I'm the boss because I have a harem of anime characters.

Page 89

Looking back on my past life, my main task in the early stages was to survive. After passing the danger period, I had to fight against various internal and external troubles. The greater the ability, the greater the power; the greater the power, the greater the responsibility.

Ninth-tier transcendent beings are the nuclear weapons of human civilization; they will naturally be used when humanity faces life-or-death situations.

Unfortunately, nothing changed in the end, and human civilization still perished.

He wondered if Earth, following the development path of other races, would have become a different civilization in his past life. After all, the various technologies left behind by humans are still very valuable. Qin Shan took a deep breath and ended his memories of his previous life.

He was currently in World Seven, a desolate place where the Reapers had almost completely turned the planet's ecosystem upside down. However, they had not completely and devastatingly exploited the planet; they merely operated on the surface of the earth. It was like a needle pricking a person but not even breaking the skin, causing almost no damage to the planet itself.

But for the biosphere above, it would be a catastrophe.

The enormous, towering metal tentacles that once stretched to the sky have disappeared; the Reaper seems to have left.

"Admiral, no alien ships have been detected in Saratoga's planetary geosynchronous orbit. Geosynchronous orbit satellites have been deployed."

"The next task can be left to the orbiting satellites and deep space telescopes. Place an orbital factory on it, and then bring Saratoga back. Our main task now is to see what the Reaper has actually harvested."

"Yes, Admiral."

The orbiting satellite quickly completed taking pictures of the world map. Qin Shan opened the system's display interface and saw, "Hmm, a parallel world."

The arrangement of these seven continents and four oceans, the course of these mountains and rivers, the defenses that traverse the Central Plains... and so on!

Qin Shan realized something was wrong, so he reached out and started comparing the data on the projected map. He quickly came up with a possibility that made him break out in a cold sweat.

"The Central Plains defense perimeter... Could this be... wait, no, I can't be sure yet."

Qin Shan forcibly suppressed his emotions with his extraordinary power, keeping his brain in a state of absolute rationality.

After rechecking, Qin Shan was absolutely certain that this was the Central Plains defense perimeter.

The Central Plains Defense Circle, a massive project that Qin Shan witnessed in his previous life, uses the Great Wall as its standard line. It starts from the Hetao Plain, which is the western part of the Yellow River's "几" (ji) shape, and goes south through the Qilian Mountains, through the Daba Mountains, encompassing the Sichuan Basin, including parts of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, and finally incorporating parts of Laos and northern Vietnam to form a huge defense line.

The construction of this defense line alone involved as many as 100,000 superhumans, and Hongcheng mobilized more than 7 million people over 20 years. It can be said that no expense was spared in its construction, and it was continuously upgraded in the later stages. Before the most chaotic era arrived, it created a relatively peaceful little world for the Chinese nation.

This was only the engineering construction on land. There were also many defense systems facing the sea. Even Shanghai, which constantly emphasized a free economy, obediently followed the instructions when carrying out these modifications, ultimately forming the Central Plains Defense Circle, which can be described as a great feat in the field of human engineering.

Nominally, it was meant to defend the Central Plains, but in reality, it encompassed all the regions it could protect.

In this process, there were more than a thousand small-scale wars and fifteen large-scale battles recorded by the authorities alone. All thirty heavy combined arms brigades were lost in battle, resulting in direct personnel losses of more than four million and civilian casualties of more than eight hundred million.

But they persevered in the end, and at least at that time, it seemed that there was still hope for humanity.

"Admiral."

Lexington hugged Qin Shan from behind. She could sense her admiral's unease and hoped that this would ease the tense atmosphere a little.

"Don't worry, your admiral isn't that fragile."

Qin Shan was only slightly nervous, mainly because the impact of this matter was too great. After all, he was a ruthless person who had fought his way out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood in his previous life, and he was very good at adjusting his emotions.

After all, people who are not good at something are prone to getting carried away or developing self-destructive tendencies, and such people would not survive in the apocalypse.

Guided by the satellite, Qin Shan arrived at Wuhan, the place he knew best from his previous life.

This is the capital city in Qin Shan's memory, hundreds of years after the abyss descended. Whatever Qin Shan wants to ascertain, this is the most suitable place to look.

Because of the destruction caused by the Reapers, Wuhan has been completely reduced to ruins. However, the general outline of the city is almost identical to what Qin Shan remembers. Apart from the destruction caused by the Reapers, there are surprisingly no traces of invasion by other extraordinary alien races. In his previous life, after he led his main force to fight to the last man, those alien races didn't take the opportunity to invade?

