Five Wutai mecha warriors descended from the sky, landing on the ruins.

This was the border of Zhannan Country, a city named Karl.

Far from the ocean and nestled between the old powers of Y Country and D Country, it had escaped the worst of the sea beast scourge.

Karl City was once a city brimming with art. Before the world's cataclysm, artists from all over the globe left their mark here: the giant statue of God in the Sacred Mother Square, the Heavenly Pantheon fresco on the clock tower, the ancient-style garden palace.

These artworks had been well-protected after the disaster.

The country deliberately preserved these artistic relics, as if trying to hold onto the last glimmer of hope and civilization in the boundless darkness.

But now, everything was ruins.

The earth was pockmarked with craters, many four to five meters deep, the soil scorched as if by a meteor shower.

The mecha warriors stood in Karl City’s Sacred Mother Square. Less than five hundred meters ahead lay the twenty-eight-meter-tall statue of God. Once, devout believers had traveled from afar to worship it, covering the square in flowers.

But the statue had fallen.

The body once worshipped by countless people now lay shattered on the ground, broken into countless pieces.

Around the shattered statue lay many human corpses.

They had been arranged in a peculiar formation, their faces all turned toward the broken God statue.

The Ancient King who destroyed Karl City seemed intent on forcing these humans to watch the destruction of the God statue, their "divinity" and "faith," at his own hands!

The Heavenly Pantheon fresco on the clock tower had been burned, the charred remains still smoking.

And further on...

The ancient-style palaces were now adorned with mangled corpses hanging from eaves and pillars, the scene less an elegant idyll and more like a terrifying vision of the Yama Palace from mythology.

The mecha warriors paused briefly. Then, one extended a mechanical arm and fired a shell, engulfing the corpse-laden palace in flames.

With the surface temperature now above twenty degrees Celsius, the unburied corpses could rot, breed viruses and bacteria, and potentially trigger an epidemic.

So the mecha warriors had to track down the two Ancient Kings who had infiltrated the human world, and clean up the mess they left behind.

"Confirmed, targets not in this city. Commencing transfer…"

After a half-hour search, the mecha warriors confirmed no signs of life in the city. They ascended into the sky and headed north.

The three cities destroyed by the Star Envoy last night were in a north-south line. So it was likely that the missing Star Envoy was still heading north, perhaps hiding in a city there.

And north of Karl City lay the border of Y Country, once a council member of the Allied Nations!

…

Y Country, Luton.

The Prime Minister of Y Country had received word of the Ancient Kings' invasion, but he was not alarmed.

Whether it was the Gale Envoy or the Star Envoy, their targets had been mid-sized countries without nuclear weapons. As one of the top five powers in human civilization, Y Country, even after relinquishing command of its large-scale military, still maintained a powerful Self-Defense Force within its borders.

This force possessed warplanes capable of launching nuclear missiles at will, and vehicle units capable of deploying intercontinental weapons!

Protected by this force, the Prime Minister doubted that the Ancient Kings would dare to invade Y Country.

After all, no matter how strong an Ancient King was, their physical bodies could not withstand the destructive power of nuclear weapons. Without their respective Miracle Buildings, even a second-stage evolved being would die before a nuclear weapon.

So, Y Country was not particularly vigilant.

The Prime Minister had just finished a meeting about distributing the LV2 crop seeds issued by Mad Wind Island.

In the current situation, these precious seeds were worth more than their weight in gold. Officials from various provinces and states had argued over larger shares at the meeting.

Although these seeds were supposedly distributed equally to improve people's livelihoods, the amount that actually reached ordinary citizens was minimal.

The reason was simple: officials at all levels kept skimming off the top. Relatives and friends of some officials used their connections to take what they could. Even the Prime Minister's family was no exception.

The fruits and vegetables that couldn't be eaten were hoarded, left to rot in warehouses rather than distributed to the people.

The Prime Minister did not find this absurd. On the contrary, he thought it was normal.

Even when food was scarce, and hundreds of thousands of people in Y Country died from hunger and malnutrition, his diet of fresh veal, French foie gras, and caviar, accompanied by a glass of thirty-year-old vintage wine, never changed. He even spent a fortune to have it flown in from abroad.

Concentrating the majority of "wealth" in the hands of the ruling class, in the hands of those in power, had been the norm for countless years.

The security team stopped at the gate of the Prime Minister's residence, and the Prime Minister walked in alone.

But as soon as he entered the living room, he felt something was wrong.

Usually, a servant would greet him and help him change into his home clothes, and his wife's golden retriever would rush over wagging its tail. But today, nothing. The Prime Minister's residence was eerily quiet.

"Daphne! Angie!" The Prime Minister called out softly to his wife and daughter, but no one responded.

Feeling uneasy, he looked around and suddenly heard a noise from the kitchen.

Cautiously, he took two steps towards the kitchen and saw a strange man facing him, using a knife and fork to cut a steak on a plate. He was clumsy, as if it was the first time he had used cutlery.

At the stranger's feet lay a dozen mangled corpses.

The Prime Minister's wife, his daughter, the servants and drivers of the residence!

Everyone lay at the man's feet.

Blood stained the white cashmere carpet black and red.

And the man was like a demon from hell, dining elegantly amidst a sea of corpses!