Back when Ling Ke was still on his home planet and playing Honkai Impact 3rd, before he crossed over to this world, he ever had a question like this...
"Why is it that in a story set against the backdrop of the world's end, you can't see any changes to the world itself?"
Yes.
Looking back now, Ling Ke realized that most of the time, he had only seen the various experiences of the "main characters."
And aside from them, the details of that much larger backdrop...
For example: What was the final moment of a plain passerby's life like?
Another example: How peaceful was a disaster-stricken village in the past?
Descriptions in this regard, while there were a few places, were rare... extremely rare.
And they basically served the "main characters" as well.
For example: Li Sushang's personal flashback plot.
Another example: the brief interludes in the Everlasting Flames Arc and The Thousand Arc.
Aside from that...
Usually, someone from the main cast would arrive at a location, and then through another character's words, it would be mentioned that this place used to be a prosperous city, but after a Honkai Disaster, it became a pile of ruins.
Oceania was like this, the Cosmic Juggernaut Experimental Base that Durandal was responsible for was like this, and Coral Island... was also like this.
In short, a game is ultimately just a game.
But in the real world...
Those ordinary people who might not even have a name or image in the main story are the "majority."
And now, from the perspective of this "majority"...
A global disaster has just... broken out.
Recently, for people living in the Northern Hemisphere, the weather has already begun to gradually turn cold.
Clearly, as the Third Herrscher, Kali also chose this good opportunity to quietly launch her "Cold Wave" operation at this time.
Keep in mind that almost all technologically advanced regions on Earth are located in the Northern Hemisphere.
Even on the Mu Continent, which lies right on the equator, most of the developed areas are in the northern regions.
Given these conditions, and considering that the Earth's axial tilt causes seasonal differences between the northern and southern hemispheres...
"By following this transition into winter, the technologically advanced part of humanity will find it even harder to notice that the natural environment they depend on is already suffering from major problems."
This was a small detail in Kali's "Cold Wave" operation.
When such details accumulate and integrate into a complete grand plan...
...and this grand plan is carried out secretly, with the enemy unaware while we act from the shadows...
...all while humanity itself is in turmoil...
The initial activation time was naturally delayed.
Two days later...
"Beep! Beep! Beep!"
In the Eastern Gulf of North America, at the North Atlantic Current Monitoring Center.
A monitoring buoy suddenly started beeping.
The mechanical noise woke up a young white man with blond hair, who had stayed up late last night with his overly enthusiastic girlfriend and was now feeling groggy.
He rubbed his blurry eyes and the first thing he saw was a small wireless TV in front of him, which he had forgotten to turn off and had been running since last night. It was now broadcasting a major news story.
[North American Time, 8:00 AM, the "Superhuman Act" has been signed and passed at the United Nations Headquarters.]
[It is reported that a total of 139 countries and 13 Superhumans participated in this joint signing event.]
[From today onwards, Superhumans will be required to register their real names, their non-confidential information will be semi-public, their ability usage will be restricted, and they will have the obligation to assist various countries and regions in handling all kinds of supernatural events...]
[Related report from our station's reporter...]
"Huh?"
The blond young man focused his mind.
The words "Superhuman"... and all the various news related to it, had recently taken over the headlines of major news media and social platforms worldwide.
Hundreds of millions of people were all discussing it.
It was understandable.
From the perspective of an ordinary person, who would want some world-destroying being to always be flying around in the sky? They could take your life with a single casual blow, or...
Some said Superhumans were nothing but lawless criminals who destroyed cities, unleashed tsunamis, and killed countless innocents... They should be immediately annihilated to eliminate the threat.
Others claimed Superhumans were the legendary gods that mortals should worship.
The latter group's claims provoked a backlash from religious figures.
Believers from various major sects viewed Superhumans as thieves who had stolen the supreme authority of God... or whichever deity they worshipped. They called them demons who deserved divine punishment and judgment...
Some people were even seriously discussing whether Superhumans could have children with ordinary humans...
In short, there were all sorts of opinions.
Fortunately, with the "Superhuman Act" finally signed at the United Nations Headquarters, many people could finally relax a little... This was especially true for citizens of the Far East and India, who no longer had to live in constant fear that their cities would be "visited" by a Superhuman again.
Obviously, the psychological trauma inflicted by Kevin, Fu Hua, Durandal, Raiden Mei... and even Sakura, whose rescue mission was smeared, was quite severe.
It was understandable.
From the perspective of an ordinary person, who would want some world-destroying being always flying around in the sky? They could take your life with a single casual blow, or... ruin half your life's work in an instant.
Like, for example, turning your cozy home into a pile of rubble just when you were only a few years away from paying off the mortgage.
Well, in this world of supernatural powers, this was the helpless tragedy of the "weak."
As for the even more helpless...
Most people clearly didn't know that this so-called Superhuman Act seemed to restrict the "strong," but in reality...
It was actually pushed forward by the "strong" themselves.
The "contributors" involved were naturally Aponia of the Newborn World Serpent and... the Gray Serpents.
Of course, as long as these secrets weren't exposed, they could be treated as "non-existent."
Right now, the blond young man thought...
"Wouldn't it be nice to have a Superhuman girlfriend?"
He was in a playful mood.
In fact, he really loved his little girlfriend. They had been inseparable lately, so this was just him talking nonsense.
After all, his girlfriend wasn't with him.
Besides, he knew his girlfriend's personality. Even if she had heard what he just said, she would only laugh and scold him, and then... use her physical strength to make his back ache for half the day... ahem~
"Beep! Beep! Beep!"
The mechanical alarm was still ringing.
"..."
The blond young man, who had been thinking of her with a sweet smile, was suddenly left speechless.
He wanted to keep reading that big news and enjoy the latest gossip.
But his job was to look after these iron lumps.
"I have to say, these Superhumans are really good-looking."
"Every single one of them is a handsome man or a beautiful woman... I heard it's because they were exposed to some special cosmic particles, which triggered a very rare natural genetic mutation?"
"Could I become even more handsome if I had a genetic mutation in the future?"
The blond young man's thoughts hadn't fully returned to the present.
But when he leaned in to look at the instrument screen...
"Temperature control system detection: The water temperature in the Cactus Bay Area has suddenly dropped by 17 degrees?"
The message flashed quickly through his mind.
"Tch," he scoffed.
He didn't believe it for a second.
It was probably just the rough waves in that area breaking the buoy again.
Things like that had happened before.
They said an inexperienced rookie once got scared half to death because he didn't know how rough that area of the sea was, and he ended up becoming a laughingstock.
He wouldn't be an ignorant fool like that, becoming someone else's joke...
"Beep! Beep! Beep!"
"Beep! Beep! Beep!"
"Hmm?"
The blond young man instantly snapped awake.
All his sleepiness vanished, his mind completely sharp.
He couldn't help it.
As a graduate student majoring in hydrology... fine, even if he were a complete novice who knew nothing, when he saw every single buoy indicator on the screen flashing red...
Thud!
The blond young man moved too quickly. He had just gone to grab his phone when his foot slipped, sending him stumbling forward and crashing to the floor.
He nearly hit his chin on the corner of the desk. Fortunately, he managed to avoid it, narrowly escaping a fracture or an even worse disaster.
But he couldn't even spare a moment to cry out in pain. Rubbing the spot where he'd hit, he quickly used his phone to call his strict advisor, the man who had arranged this internship for him.
"Hello! Professor Hoffman... No, it's not about the paper. I haven't... I haven't finished it yet. I'm really writing it! No, wait, that's not the point!"
"Something's happening here..."
"It's a very, very urgent situation."
Seriously, something's gone horribly wrong.