May 1st, 343. Heavy rain first descended upon Haicheng, then swept across the entire country.
The year-long great drought had finally ended.
Along with the great drought, the intermittent great earthquakes that had lasted for more than seven months also ceased.
In hindsight, people analyzed the causes, believing that solar storms were also a contributing factor to the great drought in the Northern Hemisphere, which in turn triggered the great earthquakes.
However, the end of the solar storms, the great drought, and the great earthquakes did not bring much joy to the people.
This was because all of these events had been foreseen in Song Pinxuan's prophetic dreams, and had already been publicly disclosed.
From Song Pinxuan's prophetic dreams, people had learned in advance that even after the solar storms ended, the era of catastrophe had not concluded.
Furthermore, due to the high temperatures of the extreme heat season, the glaciers at both the North and South Poles had melted.
Starting from this year, sea levels would rise seasonally.
In other words, during the extreme heat season, sea levels would rise and inundate the land, while during the extreme cold season, the sea levels would recede and freeze into ice.
During the extreme cold season in the Northern Hemisphere, the Southern Hemisphere experienced the extreme heat season.
Therefore, the unfrozen seawater would flow towards the Southern Hemisphere.
Speaking of which, the year-long great drought in the Northern Hemisphere, besides the solar storms, was also partly due to the melting glaciers and the seawater flowing to the Southern Hemisphere.
During the first extreme heat season of 341, the melting glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere, combined with the moisture carried by the air, caused a great flood.
And during the first extreme cold season, all the water flowed to the Southern Hemisphere.
After the Southern Hemisphere ended its extreme cold season, it welcomed its first extreme heat season.
The melting glaciers in the Southern Hemisphere, coupled with the massive volume of water from the Northern Hemisphere, caused the great floods in the Southern Hemisphere to be even more severe than those in the Northern Hemisphere's first extreme heat season.
As the second extreme heat season of 342 arrived, the Southern Hemisphere rapidly entered its extreme cold season.
This water had not had time to flow back and was frozen in the Southern Hemisphere.
Not only that, but the evaporated water resources from the Northern Hemisphere turned into blizzards and fell upon the Southern Hemisphere.
The Southern Hemisphere experienced more severe great floods during its extreme heat season, entered an ice age during its extreme cold season, coupled with solar storms, and tsunamis caused by meteorite impacts...
Under these heavy blows, all countries in the Southern Hemisphere had been annihilated, without exception.
Perhaps there were still survivors clinging to life, but they surely would not last much longer.
In comparison, the great drought of the Northern Hemisphere's extreme heat season and the howling north winds of its extreme cold season seemed less severe.
In October of last year, the ice rivers of the Southern Hemisphere finally thawed.
The massive volume of water from the melting glaciers of both poles began to flow back north.
Especially the tsunamis caused by meteorite impacts, which brought a large amount of seawater to the Northern Hemisphere, accelerating the reflow.
Starting from the third extreme heat season of 343, the water levels in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres would gradually equalize.
Concurrently, the sea levels in the Northern Hemisphere would also begin to rise seasonally.
Starting from an initial rise of 30 meters, it would gradually increase to 50 meters.
While not appearing to be very high, this would be enough to inundate large portions of the eastern and southern regions of Country Z.
At the very least, Haicheng and Jiangcheng would be entirely submerged by the rising sea levels.
Only Longcheng and Shancheng would be unaffected by the sea level rise.
Currently, there is still one month left until the sea level rise.
Jiangcheng accelerated the construction of the first phase of its underground city, while Haicheng is rapidly building the portion of the underground city that was temporarily halted due to time constraints in responding to the tsunamis.
Simultaneously, after the great earthquake, the government began constructing shelters in high-altitude areas to relocate citizens who could not be accommodated in the underground cities.
Longcheng and Shancheng also expedited the construction of their underground cities.
On May 8th, 10th, and 12th, the first phases of the underground cities in Jiangcheng, Longcheng, and Shancheng were completed successively.
On May 30th, the previously halted portion of Haicheng's underground city was also completed.
The authorities immediately began relocating people into the underground cities.
To cope with the impending sea level rise, G City's underground city also made preparations.
Of the 16 entrance elevators, 5 were designed with the capability to be extended upwards.
During this period, they were quickly extended upwards by 20 meters.
Combined with G City's original elevation, even with the sea level rise during the extreme heat season, communication between G City's underground city and the outside world would not be affected.
In addition to preparing for the impending sea level rise, another disaster also required advance preparation.
Even Longcheng and Shancheng were not exempt.
That was—the great plague!
Within the glaciers of the North and South Poles lay frozen ancient viruses from millions of years ago.
Many of these viruses had never even infected human ancestors, who thus had no antibodies formed within their bodies.
With the rise in sea levels, these ancient viruses would also arrive with the seawater!
Once existing humans come into contact with these ancient viruses, they would have no resistance whatsoever.
The sheer variety of these ancient viruses made it impossible to develop vaccines for all of them from the outset.
Therefore, in the early stages of the great plague, the priority would be to take precautions as much as possible to avoid infection.
If infected, there would be no effective treatment, and one could only endure it through sheer willpower.