Apocalypse Queen: My Space, My Rules Chapter 86: The City Devoured

Before the pilot could even breathe a sigh of relief, the strange, low rumble grew louder and closer.

At the far edge of the horizon, a gray wall began to rise. It surged forward with unstoppable force, sweeping toward the city like a wave of annihilation.

"Oh no, I-it's a tsunami!" the pilot stammered, frozen in terror.

Harvey snapped, "We're nowhere near the ocean! What tsunami? Stop spacing out and gain altitude!"

The helicopter climbed again. At over 650 feet, the air currents stabilized once more.

Their eyes slowly adjusted to the oppressive darkness, and they began to make out what was happening below.

The gray wall tore through the city with overwhelming force. Those towering skyscrapers—once symbols of strength—looked like fragile twigs in a storm.

One building collapsed with a thunderous crash, swallowed instantly by the raging flood.

Then another fell, and another...

"It's... It's a flash flood..." The pilot's teeth chattered violently, fear sinking deep into his bones.

Thank God they had only been hovering. If they had landed, they never would have made it back into the air in time.

But the two bodyguards sent down earlier were already gone without a trace.

"Mr. Graham... should we... try to rescue them?" the pilot asked shakily.

A flooded city being struck again by a flash flood was devastation piled on devastation.

Harvey stared at the collapsing buildings, his eyes filled with shock and fear.

But after a moment, his expression shifted. Then, slowly, he smiled.

"Haha! I was worried she might survive. Now I don't have to."

He had seen Mariella dive underwater. Even if she resurfaced, she would have been shot by the bodyguards. And even if she somehow survived that, there was no escaping this flood.

This time, she was definitely dead.

When the flood passed, nothing would be left.

Nearly a third of Liraelith's buildings collapsed under the onslaught. Communications were cut off, and power systems failed completely.

That night, almost everyone who had gone out onto the water to scavenge never came back.

Floodwaters rose to the height of ten-plus stories. Some residents, alerted by the noise, managed to escape and climb higher through stairwells.

But many more were trapped inside their homes. Some had their windows shattered by the force of the water and were swept away into the raging current, never to be seen again.

Over an hour later, the flood finally began to calm.

Mariella pulled Chandler out of the storage space, and they surfaced.

She retrieved an inflatable boat from the space, and the two of them climbed aboard.

Only then did they remove their wetsuits. Mariella stored the diving gear away.

Chandler started the engine and checked the navigation on his phone.

"Signal's back, but..."

Hearing that, Mariella quickly pulled out her own phone. The 5G network had dropped to 2G.

There were several missed calls, along with messages from Matthew and Number One asking if she was safe.

Mariella sent a group reply, "I'm fine."

Matthew called immediately.

The connection was unstable, breaking in and out.

Mariella already knew that this would only get worse. Eventually, even getting a faint signal would require high ground.

She spoke calmly, "When the flood hit, Captain Zimmer and I happened to be inside a building. We weren't swept away."

Matthew's voice trembled, "Mariella, come back as soon as you can. Be careful."

...

Celestine Ridge, thanks to its high elevation, escaped disaster once again. However, the power grid had completely failed.

Mariella and Chandler landed smoothly and stored the inflatable boat.

The floodwaters had already reached over ten stories high in the city, and were only a few hundred feet away from the residential zone.

She didn't even bother taking a vehicle. They walked back.

All the streetlights were out. The luxury villas, once radiant, now lay in darkness.

Days of heavy rain had rendered solar panels nearly useless. And with the high energy demands of villa lighting, backup batteries had long been drained.

Every household faced a power crisis. The brilliance they once took for granted was gone.

Even when the lights were on, they were dim. It was clear that they were powered by emergency systems.

And all emergency lighting required energy.

If the outage continued, living in a villa might become even harder than in a standard apartment.

In a small apartment, a single candle could still provide some light. In a large villa, one candle would only make the darkness feel deeper and more suffocating.

Thinking of the large number of diesel generators stored in her storage space, Mariella felt a quiet sense of reassurance.