Everyone raised their heads to look toward the direction of the docks. Explosions rang out one after another. At first, it was the cargo ships anchored offshore that blew up. Then the explosions crept all the way toward the docks. Initially, the stevedores just stood there in a daze. It was not until one man dropped the crate off his shoulder and fled in panic toward the motorcade that the others snapped out of their stupor. Throwing away everything that could slow them down, they scrambled and crawled toward the Warehouse District.
The explosions spread with terrifying speed. More than half of the cargo ships inside the port were blown sky-high. The water churned up by the blasts rose like a dragon drawing water, countless droplets soaring into the air alongside shattered fragments of the freighters. When the kinetic energy finally spent itself, those towering columns of water crashed down onto the surviving ships with the force of ten thousand junks.
The already battered vessels were smashed to pieces by the falling water columns. The steel-hulled freighters barely managed to hold together; even with their hulls listing at dangerous angles, they could still stay afloat a little longer. But the wooden cargo ships were utterly pulverized by the blasts and water columns. Anything with significant weight plunged straight to the bottom of the river, leaving broken wooden planks bobbing on the waves as silent witnesses to the devastation they had suffered.
Chapter 80