Or have they controlled this place for a long time? If so, there should be many buildings with exotic features, so why aren't we seeing any?

Just as Qin Shan was pondering these things, a strange sound suddenly came from underground, followed by huge roots bursting out of the soil. Qin Shan recognized it at a glance as the Treant's hunting skill, but its strength was only a pitiful fourth-level Transcendent.

Qin Shan, who was in a bad mood, slammed a spatial slash into the ground beneath his feet. With a scream, he then used spatial teleportation to pull the treant out of the ground.

Unexpectedly, the next second, the other party called out Qin Shan's name.

"Qin Shan, you're still alive!?"

With a loud bang, the tree-man in mid-air was thrown to the ground by Qin Shan, who then recognized the other party.

"You are Hongshan! I remember you had already taken human form, so why have you turned into this? Also, aren't you at the eighth level? Even if you're discounted, you shouldn't break your bones."

Of all the alien races, the Tree People have the most complex, yet also the easiest, attitude towards humans.

How so? Because our country has a particular fondness for afforestation, the extraordinary trees on the land of China, after becoming tree people, have a very good relationship with the Chinese people. Even when faced with attempts by other alien races to win them over, the tree people firmly stand on Xinhua's side. Not only them, but a considerable number of extraordinary plants and animals in nature reserves also have a good impression of humans. Even if they don't help, they will definitely not cause trouble. And on the issue of the relationship between humans and nature, if Xinhua says it is second, no one dares to say it is first.

As for Europe and America, well, just look at how they treat their own land and all kinds of plants and animals.

They do get along well with the cats and dogs that are well protected, but the overall environment, especially after the large-scale superhuman transformation of plants and animals in Africa, is now mortal enemies of Europe and America.

It's because Europeans and Americans love to go to Africa to hunt, destroy the local natural environment, and litter.

It's all their own fault for what they did back then; they deserve to suffer the consequences.

"Don't even mention it. I only survived because I got a new body; otherwise, those people would have killed me and taken me away."

"You mean those guys from the sky?"

"Yeah, those guys, average sixth rank, holy crap! By the way, Qin Shan, where have you been all these years? Back then, when the main force was wiped out, and we detected a signal of an interdimensional explosion here, everyone thought you had self-destructed. And who's that girl behind you?"

"Is there a problem with my wife?"

“You have good taste. Hello, sister-in-law. My name is Hongshan, and I am a tree person.”

Hongshan was two hundred years younger than Qinshan. He thought Qinshan was still the same Qinshan as before. After all, once a superhuman crossed the seventh-order boundary, he could return to his youngest peak physical state. As for Qinshan's strength, he could no longer sense Qinshan's true strength after Hongshan fell to the seventh order. Considering Qinshan's previous strength, he assumed Qinshan was at the ninth order.

You guessed wrong. Qin Shan is not at the ninth rank, but he is not at the seventh rank either; he is at the eighth rank.

Having already traversed this path in his previous life, Qin Shan knew exactly how to break through using the same route. Therefore, he expected that in another two years, he would be able to return to his peak ninth-tier state from his previous life and then try to explore the possibilities of the tenth tier.

“Hello, Red Mountain, my name is Lexington.” The lady smiled and shook hands with the tree branch that Red Mountain extended.

“What has happened over the years? I was dragged into the abyss and only recently came back.”

"No wonder, that's how it is..."

Hongshan had no doubt about the reasons Qinshan gave, because it was a well-established fact that the Abyss Gate could suck people in, and many people had returned by chance with greatly increased strength. Therefore, everyone assumed that those who returned from the other side of the Abyss Gate would have great opportunities that others could not understand.

Some people tried to steal it, but very few succeeded. In any case, Hongshan never intended to rob Qinshan.

The two were not just ordinary friends, but also comrades-in-arms. Back then, Hongshan almost joined the Northern Expeditionary Army, which was led by Qinshan. However, with a ninth-tier transcendent being at the helm, countless transcendents wanted to join the Northern Expeditionary Army. The tree people's talents were not suited for expeditions; they were better at defending their homes. So Hongshan stayed behind. As for what has happened in the past thirty years, frankly speaking, humanity has been both lucky and unlucky.

