Chapter 1 – Prelude

Editor: Sammy & THISBRO

Proofreader: SleepyMango123

January 8th, Ross Sea, Antarctica 

Extending into Antarctica is a gulf made of the Southern Pacific Ocean, surrounded by a long coastline. It’s bigger than the SiChuan and YunNan provinces combined. The permafrost displays an aesthetic meeting between ice and blue, with occasional small abyss spots here and there, and narrow long cracks barely crossable by small boats; beneath it is the biting glacial ocean. 

But right now, the supposedly placid sea is erupting into tumult. Countless round penguins and seals waddled forward and jumped into the freezing waters as pieces of a distant iceberg broke off into the ocean with a loud crash. 

“That’s strange!” 

Whale catchers on a whaler ship stared as they passed through the Ross Sea. 

Penguins usually leave a fraction of their group to stay behind and watch over the youngsters. Never have they dragged everyone into the waters this desperately, not even caring if the fledglings have learned how to swim… this is too peculiar. 

“Quick! We need to leave! The glaciers might be melting! We can’t be stuck here!” 

The crew called out to one another but somehow, the propeller spun slower and slower, until it came to a total halt. The motor let out an ear-piercing screech. Just as the crew began to swear, the entire whaler rocked strangely. 

“God, what is that?” 

A tentacle wider than a barrel penetrated the ice. What horrified the sailors was the fact that the tentacle wasn’t covered with innumerable suckers, but rather in their place grew pointed barbs; water droplets dripping off each one, reflecting the light. 

Then appeared a second one! 

It smashed onto the whaler with a crisp splat, causing the metal to creak under its force. 

The whaler quickly lost balance and the freezing sea water came flooding in. Though all the sailors  grabbed onto something stable in time, the entire ship had been wrapped up and it didn’t even take 15 seconds for the boat to be pulled below the sea. 

Humans die within a minute in the Antarctica waters; not by drowning, but by freezing. 

Sailors with well developed physiques may survive longer. In their last despairing moments of life, all that they saw was a petrifying sized pair of glowing eyes. Its mountain of a body  only used three tentacles to easily pull the ship underwater. Two other tentacles floated on the surface at ease, not caring if the penguins and seals stepped on its body. 

What the dead sailors were unaware of was that right at this moment, alarming changes were occurring above the Ross Sea. 

The icebergs melted at a visible speed, causing the seals who weren’t fast enough to escape to let out a distressed wail. 

Beneath the waves, the sea monster leaned back its round head and smashed the icebergs  with its tentacles again. Massive glaciers covering the ocean shattered under its force while some of the animals successfully fell into the water. But it was still too late; a number of the penguins and seals began to convulse painfully in the sea. Immediately, others swam to their side and continuously bumped their bodies together so that they could bring their injured companions into the deep sea. 

Simultaneously, the sailors who froze to death in the Antarctica waters began to sink slowly. The sea monster lifted its non-barbed tentacle to poke at each and every one of them, probably because it couldn’t understand why these humans died so quickly in a safe zone like the sea.

Detecting that all signs of life had disappeared, the sea monster unwrapped its three tentacles from the whaler, resurfacing the ship. 

The sturdy steel hull now bears obvious strangulation marks and spots with terrible markings— those left by the barbs on the sea monster’s tentacles. The tips of its triangular barbs are razor-sharp and turn 360° once it grasps onto something. Nothing can defend against it. 

As if there was an invisible reaper plundering the land, Ross Sea was devoid of all living organisms in a few short minutes. 

The sea had become the only barrier between life and death. 

In another 15 minutes, the ice will completely melt, and the carcasses of the unfortunate animals will fall into the water. The ocean’s temperature will rise steadily, forcing the surviving penguins and seals to dive deeper into its depth. But they’re not like fish, they can only stay underwater for a limited amount of time.  

And the sea monster that resembles a squid over forty meters long, swims just below the surface. After a while, it seemed to realize that the water had yet to evaporate. It carefully stuck out a tentacle and the lean tip slashed across the surface, leaving a long ripple before once again, sinking below. The places it had been echoed with infrasounds inaudible to human ears. 

As if receiving some sort of instruction, the penguins and seals rose back up and out. 

But some of them will forever sleep in the cold Antarctic Ocean. 

Now, there’s only a whaler floating aimlessly on the iceless waters. 

Perhaps it’ll become one of those legendary ghost ships, where the apparatuses are perfectly fine, but the crew have all disappeared. 

Or maybe the scars on the hull could prove that it had indeed encountered a sea monster. 

The kind of terrifying beasts from myths, rumoured to attack vessels and devour humans. 

***

January 6th, 15:51, a country’s satellite had detected an alarming change in the magnetic makeup of the atmosphere above the Ross Sea. It melted the ice within 100 thousand square meters, and the direct exposure to radiation killed a multitude of organisms in ten minutes. Due to the sudden thinning of the atmosphere, the temperature rose unexpectedly in Polar Day Antarctica, causing the sea level to rise by several meters. Even though the atmosphere was eventually repaired by its surrounding air, it was still a devastating calamity. 

Usually,  movies or novels about the apocalypse would begin like this: People hurried as they began a day full of work, with no clue that death was already looming at their doors. The world was about to end; if not from a biochemical virus, then it was that aliens have flown into the orbit. All in all, the only thing those pathetic background characters could do is panic, fear, and struggle in hopelessness. 　　

Yet when the real cataclysm arrives, there’s not only foretellings, but the Grim Reaper is also inching slowly with its scythe. 

It was just that its movements were too slow, to the point where it was practically unnoticeable. 

At most, people would bring up the weird weather in their conversations. The difficulties in differentiating spring and autumn. Often people would step right into summer after long, cold winters. Environmentalist groups would advocate against the detrimental impacts brought about by a depleted ozone layer, and complain about climate change. That’s all there was.