Wen Aiyuan's death within the ability awakening agency did not cause any stir or impact. After the ability awakening agency determined that Wen Aiyuan's accident was due to her own reasons, they provided some compensation out of humanitarianism. The matter was then considered closed.
Upon learning of this, teachers and classmates at school, except for a few close friends who cried profusely and even attended the funeral, mostly sighed or muttered about her poor psychological resilience before continuing with their lives. A person's death is like a lamp extinguished, their traces quickly fading.
...
The following year, the Sea Clan unified as scheduled and officially declared war on humanity in September. The Human Alliance could no longer conceal this news and had to announce it to the public, mobilizing all humans to resist the Sea Clan.
Facing the Sea Clan's frenzied attacks and overwhelming numbers, humanity's disadvantage was quite apparent. Even with the late deployment of a specialized Sea Clan gene virus, the overall public sentiment remained pessimistic. This was because, apart from technology, humanity was comprehensively outmatched in all other aspects. They were behind in population, territory, the strength of top-tier ability users, and the number of ability users. Without resorting to destructive weapons, it was difficult to inflict significant damage on the higher-ranking Sea Clan members.
The lack of martial arts enhancements not only eroded the confidence of ordinary citizens but also that of the ability user soldiers on the front lines. The casualties were also considerable. Unlike the era with martial arts, where auxiliary and less useful abilities could be enhanced, and even ordinary people without abilities could cultivate for a period to gain some destructive power and kill power to deal with weaker Sea Clan members, in the normal course of events without martial arts, most people would struggle to cope with Sea Clan members possessing abilities or mutations. Even attack ability users would find it much harder to deal with the Sea Clan without the aid of martial arts. These factors led to heavy human casualties and a more arrogant Sea Clan.
Due to a lack of confidence in fighting back, many of humanity's subsequent actions became overly hasty. For instance, new viruses developed by the virus research institute were immediately put into use as soon as their research was confirmed successful, without further extensive testing, to poison the Sea Clan. Another example was the heavy casualties among ability users and the lack of sufficient attacking ability users to replenish their ranks, forcing humanity to extensively deploy conventional weaponry. Eventually, the conflict was no longer a clash of abilities, but rather humanity employing technological weaponry, viral weapons, and other arms against the Sea Clan.
For a time, humanity seemed to revert to the early days of spiritual energy recovery. It was the same situation then: humanity, due to a shortage of ability users and their insufficient strength, had to extensively use conventional weapons to deal with mutated flora and fauna. And ultimately, it was with conventional weapons that they managed to maintain a certain advantage in the early stages of spiritual energy recovery, gradually becoming able to contend with mutated flora and fauna.
However, this time, humanity had miscalculated. The extensive use of conventional weapons and biological viral weapons, while somewhat curbing the Sea Clan's fierce assault and causing numerous Sea Clan casualties, was negligible compared to their vast numbers. Moreover, it severely damaged the environment. The Sea Clan recognized humanity's weakness and did not cease their attacks but intensified them. They began to invade human territories through subterranean water veins. Riverbanks, lakesides, and even wellsprings became dangerous areas, subject to Sea Clan attacks. Damage to major water plants was a frequent occurrence. Many Sea Clan members, upon invading human territories, would carry the corpses of Sea Clan members infected with viruses and release them into human freshwater resources, a form of poisoning.
Furthermore, the Sea Clan's operation to raise sea levels never ceased. Vast coastal areas, low-lying regions, and island nations were submerged or hollowed out. Coupled with their frequent conjuring of storms and floods, and tsunamis that created extensive saline-alkali land, these conditions progressively eroded arable land and reduced human food production. Within two to three years, food reserves had dwindled to the point where many could only subsist on artificial starch.
This was not the most terrifying aspect. The most frightening thing was that among the viruses dispersed without repeated validation, mutated strains that infected terrestrial animals emerged. These spread to humans through terrestrial animals. Under stable social order, such infections might have been controllable, but at this time, the Human Alliance was struggling to cope, and chaos reigned across various regions. By the time awareness dawned, the virus had already spread. Humanity soon began to experience even larger-scale casualties, with tens of thousands dying at a time.
The situation then spiraled completely out of control. Humanity's virus research institutes began releasing nerve viruses and ability viruses specifically designed for the Sea Clan, though not perfectly. The former specifically targeted the Sea Clan's nervous systems and brain cells, destroying their intelligence, while the latter targeted their abilities. In addition, various more destructive weapons were successively deployed, targeting areas where higher-ranking Sea Clan members congregated. It was a fight to the death, even at the cost of heavy self-inflicted damage.
The Sea Clan retaliated with even greater ferocity, desperately trying to infect other species with Sea Clan members that had died from human viruses. While they lacked the capability to research viruses, they possessed the ability to spread them and disseminate infected blood and other substances. The two sides descended into a near-mutual annihilation struggle.
Ultimately, humanity emerged victorious, but it was a pyrrhic victory. Ten years later, due to the infection of nerve viruses, higher and middle-intelligence Sea Clan beings suffered brain damage, lost their intelligence, and reverted to ordinary life forms. Their offspring were similarly affected. The transmissibility of the virus meant they could no longer produce intelligent life. The Sea Clan civilization, barely a hundred years old, was thus destroyed from its roots by humanity, reverting to ordinary marine life. The ability viruses also destroyed the abilities of many Sea Clan species, including their descendants, with only their physical mutations remaining intact.
Although humanity won, it was a costly victory. Population losses reached eighty percent. The sea level rose due to the Sea Clan's final frenzy, submerging seventy percent of human land. Furthermore, a significant portion of the viruses humanity had specifically released into the Sea Clan, after dozens of mutations, transmitted back to humanity. Many humans also suffered impaired intelligence and the destruction of their abilities. Although the virus spread was eventually controlled, human civilization suffered immense damage, and even the overall level of technology and civilization regressed as a result.