Fortunately, after Qin Shan's main force annihilated a large number of enemies, the Reapers' vanguard began to invade Earth, specifically targeting extraordinary individuals of the fifth rank or above. If any resisted, they were killed, causing heavy losses to other alien races. The Reapers had no intention of communicating or negotiating with them, forcing the various races on Earth to temporarily unite under immense external pressure, allowing humanity to maintain a relatively stable civilization system.

Unfortunately, in the eyes of the harvesters, they were all just leeks waiting to be harvested. So, unsurprisingly, humans and alien races alike were treated like grass by the harvesters.

"About a week ago, those huge metal tentacles began to appear in the sky and started to plunder the supernatural power on the ground, especially supernatural individuals above the fifth level. Not a single one was left."

At this point, Hongshan's voice trailed off.

Qin Shan patted his tree trunk; his mood was not much better, and even more complicated.

So it turns out I only traveled through the world, not through time? In other words, the idea of ​​going back to the past and undoing everything is a lie. There is no past in the world, only the present. The present is the result of the material changes and movements of the past. Even if you travel faster than light, what difference does it make? You only see images and information from the past, not that you can go back to the past.

Science fiction, science and fantasy, clearly time travel is fantasy, it should be more accurately called a time reversal video.

We can only watch; we can't make any changes. "Are there any survivors?" Qin Shan asked.

"Yes, there will be some, though not many, but there definitely will be!"

Hongshan choked up but spoke firmly.

"Alright, from now on, we will search for survivors. As long as there are people, Chinese civilization will not perish!"

Section 190: Hope Remains

Qin Shan was all too familiar with searching for survivors; he had spent the first hundred years of his previous life doing just that.

Various races, species, and regions are constantly producing extraordinary beings, which leads to the collapse of order, military suppression, and large-scale battles between human and alien extraordinary beings. Regardless of the outcome, the battle zones are almost completely destroyed. Because the Northwest and Plateau regions are completely undefendable and have too few people, the Central Plains defense line abandons those areas and focuses all its efforts on defending the core area, even abandoning the Northeast.

Fortunately, before the relocation, all the equipment that could be taken was taken away, and the rest was destroyed, leaving nothing for the alien race. The population loss caused by the brutal supernatural war also meant that Xinhua no longer had a population crisis, but instead began to suffer from a labor shortage. This is truly a hellish joke.

In fact, things got even worse. After that, Xinhua's steel production never exceeded 200 million tons again.

It is still many times stronger than the steel production during the Kuomintang era, which was even worse than that of the Han Dynasty. The compradors should indeed be punished severely.

The biggest difference between Qin Shan now and his former self is that he can now summon a large number of intelligent robots to help him with his work with a wave of his hand. Search and rescue work can be entrusted to these intelligent units that are not afraid of bloodshed and sacrifice. If a more difficult problem is encountered, remote-controlled robots can be sent to direct the work. In short, the search and rescue personnel are absolutely safe.

Compared to previous intelligent robots, today's intelligent robots are closer to humans, except that their heads are cameras and their bottoms are metal frames. Overall, efficiency is still paramount, and there is no need to process them into the shape of tactical humanoids. Just like warhorses do not need extra reproductive capacity, what should be cut off has been cut off.

Working alongside these humanoid intelligent units are large intelligent units, such as cranes, excavators, drilling rigs, and so on. In short, you won't see a single person on the construction site; it's full of robots.

"You've gained a lot from this other world. Did you become a king here?" Hongshan asked with a smirk.

"Pretty much, anyway, it's fine to use it for domestic aid."

Qin Shan gave an ambiguous answer.

"Then I'll go rescue them too."

"Well, see you later."

The Treant's skills are incredibly convenient for search and rescue. Its roots spread and penetrate everywhere, making it easy to find survivors in the ruins. If they can be brought out directly, they can be dug out. If they are trapped above, Qin Shan can teleport directly to the top to resolve the situation.

At this time, some of the more fortunate people who had escaped the disaster gradually gathered together. After Qin Shan revealed his identity, they decisively joined the search and rescue team commanded by Qin Shan.

The greatest advantage of a world under apocalyptic pressure is the prevalence of collectivism, which can be spontaneously reinforced by individuals even without government orders.

Because in such an era, it's truly impossible for an individual to survive.

One thousand people, two thousand people, five thousand people, ten thousand people... The number of survivors eventually stopped at 91237.

