As soon as the Human Emperor Banner came out, I became the Lord of the Old Ones

Chapter 241 From the Apocalypse
According to Knox himself, before he was brought back to life, he was like most of the homeless children in the depths of the wilderness, living a life of wandering, loneliness and destitution.

Wandering from one ruin to another, from one gang to another, barely escaping one old invasion, only to face another soon.

In the wilderness, such homeless children rarely live past thirty.

The end result is either turning into withered bones among the barren hills or mutating into deformed and ugly monsters.

However, when Knox was sixteen or seventeen, he had a high fever for three days and three nights after a rare thunderstorm, and also had nightmares for three days and three nights.

It was an incredibly long and incredibly real nightmare.

In his dream, he wandered between ruins and gangs, using his wit, cruelty, and a bit of luck to struggle for survival like a cockroach or a rat, barely surviving until he was in his forties or fifties.

During this time, he witnessed the rise and fall of several gangs, learned a great deal of technology and knowledge from decades later, and saw how the Alliance of Heroes—a huge force that called itself the "guardians of civilization"—went from being vibrant and advancing to becoming corrupt, decadent, and stagnant.

Finally, the nightmare ended, and the apocalypse arrived.

A century ago, a great catastrophe destroyed almost all the major coastal cities of the Heroic Civilization, wiped out 70% of the population, and turned the once prosperous and fertile land into a "polluted zone" and "wasteland" ravaged by monsters.

However, that was merely "the simultaneous arrival of the three ancient calamities".

At the end of Knox's nightmare, the ultimate power that had destroyed the Phantom Demon Civilization, the Super Martial Civilization, the Beast Taming Civilization, and the Strange Machine Civilization unleashed a terrifying "quartet".

Whether it was the once-powerful Alliance of Heroes that had fallen into decline, the scattered Wilderness Bandits, or other forces scattered on the edge of the world, none could escape this catastrophe, and none could even preserve a few sparks of civilization.

This is the real end of the world.

The civilization of heroes is destined to follow in the footsteps of the four ancient civilizations, becoming dust that will be completely annihilated by the torrent of history.

All people, all lingering souls, and all objects and traces that symbolize the existence of the heroic civilization will vanish into thin air, never to be reborn.

At the end of the nightmare, black flames swept across the wilderness, burning the old and frail Knox to ashes.

The homeless boy was awakened by screams.

The dark nightmare of the past three days and three nights was far too real, vivid, and painful.

The reality was so real that the homeless teenagers couldn't simply view it as a nightmare.

He believed it was all real.

He wasn't dreaming.

Instead, he actually struggled to survive in the wilderness until he was in his forties or fifties, and personally experienced a real apocalypse.

But 0.01 seconds before ultimate destruction, he was reborn in his childhood.

He is a reborn soul who returned from the apocalypse, and he shoulders an incomparably sacred mission.

The Black Nightmare gave him and the world a second chance; he must save the world!

Without the slightest hesitation, the homeless boy gave himself a new name, "Knox," to commemorate his rebirth.

He then widely publicized his dream to those around him, instilling the theory that "as a post-apocalyptic reborn person, one must save the world."

Of course, no one believed him at first. Everyone thought he was insane, that his brain had been invaded by chaotic remnants of the past, causing him to hallucinate.

—This is a common phenomenon in wilderness areas, especially after the invasion of the old world.

But soon, Knox used his advanced spirit manipulation techniques to show the doubters the power of the "Apocalypse Reborn".

In just a few years, Knox subdued more than a dozen bandit gangs deep in the wilderness.

There are also a large number of believers who are convinced of his "doomsday theory" and voluntarily follow him.

Thus, the Black Dream organization was born.

The so-called "Black Dream" refers to the bleak, hopeless future that Knox once dreamed of, a future that would eventually be consumed by black flames.

A once unknown wilderness boy has become the supreme leader of the Black Dream organization, with his spearhead aimed directly at the thriving Heroic Spirit Alliance.

Based on everything he foresaw in his dream, Knox believed that even after the Cataclysm, when the Alliance of Heroes sheltered survivors, cleaned up the mess, and rekindled the flame of civilization, there was still a tiny bit of contribution and glory to be had.

So, after a full century of development, today's alliance has long since degenerated into a tool for giant corporations and spirit-controlling families to monopolize powerful remnant souls, seize excessive profits, eliminate dissidents, solidify social classes, and oppress the people.

It's worth noting that the pioneers who created the Heroic Spirit Alliance originally proclaimed the slogan "Save all of humanity."

In his dream, however, the future alliance did not substantially expand its territory for two or three decades.

Those high-ranking figures only hide in the "safe zone" and the "core area," wallowing in the quagmire of power and unable to extricate themselves.

Yet they allowed the residents of the "planned area" and "wilderness area"—the very people they had sworn to save—to suffer repeated attacks from the old natural disasters.

How could such a bloated and corrupt Alliance of Heroes possibly shoulder the responsibility of crushing the apocalypse and reviving civilization?
To completely dismantle the "Old Cataclysmic Quartet" he saw in the Black Dream, the first step is to defeat the Alliance, or at least to introduce fresh forces from the Black Dream organization and completely change the aging Alliance!
To be fair, Knox, the leader of Black Dream, wasn't entirely wrong.

Any system will develop flaws or even malfunctions after running for a long time, requiring regular maintenance, repair, or even refurbishment.

The insightful members of the Heroic Spirit Alliance, the Spirit Card Association's Spirit Control Competition, the blue-blooded elites of business groups, and the experts and scholars in top academies did not shy away from pointing out the various problems existing in the alliance, and put forward insightful opinions on how to improve it.

Unfortunately, the Black Dream organization has no intention of following the rules and making gradual improvements.

Time waits for no one; we must seize every minute.

The "Doomsday Quartet" in the Black Dream leader Knox's dream was truly terrifying. The incredibly horrific scenes became indelible marks, deeply engraved in his cerebral cortex and even the depths of his soul.

The time left for him was far too short. If he wanted to seize supreme power within a few decades and make the entire civilization operate and improve according to his will, he would have to resort to the most extreme and drastic methods.

To Knox and the Black Dream followers who are proliferating like a virus, the current Heroic Spirit civilization is like a terminally ill patient suffering from multiple incurable diseases, sentenced to death by all the famous doctors.

Since death is imminent, any radical medical approach is justified and necessary.

Amputation, disembowelment, organ transplantation, full-body blood transfusion, transplanting the human brain into an animal or machine, or even eliminating the need for a brain altogether, simply digitizing memories and personality traits and storing them in a smart chip...

After all, how much worse can things get?

(End of this chapter)