80: One shot shatters the city! The ark crashes, the old king collapses, and the new king... refuses to ascend the throne!

The pillar of eerie blue light five kilometers away was like a cigarette butt God had casually stubbed out against the night sky.

It burned through Jinling Sky City's fragile window paper known as "Order" without any resistance.

In the Mutual Aid Society's executive lounge on the eighty-eighth floor of the skyscraper, the crystal chandelier was still swaying slightly from the aftershock.

Several high-ranking elders, who had been raising their glasses while waiting for the execution results...

...now had expressions that looked as if they had been instantly injected with liquid nitrogen, frozen into grotesque and terrified wax figures.

They watched helplessly as the vessel outside the window, representing the Ark's supreme military power...

...the "judgment-class" Aerial Gunship they regarded as the mount of a god and an invincible force...

...disintegrated in mid-air within that terrifying blue-white light pillar, as fragile as a plastic model crushed by a naughty child.

There was no dogfight, no counterattack, and not even time to deploy a defense field. It took only a single strike.

Then, the delayed sonic boom, carrying a physical shockwave, struck the building's glass curtain wall like a heavy hammer.

“Crash—!”

Even the specially reinforced bulletproof and windproof glass groaned under the weight of such close-range destructive energy.

Cracks spread frantically like a spiderweb before exploding into countless shimmering shards.

“It's... it's falling!!”

Someone let out a distorted scream, tearing through the dead silence.

That mass of burning steel wreckage, trailing a hundred meters of black smoke and flames and carrying tons of unexploded ammunition...

...fell like a dying meteor, irrevocably plummeting toward the densely populated residential area below the building.

“Boom—!!!”

A massive tremor surged through the steel foundations up to the sky, and the entire building shook violently.

Famous wines in the cabinet crashed to the floor, expensive Bordeaux mixing with sharp glass shards as they flowed across the precious Persian carpet.

The dark red liquid spread quickly, looking very much like the blood spreading in everyone's hearts at this moment.

“It's over... what kind of monster did that idiot Golden Tooth provoke?!”

A pot-bellied elder crawled out from under a sofa in a pathetic state.

He didn't even bother to wipe away the blood from the glass cut on his forehead.

Blood blurred his vision, and his voice was filled with hysterical fear.

Even an aerial fortress like that had been blasted into dust with a single shot.

What were they, mere mortals hiding in a building?

That was a power that could vaporize them in an instant!

“Run! To the rooftop helipad!”

“The backup helicopter! Tell the pilot to warm up the engine! No matter where we go, just get out of here first!”

Fear instantly shattered the final dignity of these so-called "high-society" people.

The powerful figures who had been laughing, chatting, and discussing world affairs just a second ago were now like headless flies in a disturbed nest.

They pushed and cursed.

Someone even kicked away their female companion who was in the way, stepping over others' bodies to rush frantically toward the emergency stairwell leading to the roof.

Under the shadow of death, the strict hierarchies and hypocritical etiquette of daily life vanished without a trace.

On the rooftop helipad, the storm lashed their faces like a whip, and cold rain mixed with soot made it impossible to keep their eyes open.

The rotors of a pitch-black civilian helicopter had just begun to accelerate, emitting a piercing whine.

Before the rotation speed reached takeoff standards, the cabin door was blocked by a crowd rushing forward in a frenzy.

“Let me on! I'm the Vice President!

I have priority evacuation rights!”

“Get lost! I have a special Ark pass! Take me with you!”

“Bang! Bang!”

Two gunshots rang out clearly in the thunderous night.

The fat elder who had been the first to rush onto the aircraft held a gold-plated pistol with a savage expression, smoke still rising from the barrel.

In the puddles at his feet, two subordinates who had tried to grab onto the landing gear lay in pools of blood, their bodies still twitching instinctively.

“Take off! Take off now! Or I'll kill you!”

The fat man pressed the scorching barrel hard against the back of the pilot's head.

His eyes bulged, bloodshot, and he spat in the pilot's face as he spoke.

Amidst the roar of the engine, the helicopter wobbled as it forced itself off the ground.

Before the cabin door was even fully closed, it dove into the pitch-black rainy night, fleeing frantically away from the river.

Through the porthole, the fat elder took one last look below.

The Floating City, where he had once lorded over others, was now half-engulfed in a sea of fire.

The crashed gunship had ignited the dense slums, and countless flames flickered in the darkness like many mouths opening in hell.

And above that chaos and destruction...

...within the ruins of the ninety-ninth-floor Cloudtop...

...it felt as if a pair of cold eyes were staring indifferently at their escape through the layers of rain.

He shuddered, pulled the sunshade shut tightly, and huddled in the corner of his seat, not daring to look back again.

Their kingdom had collapsed... The roar of the helicopter quickly faded, eventually disappearing into the rolling thunder.