After all, the Reapers turned the entire surface of the Earth upside down. Under that level of disaster, every survivor is a miracle. And in World Seven, Wuhan, the capital of Qin Shan's previous life's home world, originally had nearly ten million people.

If the situation in the capital is so dire, one can only imagine what it is like in other places. After all, even if Qin Shan wanted to provide assistance, he would have to do it one place at a time, spreading it outwards from the capital, or even more aggressively, using each city as a starting point and then expanding outwards to the surrounding areas.

To save as many compatriots as possible, we must take action on multiple fronts. This is a global catastrophe from which no one can escape. Even detectors show that the concentration of supernatural forces on Earth has decreased by 98 percent.

What does this mean? It's like going back to when the abyss first descended.

It is evident that the Reapers primarily harvest extraordinary power. They squeeze the extraordinary power out of civilized planets one by one. It is unknown whether those Abyss Gates were seeds they planted. Once the seeds have grown into harvestable crops, they will come back to complete the final harvest and strengthen their own extraordinary power.

Just imagine the billions of sixth-order extraordinary individuals flying all over the sky—the pressure is immense.

Don't forget, there are Tier 10 extraordinary individuals in the Reaper camp. If Tier 10 Reapers belong to a standard intelligent civilization, then things will become even more complicated. If it goes any higher... Qin Shan himself can't even imagine.

After exhausting all available means, Qin Shan's efforts paid off, with the final number of survivors in China set at 3774566.

At its peak, this land had nearly 1.5 billion people. After the abyss, it still had nearly 400 million people in nine figures.

Now, that number has shrunk by more than ten times.

Every survivor was either silent or overly excited, but they all shared a common year: confusion, an endless bewilderment in their eyes. Many even committed suicide during this process. Therefore, the final three digits of the survivor count actually fluctuated; those who saw no hope gave up the struggle and chose to embrace death to reunite with their families in their dreams.

Some have gone mad, become stupid, or gone insane. This is what humanity looks like after losing hope—a mere walking corpse.

"Chairman, the search and rescue operation has been basically completed."

The middle-aged man who saluted Qin Shan was named Wu You. He used to be a second lieutenant in the People's Liberation Army, and now he is a provisional major general.

There's nothing we can do, there's no one left, really no one left. The number of confirmed surviving PLA officers and soldiers is seven hundred, and the highest-ranking officer is this second lieutenant, whose name sounds like a mockery.

Now he truly has nothing left. His wife, children, and parents are all gone, leaving him all alone.

"You've worked hard, get some rest. Everyone needs to get some rest."

"Yes, Chairman, I should rest now."

Wu shook his head with a wry smile, turned and walked out, and then a gunshot rang out from outside.

When Qin Shan rushed out, he saw Wu You lying on the ground. He was already a corpse; a bullet had pierced the back of his head, and he had committed suicide by shooting himself.

Several officers and soldiers walked over, their faces a mixture of grief and numbness, and carried away the martyr, who was now a lieutenant general.

"The most despairing thing is not losing your life, but losing hope."

Qin Shan sighed, then quickly composed himself. In his previous life, he had persevered for so long and climbed step by step to the ninth level. He couldn't guarantee anything else, but his mental fortitude was absolutely such that he would remain unmoved even if the Himalayas collapsed before him.

"Admiral, the situation is not very optimistic."

Saratoga, who had just finished his inspection outside, brought back some bad news.

"It's a very normal post-apocalyptic PTSD. I've seen it a lot back then. The only way to solve this problem is to give the survivors hope again, and that's not difficult for me."

Lexington walked over and stood beside Qin Shan, saying softly, "The Admiral already has a plan, right?"

"Yes, the simplest way is to give them the power of revenge, and that's exactly what I can do."

Soon, exquisite booklets began to be distributed in survivor camps in various cities. The contents of these booklets were cultivation techniques that Qin Shan had collected, organized, improved, and practiced on a large scale during this period, which could enable everyone to become a superhuman. Currently, they could help a person grow to the fourth level of superhuman in an environment with superhuman power.

The later parts are still being improved, but this makes it accessible to everyone. The threshold is practically nonexistent. As long as your aptitude isn't so low that it's outrageous, and as long as you're a healthy, normal person, you can cultivate.

The path for human evolution has now truly been opened. As for the reactions of those who received the booklet...

Despair varies from person to person. Some people, in their despair, simply walk away without uttering a single word. Others, after a whole day of despair, still don't truly say goodbye to this world. Still others feign despair but actually give up.