I fabricated myths to guide the revival of spiritual energy.

Gu Qing quietly watched the global battle reports compiled on the system panel. After 100,000 Xuanjia Dao soldiers took over the major high-risk war zones around the world like divine soldiers descending from the sky, the human vital signs curves, which had been plummeting like a waterfall, were finally brought to a screeching halt.

But behind this braking lies a suffocatingly tragic price.

[Battle damage statistics for the first phase of the Void Invasion have been completed.]

Global population decline: 50.4%. Current remaining human population: approximately 40.5 billion.

The number of civilians directly killed in the Void Monster massacre, aura storms, and secondary disasters exceeds 40 billion.

[Human conventional armies suffered 70% casualties; the mortality rate for extraordinary individuals/cultivators was 41%.]

A series of chilling statistics represent the blood that human civilization has shed over this period. Four billion vibrant lives, in the face of the malice of higher dimensions of the universe, have turned into dust of history.

The Xuanjia Daoist army's position has been fully secured.

[The system predicts that, under the cover of the Taoist soldiers' firepower, the mortality rate of human frontline defense will decrease by 96.5% within the next eight years.]

[High-Dimensional Descent Buffer Period Simulation: Due to Earth's Heavenly Firewall, the next full-scale attack from the void is expected to arrive in ten years.]

"We've finally weathered the first wave of the storm."

Gu Qing watched the precipitous drop in the death rate, his eyes devoid of any emotion. One hundred thousand soulless weapons had bought humanity a precious respite.

His gaze pierced through the sea of ​​clouds, landing on this ravaged yet gradually quieting planet.

With the intervention of the Xuanjia Dao Soldiers, a series of extremely absurd yet heartbreaking scenes have emerged on the meat grinder battlefields around the world.

On the Siberian ice plains, tall, cold, azure-gold-clad warriors stood like statues atop piles of Void Mantis corpses, their eerie blue eyes scanning the distance without emotion. Behind them, Russian soldiers, exhausted and starving, some even poised to detonate their grenades, knelt in the snow, embracing the mangled bodies of their fallen comrades and weeping bitterly.

In the ruins of a North American city, Dao soldiers used bone blades to slice high-level Void Beasts into pieces. Human refugees hiding in underground bunkers watched this scene through the cracks, their hands trembling as they made the sign of the cross on their chests, mistaking these cold-blooded killing machines for angels who would save the world.

On the East China Sea defense line, the raging tsunami was stopped by the human wall formed by the soldiers' bare bodies. The mortal logistics troops and low-level cultivators on the rear embraced each other and wept, blood and mud mingling on their faces, the ultimate joy of surviving a catastrophe.

The gods sent down soulless weapons to shield humanity from the sharpest butcher's knife.

……

At the same time, on the southwestern border of China, at the eleventh line of defense.

The smoke of battle had not yet dissipated, and the air was filled with the acrid smell of burning. With two hundred Xuanjia Dao soldiers parachuting in and taking over the front-line positions, this defensive line, which had been held for months and suffered more than half of its casualties, finally ushered in a long-awaited peace.

Outside the command post, a joint announcement from Bureau 749 and various other organizations was broadcast throughout every corner via spiritual energy:

"The pressure on the front lines has been relieved. All cultivators who responded to the nation's call and were stationed on the front lines are free to choose to retire from their posts starting today. They can return to school to continue their studies, strive for higher realms, and accumulate strength for the future."

This is undoubtedly fantastic news.

In the tents behind the defensive line, a group of young students, dressed in tattered battle robes and bearing a weariness beyond their years, were silently packing their belongings.

They came with a thousand people, but now there are less than five hundred left.

"Lin Fan, is your flying sword fixed yet? The train's tomorrow, we can finally go back to school." A chubby boy stuffed blood-stained textbooks into his backpack while wiping away tears. "I miss my mom, and I miss the braised pork from the cafeteria..."

The young man called Lin Fan remained silent. He was only eighteen years old, but his eyes held the gaze of a seasoned veteran.

He carried his baggage, walked out of the tent, and came to a small hill not far away.

On the hill, hundreds of simple wooden plaques stand densely packed together. They mark the cemetery of the fallen soldiers of the civilian garrison regiment on this defensive line.

Beside the cemetery, an old sergeant, missing an arm and dressed in ordinary camouflage, was clumsily throwing paper money into a brazier with his only remaining left hand.

Lin Fan quietly walked to the old squad leader's side and looked at the firelight.

A few months ago, Lin Fan, who was exhausted on the battlefield and had no time to catch his breath, was ambushed by an invisible void beast. It was this mortal old sergeant, who couldn't even draw in his own qi, who pushed him away and used his right arm and half his life to save Lin Fan, this "immortal".

"Old squad leader," Lin Fan said softly.

The old squad leader looked up, a grim smile squinting across his face, which was covered in gunpowder and wrinkles: "Hey, Lin the Great Sword Immortal, all packed up? Good to go back. It's safe back at school. Cultivate well and become a great master someday. Don't forget to bring me a couple of bottles of good wine."

Lin Fan looked at the old squad leader's empty right sleeve, and then at the distant sky, which, although guarded by Dao soldiers, was still shrouded in gloom.

He suddenly lowered his head and threw his baggage into the mud with a "thud".

"I'm not going back."

Lin Fan's voice wasn't loud, but it carried a resolute and unwavering tone.

The old squad leader was stunned, then jumped up in a panic: "What nonsense are you spouting! The orders have been given! The Dao soldiers have done all the work, what are you precious cultivation seeds doing left in this poor mountain valley? Go back and begin your Foundation Establishment!"

"Once you go back, your heart can never come back."

Lin Fan sat cross-legged in front of the cemetery, placing the chipped flying sword across his lap, his eyes brighter than ever before.

"You can't build a sword that can cut through the void by working in a greenhouse. You saved my life, my comrades are buried here, and the people I care about are here too." Lin Fan looked at his old squad leader, a smile playing on his lips. "My 'path' lies in this muddy trench."

"I will stay here and lay the foundation. I want to see this land grow crops again."

Students like Lin Fan are not isolated cases on the entire defense line of China, or even the world.

Some students chose to obey orders and returned to the rear with a heavy heart and a sense of responsibility, determined to establish their own schools of thought in academics and martial arts; while others, because of the sacrifice of their comrades and the expectations of ordinary people, firmly planted their roots in the war-torn frontier.

Whether to stay or leave is a matter of life and death.

……

High above, Gu Qing took in all of this.

He looked at the young lives who shed tears before the tombstones, those who chose to stay because of their attachments. In his eyes, there were no tears of emotion, only a kind of rational satisfaction belonging to the Creator.

"This is something that the Xuanjia Dao Soldier will never have."

Gu Qing murmured to herself.

Dao soldiers are not afraid, but they will not erupt in extreme anger at the sacrifice of their comrades; Dao soldiers are absolutely obedient, but they can never understand the weight behind the word "protect".

The entanglements, pain, and obsessions that arise between these young practitioners and ordinary people are precisely the fuel that propels the human soul to leap to higher dimensions.

"The first calamity of bloodshed and war has come to an end."

Gu Qing stood up, waved his sleeve, and closed the battle report panel in front of him.

Humanity survived the darkest first wave of invasion. Thanks to the physical barrier of 100,000 soldiers and a temporary ten-year buffer period, Earth finally ushered in a precious period of stable development.

The first catastrophe has ended, and all things lie dormant.

The world to come will no longer be a simple meat grinder for fighting monsters, but a new order being rebuilt amidst the intertwining of wasteland and spiritual energy, a great world of cultivation where a hundred schools of thought contend.