Chapter 17: Saved

…

Zhou Qi, Lieutenant Chu, and her men dashed towards the captives with haste. They led the medical teams and investigators to their respective workspace.

Zhou Qi walked in the front. "I'm back. We will open the light, please don't panic."

"Please open the lights, Sir police officers."

The lights dazzled the whole warehouse, inviting sounds of gasped and fear.

Upon entering warehouse no. 1, Lieutenant Chu saw cages lying everywhere. Her eyes constricted. She saw men, women, and children alike locked and trapped like animals in a zoo.

The moment they saw Zhou Qi and the Lieutenant, wariness flashed before their eyes. Each of them, scrambling to get further away.

While a few simply looked at them with blank and empty eyes. Not caring whether it was the day of their death or not.

Lieutenant Chu's heart shook. In all her career in Trent as a post-apocalyptic special police officer. This was the first time she saw such madness. The captives were thin and frail due to malnutrition, their litters everywhere.

One could tell many were even sick from just a glance. Some were even already gasping at death's door.

It had been quite a few days since they last ate. The listless eyes looking at her showed everything. The captive's eyes were the mirror of the horror and suffering they saw and experience.

She stood rooted on the spot. The smell of decay and death flew to her nose. How many are dead? She thought.

What these people experience was something she couldn't imagine. She realized that humans could even be worse than zealots and void calamities.

She couldn't believe that humans created this place. Only a demon in the flesh could create this horror. Even the other police officers who're accompanying Lieutenant Chu paled. Even though they manage to discover this place, they felt like they failed.

"Monsters!"

"What the hell?!"

Rage tinted with fear had filled their eyes.

The captives' empty eyes left them dumbfounded. A few were merely staring at the void, acting as if they didn't even see anything. The sight was the work of a human? Wrath bubbled forth from Lieutenant Chu's heart.

She stared in silence, thoughts occupying her whole mind.

Zhou Qi saw the rising embers of anger in the lady officer's eyes. With a shout, he tried waking up the Lieutenant from her musing.

"Your badge! We need to save them. Send in your men!"

Catching the drift in Zhou Qi's word, the lieutenant nodded and drew out her badge from inside her long coat. She flashed it before everyone.

The badge of special police officers was unique, it was capable of glowing in the dark. Anyone who sees it would feel a sense of majesty. The materials of the badge came from a type of high-level zealot. The zealot was killed during the rise of the wielders.

"Calm down, I'm Lieutenant Chu from the special police department! The kidnappers are already either dead or captured. We're here to save you."

She didn't know who started it, but soon, loud cries and mumbles echoed throughout the whole warehouse. Warm streaks flowed continuously from the captives. Downward, it went to their parched lips.

The taste was salty yet sweet.

Some of the captives tried to laugh, but their parched throat could only utter a groan.

"Men, open up the cages! Malt, contact the other medics. Get their soft asses here! ASAP!"

The police officer named Malt saluted, he opened a unique earpiece radio. "Yes, Ma'am!"

He started shouting and roaring over the radio.

One by one, every freehand, Zhou Qi, Cheng Shi, Lieutenant Chu, and the other police officers moved. With care, they smashed the locks of the cages.

With every lock smashed, the cries of the captive turned louder and louder.

They were free at last!

Lieutenant Chu looked at Zhou Qi. A worried glint passed through her eyes.

Zhou Qi caught her eyes. He whispered in a soft yet troubled grunt. "That's the first one. We still have seven places much worse than here."

Lieutenant Chu touched her forehead, furrows appearing one after another. She had expected the worst. And she was right.

Soon, all the other captives in the other warehouse were freed.

Of course not for the unnumbered warehouse. The sight called for silence. It became a place of vows for the special police officers.

The view was etched deep within their hearts.

Zhou Qi, Sasa, and Cheng Shi stood at this warehouse the longest.

Sasa had already bawled her lungs out. She felt she had failed the dead. Some she knew, some she doesn't. Most were refugees who simply wanted shelter.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

An irritating noise sounded throughout warehouse no. 6. It caught the attention of the officers as well as Zhou Qi's group.

Zhou Qi waltzed through the place, his ears searching for the source of the ringing sound. He found an old-style phone ringing in the darkest corner.

Without batting an eyelid, he answered.

"Are the goods ready? The leader is waiting for the next batch of feeds."

Words of anger almost burst out of his lips.

But before he could even utter a curse, Zhou Qi's phone vibrated. He pulled out his smartphone and saw Fatty's message: "I'm listening tell him that the delivery will be tonight."

"The delivery will be ready tonight. No delay."

"Great! The boss will surely reward you. We'll wait for you."

Tut. Tut. Tut.

Zhou Qi looked at everyone, the thirst for fairness burning in his eyes.

He shifted his head to the police officers. "The night will continue. Keep everything happening here in wraps. Don't let it reach any news station."

**

After the void shocks, the swarm of the zealots followed. Then, the void calamities. In a mere three months, nations fell. The billion-strong population turned into a mere hundred million.

It was a deep plunged if put in a graph.

The void shocks and void calamities terraformed the whole planet. Many nations ceased to exist; their existence swatted away from the map. The vast Saharan desert was now a place teeming with life and water. The Amaz*n was now like hell. No, not the company, the gigantic wild forest. Flames and sulfur burst forth as one of the void calamities treated it as its new nest.

Many nations were literally erased from the map. Only one-eighth of the old countries survived. The United Nations was also good as gone, a mere skeleton of its past glory.

When everything was about to return to new normalcy, the wielders appeared. A new group roaring for a revolution, all due to the government's foolishness. They played with the lives of the new kind. They were subjecting a lot of new wielders to unethical experiments.

Thus, another war burst forth after another. The war escalated. It was the greatest, and worst war humankind had undergone in the whole history. Wars raged everywhere. Some against the ruling nations. Some… against themselves.

Man against man.

Wielders against wielders.

Man against wielders.

All in search of authority and power.

Some of the wielders felt that they were the chosen rulers. A terrible thought that wreaked havoc towards the already tattered earth. A mere thought had caused another round of destruction. The damage was worse than the void shocks, zealots and, void calamities combined.

A few more nations soon fell. The era they once created turned into mere rubble on the roadside.

The first year marked the era of the warlords—wielders occupying territories like gangs, forcing people to work for them. The law of the jungle ruled during this year. Those with strength rules. The survival of the fittest.

Then, the second year came. The new world historians called it the "World Order." From being brigands, some wielders rose into power. People that knew the importance of order. It was the year of the rise of the city-states.

The governments were already made inutile by the changes and thus were overthrown. After all, they had little power over the wielders.

A few smart warlords appeared and occupied the old cities, annexing the places that the government refused to save. In those places, the warlords brought forth a new order... or chaos.

It also started the era of city-states. A good example is the City of Trent. Each of these city-states has its way of running the areas. Some still use democracy, some use iron-fist, aristocracy, and even monarchies rose again.

In a mere year, the government's sovereign powers and authority plunged. Their power was stripped away by powerful wielders. Soon, one by one, new cities rose from the ashes under the rulership of the wielders.

In the third year, only a few nations remained. The old world map was nothing but a mere piece of lonely history. The whole earth was already unrecognizable, prompting everyone to establish the new map.

The wielders created new borders through power alone.

The map was called "The World Post-Calamity's City Nations." From the very title itself, the old nations, both large and small went poof. In the fourth year, they ceased to exist. From its corpse rose the other city-states or city nations.