The old man you see with your phone is highly suspicious.

They are clearly an extremely powerful race, so powerful that legends are commonplace and myths abound. Under such circumstances, teleportation should have been known to everyone by now. However, among the people of this continent, only a very few people know how to teleport.

Everyone else was desperately squeezing out their life force to generate short-term fighting power.

In a world where three-year-olds have to start poking chimneys to make a living, and four-year-olds have to fight wars with spears several times taller than themselves, simply surviving is a luxury that countless people dare not even dream of.

The younger generation has begun to fantasize about the "unified era" that the older generation talks about.

The elders often say that they also had a good life when they were young. Back then, there was a guy who called himself the "Demon Emperor" who defeated all the races in the world and established a unified empire without war.

Back then, they didn't need to worry about tomorrow or when death would come, or whether they would need to fight for a way out while they still had the strength when they got old. Those 14 years were the happiest time of their lives...

The old man said that although he was only 60 years old, which would only be considered middle-aged in this world, for people like them who live to be over 150, 60 years old is really just the beginning of adulthood.

He was only a young adult, but because he relentlessly pushed himself to the limit, he has aged so much.

Or perhaps, in order to survive in this shitty world, they can only desperately squeeze out their life force to gain strength, and they still understand the principle that dying later is better than dying now.

So, even though he had only recently come of age, his eyes were already cloudy, his hair was gray and brittle, and he looked like he was about to die.

"Old man, why did such a great empire disappear?" the young man asked.

"I don't know... I don't know... why did the empire collapse like this?" The old man said blankly, looking at the desolate world, backward, lifeless, and the endless undead wandering in the wilderness in the distance.

If the empire were still standing, would those dead monsters still be so arrogant?

He didn't know. All he knew was that back then, the Demon Emperor of the Empire died, and the collapse began instantly. First, all sorts of nobles divided up the land, claiming that they were their subjects and needed to pay taxes for the next few decades. They pointed to the great river and swore that they would protect them.

Then, a few years later, the nobles were driven out, and a group of generals arrived. They collected taxes for several decades, claiming it was necessary to protect their lands.

A few years later, a large group of people calling themselves the "Imperial Ministry" drove out the general and occupied the place. They claimed that in order to restore the glory of the empire, they would collect taxes for 90 years before they could rebuild the glory of the empire.

Then, the undead arrived, and the Imperial forces, seeing the situation was dire, fled, leaving only these people to fight off the undead.

He thought again of the day the empire collapsed, when countless people around the world cheered and shouted excitedly, "The empire is dead! The tyrant is dead!" and when they tore down the Demon Emperor's statue and destroyed all the knowledge he had left behind, the old man even felt a little dazed.

In a daze, it seemed as if that incomparably powerful empire, free from war, was still appearing before his eyes.

Now, this small settlement has only a little over a hundred people left. No one even knows if they can withstand the next undead attack. They might not even need the undead tide to come before they completely give up and become one of the undead.

Finally, he wandered aimlessly in his former homeland, seemingly remembering nothing but wandering around, until he finally died under the control of a higher-level undead, becoming cannon fodder in the attack on other cities.

More than 40 years have passed since the empire fell...

The old man thought to himself that the legacy of the old Demon Emperor's empire still influenced many people. Back then, everyone was still dividing themselves into different races, such as demons, tree spirits, spirits, beastmen, and so on.

But now, no one refers to their race anymore, because everyone has become a hybrid. Although the empire was only glorious for such a short time, many things left behind by the empire still affect them in every aspect.

With racial integration, the brutal infighting and horrific killings between races ceased. After experiencing a series of wars such as aristocratic separatism and warlord conflicts, people increasingly missed the former empire. They even felt a strong urge to slap themselves when they thought about how happy they were when that empire fell.

After the empire's collapse and the ensuing chaos, the warlords continued to abide by the rules established during the imperial era and united together.

It wasn't because the warlords had a conscience, but because the dead had come...

After the empire's destruction, this war-torn continent experienced its most devastating war, with corpses strewn across the land and rivers of blood flowing. In just ten years, the population, which had once exceeded 100 million, was reduced to a mere 40 million.

At that time, he could hardly imagine what kind of scene he was seeing: there really was a couple in the sliced ​​beef and tripe, and there really was a child in the claypot rice...