Jiang Ran withdrew his gaze, his expression showing no emotion, and turned toward the elevator door he had violently breached.

Although the building's main power system was still paralyzed...

...under the faint red glow of the emergency power supply...

...this mandatory path to the ground seemed exceptionally eerie and dark, like an esophagus leading to a beast's belly.

“Let's take the stairs.”

Jiang Ran glanced at the elevator car stuck between floors and spoke to Su Qingyu behind him.

Su Qingyu was carrying the heavy tactical backpack—

...inside were all the core materials (blueprints, chips, rare metals) scavenged from Golden Tooth's vault.

She nodded, her dagger still held in a reverse-grip defensive stance, her knuckles slightly white from the force.

However, the moment they pushed open the fire door to the stairwell, both of them stopped.

There was no expected ambush, nor a hail of bullets.

Below the dim, narrow spiral staircase, which reeked of dust and mold, was a deathly silence.

Then, a creepy rustling sound came from the darkness below.

It sounded like countless rats crawling in pipes, scraping against the rough walls.

The emergency light flickered with a sizzle.

By that momentary pale light, Jiang Ran saw the scene below.

It was people.

Densely packed, layered upon layered people.

The Tanka and slaves who usually could only huddle in iron cages at the bottom of the building, living like cockroaches...

...were now surging up these upper-level stairs, which had once been a forbidden zone for them, like a tide due to the paralyzed security system.

They were half-naked, their skin covered in black oil and festering sores.

They were as thin as walking skeletons, emitting a nauseating sour stench.

Hundreds of pairs of cloudy, numb eyes...

...which were now burning with some kind of fanatical flame, stared fixedly at Jiang Ran standing above.

They had seen that blue light piercing through heaven and earth.

They had seen how the usually aloof and invincible "Ark God" had turned into a pile of scrap metal and fallen to the mortal world.

For these people who had lived in the building's shadow their whole lives and had rarely seen the sun, that wasn't technology; it was a miracle.

“Thud.”

The old man at the front, his knees going weak, knelt heavily on the hard concrete steps.

This was like a signal.

Then, like falling dominoes, the crowd packed tightly on the stairs knelt down section by section.

There were no cheers, no applause.

Only the muffled "thud-thud" of foreheads hitting the ground echoed in the silent stairwell, sounding exceptionally eerie and heavy.

“Savior...”

A thin woman holding a child tremblingly reached out a hand as withered as a tree branch toward Jiang Ran, her voice as raspy as sandpaper rubbing against a table:

“You killed the demon... you are the new king... Please, give us a bite to eat...”

“Take us with you! We can work! Just don't kill us!”

“We want to follow you! Kill all those man-eating Mutual Aid Society members!”

The fanatical whispers gradually merged into a wave of sound, echoing in the narrow space.

Those looks were no longer directed at a person, but at a clay idol that could grant them food and safety.

Someone even tried to crawl over, wanting to kiss Jiang Ran's mud-stained tactical boots.

As if just being tainted by this powerful man's aura would allow them to live another day in this apocalypse.

Facing this tsunami of worship and pleas...

...not a hint of emotion appeared on Jiang Ran's face, and he didn't even pause his steps.

His brow furrowed slightly; it wasn't pity, but an instinctive disgust at seeing a nuisance and a burden.

“Move.”

Jiang Ran's voice wasn't loud, but it was as cold as a blade scraping bone, instantly cutting through the noisy wave of sound.

The man who had tried to grab his leg froze, looked up, and met a pair of black eyes devoid of any warmth.

There was no mercy or pity in those eyes, only a high-and-mighty, absolute indifference to the survival laws of the weak.

“I am not your Savior.”

Jiang Ran raised his foot and unceremoniously pushed aside the person blocking his way with his gun stock, his movements as brusque as clearing away a pile of weeds:

“And I have no interest in being your babysitter.”

“Golden Tooth is dead, and the Ark is gone.

The doors to the supply depots here are already open.”

Jiang Ran pointed to the open warehouse doors downstairs, his tone carrying a hint of mocking coldness:

“If you want to survive, go rob and kill for it yourselves.

That's your own life; don't expect someone else to carry it for you.”

Having said that, he ignored the stunned crowd.

Taking Su Qingyu with him, he forced a path through the kneeling crowd like a sharp blade cutting through butter.

No one dared to stop him.

Even though he had refused to be their king...

...the murderous aura he carried from just slaughtering a "god," along with the gun barrel still dripping with rainwater, still made everyone instinctively feel dread.

On this dim staircase leading to the ground...

Jiang Ran was like a passing God of Death; even surrounded by believers, he only cared about the sharpness of his scythe.

As for the life, death, and faith of these ants?

What did it have to do with him?