Apocalyptic Disaster: I Hoard Billions in Supplies and Kill the Saint

163: Chapter 163 Coastal Sunken AreaThe group stepped out of the cold, damp cave one by one.

The scorching daylight hit them in the face, the air feeling as if it could set their lungs on fire.

The red line on the thermometer had already broken through—60.3°C.

Zhao Wei took a deep breath of the hot air and immediately pulled off his scarf to wipe away sweat: ”It’s insanely hot... it feels like it’s risen a few more degrees since we went down.”

Zhou Cheng hurried over immediately, and seeing that everyone was unharmed, he finally breathed a sigh of relief: ”You’re finally back up... you could fry an egg directly on the rooftop floor right now.”

”Seal off the cave entrance,” Ye Nanxing said, her voice remaining calm.

”Mark it as restricted, and set traps.”

”This place... is no longer open.”

Shen Qingyan was stunned upon hearing this: ”What did you find down there?”

Ye Nanxing just shook her head without offering much explanation: ”It might be useful in the future, just seal it for now.”

She turned around, her gaze fixed on the mountain path in the distance, where heat waves were rolling.

”We’ll discuss the rest in the conference room.”

At that moment, everyone fell silent.

No one questioned her about what exactly she had encountered.

Because they all understood—her not saying anything wasn’t because she didn’t trust them, but because some things needed to be explained in the right setting.

Ten minutes later, the base’s command team was already in place in the main conference room.

Ye Nanxing pulled up a spatial projection, displaying the sampling data of the cold spring, the schools of fish, and the underground lake region, along with the spatial scan images.

Cold light spread across the wall, the images unfolding like a silent, flowing dream—

That ice-blue spring water, those slowly swimming cold spring fish, that bottomless yet endlessly flowing underground water vein... under the extreme heat, it was like a miracle that defied nature.

Chu Yunting spoke in a deep voice: ”...You took the entire spring area, fish and water included, into your space?”

Ye Nanxing nodded: ”At first, I thought it was just a spring eye, but during the collection process, I discovered it was connected to an entire underground water vein.”

”After absorbing the spirit stone mine, my space has acquired primary ecological autonomy.”

”Now, the cold spring system has formed an independent cold-region ecological zone within the space, where the spring water can circulate naturally and the fish can survive normally.”

”In other words, we now possess an ’underground ecological cold storage’ that is completely detached from the surface environment and has a stable temperature.”

After listening, Shen Qingyan’s eyes turned red, her voice slightly choked:

”If the extreme heat really lasts for three or five years... this pool of spring water will be our lifeline.”

Lin Xiao nodded, his expression uncharacteristically solemn: ”Tactically speaking, this is far more important than all thirteen of our current wells combined.”

The conference room fell into a brief silence.

No one spoke.

Everyone was digesting this fact.

Ye Nanxing slowly stood up, scanned the group, and spoke in a calm but firm tone:

”That’s why I said—seal the cave entrance.”

”The cold spring has already been taken into my space; it is absolutely safe and under my personal supervision.”

”This cave has no residual value now, and keeping it open would only trigger panic in the base.”

Outside Tianlang Mountain Base, the heat waves persisted.

But inside the base, it was as stable as early summer.

Energy supply was not a concern, and pumping operations continued—four of the thirteen wells had already run dry, and the water levels of the others were slowly dropping, but Ye Nanxing’s spatial reservoir continued to expand steadily.

The entire base had completely switched to ”extreme heat combat mode.”

The main source of power generation had shifted from fuel to solar arrays—

In the extreme heat, the efficiency of the solar panels actually soared. Energy reserves were stable, and daily operations were more economical than during the extreme cold.

When Lin Xiao was compiling the statistics, he even said expressionlessly:

”The hotter it gets, the more efficiently our base operates.”

And in the base’s intelligence room, the busiest person at the moment wasn’t on the front lines of water pumping, but Zhou Cheng at the information hub.

His personal communication satellite module was constantly refreshing news from around the world—

North America: The Alaska region, which was once almost completely frozen in the extreme cold with ice layers over ten meters thick, was now seeing the ice melt. The federal government had mobilized forces to begin large-scale excavation of abandoned arsenals and medical storage facilities.

Europe: Due to the widespread high plateaus, supplies were rapidly exposed after the ice melted. Underground facilities in many cities were reactivated to house the remaining population, but ”regional resource conflicts” were also breaking out frequently.

The Southern Hemisphere’s Australia, New Zealand, and other regions were relatively less affected during the extreme cold and had now become the main destinations for the wave of refugees, but under the extreme heat, they were also approaching critical survival temperatures.

Parts of the Middle East and Africa reported that due to the original high temperatures, they were now experiencing ”compounded dry heat,” and even camels were beginning to die of dehydration. Some small national governments had declared political collapse.

The most shocking news came from the regions where sea levels were rising—

Many parts of Southeast Asia were submerged, and some cities had permanently disappeared from the sea charts.

The former coastal areas of Japan and Korea had all fallen into ”heat-flooded zones,” with a survival rate of less than 1%.

Several European countries had publicly announced that they were entering a state of emergency ”combat readiness” due to high temperatures and resource competition.

The American continent had begun implementing regional lockdowns, with a large population flowing into underground bases.

The response from the Dragon Kingdom was as stable and tough as ever.

At the onset of the extreme heat, the government had quickly integrated resources, launched the ”North-South Water System Regulation Project,” and reactivated the underground national defense lines and the old-era ”satellite base station clusters.”

Zhou Cheng pulled up a high-security-level message and forwarded it to Ye Nanxing’s terminal.

It read:

[Class D Authorization Broadcast]

[Unmelted glacier core energy minerals have been discovered in the ”Qinghai-Tibet Heavenly Range” in western Dragon Kingdom; the military is already in position.]

[The eastern coastline will be abandoned and converted into an evacuation route.]

[The northern border is experiencing a high-heat wave invasion zone; there are currently no defense plans, proceed with caution.]

And the small line of text at the very bottom was exceptionally eye-catching:

[All surviving bases are requested to enter the ”closed defense + self-sufficient resources” phase.]

[The country will not abandon any surviving stronghold.]

[As long as you survive, we can hold up this era.]

Inside the conference room, light and shadow were projected onto the tactical sandbox, with red lines spreading like collapsing blood vessels.

The coastline—was no longer clear.

A large number of red alert zones covered the entire southern line and the southeastern coastal region; cities that were originally densely packed with factories, storage bases, and military supply ports were now half-swallowed by seawater.

In the satellite images, building debris was half-exposed and half-submerged, with a large number of shipping containers floating in the wastewater, washed by turbulent currents to the edges of the city ruins.

And from the evacuation orders issued by the government, it could be seen:

[”A full evacuation order has currently been issued for all coastal cities.”]

[”The military will prioritize the evacuation of core personnel and high-priority supplies; remaining secondary resources and abandoned materials will no longer be recovered.”]

[”Civilian forces may be mobilized to clear out remaining resources on their own, provided that safety is ensured.”]

Ye Nanxing’s gaze darkened slightly, her finger tapping lightly on the ”Jiangnan Coastal Storage Cluster Zone.”

”Look at this area.”

”Along the line, there are a total of five national reserve warehouses, three high-risk restricted zones, and one aircraft carrier-class military port.”

”And seventeen civilian cold chain logistics parks.”

”They were frozen during the extreme cold, and after the extreme heat arrived, the water vapor evaporated and the ice melting accelerated—now is the perfect window of opportunity.”

”The government has withdrawn, civilian forces are too weak, and external survivor groups cannot get into the deep zones.”

”This area... we can raid.”