98: Chapter 98 Humanity's Response

Facing all of this, the interior of the Xia Kingdom instead presented a strange sense of stability.

The central city clusters of the Xia Kingdom had long been completed.

Streets, buildings, utility networks, and storage Systems had all been laid out in advance with reserves several times beyond conventional standards.

From north to south, new cities crouched upon the land.

Seismic resistance standards were written into the stress values of every steel bar, and the depth of the underground bunkers far exceeded any civil specifications.

Populations in seismic zones and coastal areas began to migrate in batches.

Looking down from high altitude, Chen Mo could see streams of people like slowly moving creeks, converging from the southeast and coastal directions toward the center.

Their speed was not fast, but they were always moving.

The total amount of food stored by the Xia Kingdom for this disaster was enough for the entire nation to consume for over five years.

Five years of reserves corresponded to unknown, ongoing changes.

Once the data was confirmed, it was locked into action orders without a single extra word of discussion.

Above the Xia Kingdom. In the low-orbit region.

Several large communication relay satellites, along with backup constellations, were sent into orbit in batches within a few weeks.

Ground stations completed their final debugging.

Communication redundancy was increased to over three times in advance, so even if half the antennas failed during the disaster, the information chain still had backup paths to follow.

Ground base stations and data centers simultaneously completed reinforcement and relocation.

Every country was doing the same thing.

Facing the three-month countdown, even the most cumbersome bureaucratic Systems had to react.

After the Spiritual Energy Revival, the productivity of all countries had increased significantly, which became the foundational support for all disaster response projects during these three months.

Resettlement quotas allocated jointly by multiple countries were implemented simultaneously; although the response capabilities of various countries were uneven, viewed globally, the international coordination mechanism had basically started running.

However, there were ultimately discrepancies between countries.

Some countries could build seismic-resistant city clusters capable of accommodating new populations.

Other countries could only ensure civilians evacuated from the most dangerous fault zones, living in transitional housing built from temporary panels.

These gaps were bridged as much as possible by humanitarian aid, but they existed nonetheless.

The populations of all coastal cities were migrating inland.

The threat of tsunamis was too clear, even if the earthquakes caused by the expansion of Blue Star did not directly tear apart the coastline.

The displacement of water bodies caused by large-scale changes in the seabed topography alone was enough to generate giant waves hundreds of meters high.

All humanity could do was move to higher ground, move inland, and move to places far away from the coastline.

All these efforts were a race against time.

And all around the world.

While construction was booming everywhere, another form of preparation was also underway.

Almost every country had incorporated the Human Breathing Method into mandatory training.

So that when the disaster arrived, every person would have at least one more point of probability for survival.

In the early morning, the sound of shoe soles rubbing against the training ground rose and fell.

At night, the lights in the training rooms never went out.

A man over sixty years old was practicing the Standing Post in a park, his knees shaking like a sieve, sweat streaming down his greying temples, but his eyes remained open, staring at the small tree in front of him that was also shivering in the wind.

His posture was not standard, and his core kept collapsing downward.

But he did not stop.

At the western suburb training ground, Cheng Jian was shirtless, every muscle on his back rising and falling like breathing under his control.

Around him were more and more students; some had just started, while others were still hovering on the edge of perceiving the Rhythm.

A young man asked him, his voice breathless: "Captain Cheng, can I still catch up? There isn't much time left."

Cheng Jian glanced at him.

"There isn't much time."

"But you can finish the training."

The young man did not speak again and returned to his position.

The air was filled with the scent of sweat mixed with freshly turned soil.

Someone could not stand anymore and squatted by the side of the path, dry heaving.

Someone gritted their teeth as the muscles under their shoulder blades spasmed uncontrollably.

Someone fell asleep leaning against the wall just after finishing a set.

But not a single person said, "I'm not practicing anymore."

Everyone was climbing upward at the maximum intensity their bodies allowed.

No one had a way back.

At the same time as all this was happening.

Chen Mo was Cultivating with all his might.

Chen Mo's strength and Mental Power were steadily increasing.

The strength of his body continued to climb, and his Mental Energy was gradually approaching 18.0 through continuous refinement.

The growth of Source Power in his Meridians accompanied the improvement of his body and mind; the Source Power flowing in his body had turned from an initial pool into a lake, its total volume climbing exponentially.

His strength increased steeply over time.

And this rate of increase showed no signs of slowing down.

Ordinary evolvers, after passing through the rapid growth of the Early Stage, would see their improvements gradually slow down.

Every step taken after breaking through the Rhythm Realm saw the resistance rise geometrically.