Some warlords even felt there wasn't enough food, so they tied up thousands of people and took them with them, playing with them while eating them. After the battle, the extra people were used one by one to test the power of magic, turning into a rain of blood.

Or they dug a large pit and buried all the mobile rations alive in the soil.

Whether it was divine punishment or a mockery of them, the dead corpses suddenly rose up one day and were given a new name: "the undead"!

An even more brutal and bloody war between the living and the dead has begun.

Their small settlement was located in an area completely surrounded by the undead. Other settlements in the vicinity had either been breached or had long since fled to the warlord-controlled cities deeper within the region.

Evil will be punished?

It seems there has never been any logic to this, yet the warlords and nobles who caused the undead calamity still hide in big cities.

This is what a chaotic world is like!

This small settlement has only been able to survive to this day because I learned a lot about defensive fortifications and combat magic in the Imperial Academy when I was a child.

However, I may not be able to hold on any longer.

"Clang! Clang!"

As the bell rang, the people who had been boasting together immediately frowned and hurriedly rushed to the earthen rampart that had been erected.

"Undead, the undead are coming again! This time, there's also a bone dragon!" When the scout's voice came, everyone panicked even more.

They had been living day by day, but they never expected that day would come so soon.

In the distance, an enormous skeletal dragon advanced, and beside it, countless skeletons, like a flock of sheep being herded, headed towards their settlement.

Everyone's faces were ashen; they couldn't understand why such a mythical bone dragon would exist here...

Now they can't even escape. A few days ago, they might have been able to escape to a big city, but now, if they dare to leave the settlement, they will only be attacked by the undead with even greater excitement.

Only by holding the settlement to the death can we hope that the bone dragon is just passing by, or that these undead will not be willing to fight to the death against the natural barrier they have dug.

But all their plans failed; the undead simply stepped on any traps, using their sheer numbers to flatten them into level ground.

Any obstacle will be filled with the stacked skeletons that climb, forming a bone wall.

The old man saw what lay ahead and realized that their settlement was merely a speed bump in the bone dragon's path. The bone dragon's target wasn't them; it seemed to be just passing through, crushing them like a speed bump. The bone dragon's goal was something much further away, yet they were helpless and could only wait to die.

The settlement is finished...

Once breached by the bone dragon, even without the bone dragon's intervention, the skeletons will hunt down the living like madmen, and even hiding underground won't save them...

But in reality, many small settlements like theirs disappear every day, just like them, and perhaps become part of the undead.

Perhaps so; this is what chaotic times are like.

Chapter 420 The Old Demon Emperor from Dandong

"Gather, gather! The undead are coming! The undead are coming!" The old man's voice rang out instantly.

Dozens of people took up weapons. Some of them were emaciated and looked like bamboo poles, as if they could die at any moment. Others were extremely old, with wrinkled and withered faces like those of an old man. This was the backlash after their life force had been squeezed too hard.

But nobody cares here, because when survival is already a luxury, squeezing out one's life force to gain temporary strength is the ultimate training method.

However, the bone dragons did not stop advancing because of their reaction, and they didn't even care about the speed bump blocking their way.

There used to be many small settlements like this, but they were all occupied and controlled by warlords and became gathering places for farmers to produce goods. The fortifications built were not intended to defend against such a behemoth as the Bone Dragon.

However, at this moment, such a behemoth did not care about these small fry at all, but the skeletons following the bone dragon were like madmen chasing after the scent of the living.

"Get underground! Get down there and use shields and spears to hold off the skeletons and ghouls. That's our only way out!" he roared immediately.

The bone dragons were monsters they could not stop, but the bone dragons were not interested in them. Their only way to survive was to hide underground and block those low-level undead.

Only after the bone dragon has completely departed, and the vast majority of the undead have followed it away, leaving only a small number of undead, will they have their only chance to eliminate these undead and reclaim their settlement.

It was also the only chance to survive!

He gritted his teeth, sweat pouring down his body, once again squeezing out his life force.

I am grateful to the Empire for teaching me the basic magic refining methods in the academy, and I am grateful that I did not sleep in class but chose to study hard.

But if I could return to the era of the former empire, I would fight tooth and nail to learn as much as possible in the school! Even if I were to die, I would die in the school, dying amidst that knowledge!

