threw the first one in a straight line with nearly half his strength.

It shot forward like a bullet but as soon as it was out of the range of the floodlight Hao Xuan could hear slow and weakly hit the ground a second later.

He tossed the second pebble lightly and noticed that it traveled almost the same exact distance as the first one outside the range of the light.

An uneasy feeling began to creep up his spine as if something was terribly wrong here. He slowly extended his thumb over the top of the floodlight and pressed down, turning it off.

*WHOOOOSH*

The entire world turned upside down in an instant. Hao Xuan felt like he was standing in the middle of a blizzard because a torrent of cold piercing air was slamming against him with full force. The force of gravity shifted more than five times bringing him to his knees.