Their bodies had limits, and these limits could only be broken by Breakthroughs in major Realms.

Cheng Jian was like this. All human evolvers were like this.

But Chen Mo was different. Infinite Growth.

These four words were a precise description of his core ability.

He had no upper limit.

But this fact did not bring Chen Mo satisfaction. It was that he knew better than anyone else that this was not enough.

Once the crisis fully erupted, it would not just be the splitting of continents and geological reshaping that threatened Blue Star.

The continuous expansion of the planet would inevitably bring repeated changes to the gravitational field, and changes in the gravitational field would directly alter the orbits of every near-Earth object.

Some of those asteroids that had been orbiting stably for hundreds of millions of years would be captured by the constantly increasing gravity of Blue Star.

Others would be deflected from their original orbits by gravitational perturbations, flying toward completely unpredictable new paths.

By then, the threat of meteorites would be continuous, random, and unpredictable.

And if even a single celestial body with a diameter of ten kilometers were to collide with Blue Star, human "response" and "relocation" would become meaningless.

An extinction-level impact could completely reshape the surface; shockwaves, firestorms, and dust obscuration—each one was enough to end civilization within weeks.

With Chen Mo's current strength, if he went all out, he might be able to intercept a small or medium-sized meteorite.

But an asteroid with a diameter of ten kilometers, with a destructive mass measured in trillions of tons, falling into the atmosphere at tens of times the speed of sound.

That was a challenge of another magnitude.

He was not confident.

He still had his uncle, aunt, Chen Wei, Chen Ting, and the billions of his kind on this planet who were struggling to survive.

He needed to be stronger. He must be stronger.

Chen Mo withdrew all external perception. His mind sank into his own body.

The minute architecture of his cells unfolded within his perception.

The contraction Rhythm of every muscle fiber, the transmission of electrical currents in every nerve bundle, and the pulsatile secretion of hormones in various glands were all presented in fine detail within his Inner Vision.

He had long since mastered his muscles and hormones.

Only one thing was missing. The billions of cells throughout his body.

Single, independent cells, each with its own metabolic Rhythm and energy consumption.

His perception had already begun to penetrate to the cellular level, but it was not yet comprehensive enough, not yet absolute.

Those cells that had not yet been brought under control were scattered, dispersed at the very periphery of his perception.

With a constant, uninterrupted focus, he pushed his perception to penetrate downward.

From the tissue level to the cellular level, from most cells to every single cell, a slow, natural infiltration.

This focus itself was his strongest weapon.

Time slipped away quietly in his concentrated Cultivation.

June 4th. The precise control multiplier for generating power climbed to 9.6 times.

Chen Mo opened his eyes. He extended his arm and threw a straight punch.

As the power traveled from the soles of his feet to his fist, and finally at the moment he struck a vacuum, he sensed that the last trace of lag in the transmission of power had vanished.

July 11th. 9.8 times.

August 3rd. 9.9 times.

When the last trace of cells was brought under the control of his Mental Power, a very definite sense of Perfection emerged in Chen Mo's perception.

Inside his body, from his scalp to the soles of his feet, from his heart valves to his bone marrow cavities, from the basal cells of his corneas to the outermost keratin cells of his fingertips, every single cell was presented with absolute clarity in his perception.

Billions of cells, all under control. Perfection.

Nine is the limit. The limit of human power generation is 9.9 times.

Not the 10 times that Chen Mo had imagined. This was the confirmation his perception gave Chen Mo.

But beyond this undeniable sense of Perfection, Chen Mo faintly felt a trace of something missing.

It was very faint, as if something had been overlooked, or as if something was held in his hand but was still just a little bit away from truly closing.

He could not say what it was, but he was certain it was on the edge of the sense of Perfection, like a depression pressed down by the weight of Perfection itself—invisible, yet existent.

The sense of Perfection was not false, and the sense of omission was also not false. Both existed simultaneously, contradictory yet self-consistent.

Chen Mo did not rush to resolve this contradiction.

He stored this trace of feeling deep within his consciousness, slowly identifying it.

At the same time, he felt every detail of his body.

The operation of billions of cells throughout his body was completely within his perception, never so clear before.

Every metabolic process was under control, and every trace of energy was flowing through his body.

This was the pinnacle of control. And also some kind of new starting point.

Chen Mo withdrew his perception.

His face was expressionless, only silently deducing.

In this final period of tranquility, what he needed to do was find the answer in that trace of "sense of omission."

And completely break through the invisible barrier between it and the billions of cells that were fully under his control.