Whether it's refining knowledge with magic or military formations.

I swear to offer my heart to the old demon king! I will defend the empire to the death, and I will never allow it to be destroyed by those pathetic insects in just 14 years!

"Roar!"

The ghouls and skeletons, these low-level undead, crashed into the ironwood fortifications. The young men in the front row desperately held their shields, not knowing how long they could hold out. Meanwhile, those behind them fought desperately, thrusting their weapons through the gaps in the shields again and again, piercing through the ghouls and crushing the spines of the skeletons.

The best solution is to build an extremely deep bunker, so deep that even the dead cannot sense the presence of the living below.

But that was too far-fetched for them.

They could only dig a small tunnel, and they had to leave a gap for the undead to attack, because only in this way would the undead gather in this gap instead of going crazy and digging three feet into the ground.

Otherwise, the few meters of soil above their heads would soon be dug through by the undead, and they would be trapped like turtles in a jar.

Those at the rear of the army desperately squeezed out their life force to generate a surge of adrenaline and temporary strength, pulling back their spears and piercing through once more.

It's incredible that such a disciplined military formation could emerge from such a small settlement, but this is what he learned in school. All the knowledge he once thought was insignificant has now become his trump card for survival.

"Crack!" The shield shattered.

"Hold on! Hold on! Don't let the ghouls catch you!" he commanded, thrusting his spear forward.

However, a scream rang out, the scream of a young man caught by a ghoul. In an instant, the army formation collapsed, and everyone around him abandoned him and prepared to flee.

Fear spread again in an instant. It wasn't because they were cowardly, but because anyone injured by the undead would develop a high fever after 10 minutes and die completely in about 20 minutes, turning into a monster no different from the zombies in the horde of undead!

Therefore, once scratched, there was no hope of recovery; this person could be considered another ghost!

Therefore, the already crumbling army formation collapsed in an instant, and the undead began to tear open from this opening, ignoring the infected person and rushing towards the others.

"Is it over?" These were the old man's last thoughts.

They're finished. They've been clinging to life until now. They should have died long ago, but they've been desperately trying to stay alive.

Just as the slaughter of the undead was about to begin, and he had completely given up resistance, preparing to pull out a dagger to commit suicide, the light shone brightly in front of everyone.

The next moment, in the light, the bone dragon's head was severed in an instant, and its massive body was also cut in half vertically in perfect symmetry. As if there were no obstacles, it was as if a hot knife was cutting into butter. The bones, which were far stronger than alloys, did not break at all, but were easily cut open.

After slicing through the bone dragon, the light wheel instantly shattered into billions of smaller light wheels, which, as if possessing a tracking function, sliced ​​through all the surrounding undead.

The low-level undead, enveloped by the bone dragon, didn't even have time to be cut by the light wheel; they spontaneously combusted and turned to ashes simply from the light's illumination.

As if they had met their nemesis, the next moment, the large horde of undead swept up by the bone dragon turned into burning ghost fire. They were unable to launch any counterattacks and were reduced to ashes.

Everyone stared blankly at the sky, but the light was so bright that they couldn't even see the figures within it. They could only see a demi-human that resembled a combination of a centipede and a lizard, a characteristic once unique to the demon race.

When there were hundreds of races, the demon race was just like that. Ugly yet powerful, it looked like a demon from hell, hence the name demon race.

But now, there are hardly any demons left in the entire world, perhaps only a handful.

Among the crowd, only the oldest man saw the old demon emperor in the light. He recognized the figure; it was the image that had appeared countless times in his dreams, the image that had been imprinted in various books when he was in school.

The first demon king to unify the entire world!

He would almost always return to the classroom in his dreams and see the emperor's portrait. And now, the emperor was actually standing in front of him, as if in a dream, as if in a fantasy...

The old man knelt on the ground, tears streaming down his face, burying his aged head deep in the earth. Tears and snot mingled together as he cried out, "Demon King, Vani, the first graduate of Imperial Capital Academy No. 4, respectfully welcomes the Demon King's arrival!"

At this moment, a towering defensive tower, formed from condensed light and resembling the sun, rose in the very center of the settlement. After witnessing this miracle, everyone burst into tears, and many even thought they were dead and that they were just dreaming.