First Light of a New Age

Chapter 156: Some Good Times Must Come To An End

A/n: Fun fact, the reason why the none of the Austronesians get disintegrated upon mana exposure when they were get transported unlike the rest of the nations on Earth is because:

1.) Catastrophic-Class Storm: The storm that covered the Empire not only completely blocked any surveillance-type magic or entering of any perception, they could block the magicules from entering.

2.) Third Civilization Zone: Mana in the Third Civilization Zone were way less compared to the other Zones, and 80% of the nations on Earth were transported and scattered across the Second Civilization Zone, which had a large density of mana.

3.) Environmental Adaptation: During the Austronesians diplomacy mission to the Dominion of Sylvanor, none of them disintegrated or got affected when entering the Second Civilization Zone. It is because being in this world for a year, they were adapted enough to survive in the slightly higher denser area like the Second Civilization Zone. But for the rest of the nations on earth, they were transported there all of a sudden and Earth had extremely low to almost non-existent mana, millions were not adaptive to survive in a higher density mana field.

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Third Civilization Zone, Western Side of the Continent, Earth Region, Russia Freedom Alliance, Moscow, Kuntsevo District, Central Clinic Hospital.

4th Year of God, Friday, 4th Week, 7th Month of David.

The old man was just there on his bed, sitting up and awake but staring out of his window, his gaze fixed on the terrible vista unfolding outside, as if half catatonic. Something must have broken inside him, though who could blame him? The sight of the glorious capital city of the Motherland, the bastion that had held firm and true against the might of the Reich, and yet now it was going up in flames before his very eyes.

Air raid sirens were blaring; arcs of tracer fire were streaking across the sky; explosions were going off here and there throughout the cityscape.

The old man in the bed was one of the most powerful men in the world and yet there he lay, in his hospital gown with the linen sheets pulled over him, looking weak and pathetic, a sad and disheveled wreck of a man.

Sitting by his side, attentive to his every need, Alexei Sannikov was not exactly one you would call soft, though he was one of the younger faces in the CPSU Central Committee's staff these days. But even he found something heart-breaking in watching the despair in the old man's face as outside the city burned.

"All those people... dying," wheezed the elderly man, "all those... years we have had to prepare... all those resources we have dedicated... and we could not stop this day from coming."

"Comrade-Secretary, this is not your fault," said Alexei, standing up, respectfully. "There is nothing we could have done to have foreseen this. The Americans? Sure, yes. But this is a new enemy the likes of which we have never seen before. Latest news is that even the whole world is getting hit hard by them. Los Angeles, London, Tokyo, Hong Kong... all great citadels, all burning right at this very moment too."

"They will fight back," said the old man, "and so must we! We must show them... we must... we must..." He didn't finish his statement before breaking out in a fit of coughing.

"Comrade-Secretary, I promise you, we are mobilizing all available guard units in throughout the Moskva Region," insisted Alexei, "we will not allow the capital to fall." He was trying his best to be reassuring, but truth be told, he had no real idea what was going on, only bits and pieces of info filtering to him from all the various command units throughout the city. The attack had come so suddenly, and of a type that no-one could have foreseen.