Chapter 1 The Approaching End

The world was about to end.

Eleven hundred years ago, through observing the cyclical transformations of the four elements and their gradual decline, the great scholar Berlain predicted that the world would enter the abyss of destruction within two hundred years due to the complete stagnation of the elements.

However, in the first decade after the prediction appeared, the entire world remained indifferent. Although Berlain was recognized as a great scholar in the four great kingdoms, possessing near-divine power, if he had predicted the destruction of a single country, no one would have found it strange, and they would even have been willing to believe it unconditionally.

After all, as a near-divine powerhouse, Berlain's strength had already approached the point where he could single-handedly overturn a country. If he were to make a wrong prediction and become angry out of humiliation, it wouldn't be surprising if he decided to fulfill his own prophecy.

But even if Berlain, such a powerful figure, were to carelessly speak of the world's destruction, wouldn't other powerhouses, and even the churches of the gods, have something to say about it?

But the truth was that, although other powerhouses and forces remained silent, many interested parties discovered that the activity of the elements throughout the world was indeed decreasing.

The sun in the sky was no longer bright, the soil on the ground was no longer fertile, the wind still blew, but the spiritual breeze within it had dissipated, and at the bottom of the seas, the surging ocean currents were gradually ceasing.

Multiple races and multiple instances of observation were proving every point in the prophecy. Everyone was filled with fear, trying to deny this absurd reality, but the reason why a fact is a fact is because it cannot be denied.

In a short span of twenty years, Berlain's prediction went from being dismissed as nonsense to becoming an ironclad truth.

Even the great scholar Berlain himself would have preferred to be scorned and ridiculed rather than believe it was true... but the end was indeed coming. Everyone was frantically building safe houses in remote areas and digging underground shelters in the deepest parts of the earth.

Everyone, no matter who they were, was doing their best to eke out a living when the end arrived.

But the end did not arrive as predicted.

Because, before the world was destroyed, the spiritual energy, or the magic tide, was completely cut off.

For scholars, mages, and even warriors and knights, the severance of the magic tide meant that they could no longer cast any powerful spells and could only fight with their bodies and some simple spells, or even be unable to continue living. But for the world, the severance of the magic tide actually alleviated the abnormal stagnation of the four elements.

It was like a small boat being pushed by the current, constantly drifting toward a cliff and about to fall. After losing the current's propulsion, although it could not continue moving forward and the situation was still critical, imminent destruction was not about to descend.

So, the world was not destroyed after two hundred years.

Even after eleven hundred years, it still existed.

But how should one put it... just as the most terrifying thing is not the moment one is killed by a bullet fired from a gun, but the time before the enemy pulls the trigger, when the condemned does not want to die but knows that their fate is certain death.

These eleven hundred years were such a time for all the humans living in this world. They were living in a condemned, proven-to-be dying world.

This was the truly long, painful, and unbearable, yet real, and agonizingly slow time called the end.

However, when talking about the destruction of the world, one must talk about the birth of the world.

The philosopher Taibominedu once said that the essence of all things originates from water: earth is the condensation of water, wind is the dispersion of water, fire is the sublimation of water, all things are rooted in the womb of water, and everything is a transformation of the form of water, born from the deep sea.

The philosopher Ximilidonik also said that all things originate from wind: the acceleration of wind is fire, the deceleration of wind is water, the stagnation of wind is earth, all things originate from the speed of wind, and everything is part of the atmospheric movement, born from the sky above.

As for the hypothesis that all things originate from fire, it is even older than the previous two, coming from an unknown sage from several eras ago: after fire burns, the ashes are earth, what rises is wind, and what cools down is water. All things originate from the transformation of the form of fire, and everything that exists is rooted in the burning of fire.

Now that three have been mentioned, wouldn't it be awkward to not mention the last of the four elements, earth? And indeed, there is a modern creation hypothesis for earth: all things come from the nurturing of earth, the intersection of earth is fire, just like the magma under the earth. The convergence of earth is wind, just like the airflow rolled up by the movement of matter. And the flow of earth is water, all of which have corresponding and logically rigorous explanations.

But no matter what, the four elements are the genuine foundation of the world, whether it is the sky, the sun, or the stars and moon, everything originates from the power of the elements.

But now, the foundation of the elements has collapsed.

Water is drying up and freezing, wind is stagnating and flowing, earth is no longer fertile, and fire has lost its temperature.

In the gradually dying and darkening world, countless monsters originating from darkness and necromancy roam in the barrenness. The once prosperous four kingdoms have long since disintegrated in the millennium of time. Most of the vast world has turned into barren ruins. Above the ground, only the sheltered cities protected by huge barrier arrays can still normally grow crops and maintain the necessities of life, so they are the last base for the remnants of order.

And besides that, most people can only live underground, constantly digging deeper into the earth, seeking survival from the still-scorching magma temperature deep underground.

Originally, the people of this world had gradually adapted to this dim, almost lightless world, and this almost hopeless life—life is always tenacious, and even in a world like this, humans still maintain civilization and order, which is perhaps the only thing they can boast about.

However, as the magic tide gradually returns to the world, the originally stagnant progress of the end begins to flow forward once again.

The small boat by the cliff will not be lucky enough to stop a second time, and the cliff is right in front of them.

This time, even the dimmest ray of hope will no longer have a chance to remain.

The end is near.

Neisser, the main city of the Neisser Grand Duchy, of the former four kingdoms, the Thousand Lakes Country in the southwest. The Neisser family, who shares the same name, lives and dies with it and gradually built it into one of the few sheltered cities in the world during the hundreds of years after the collapse of the kingdom. Under the rule of the grand dukes of Neisser, the city and the surrounding territory have maintained stability even in the dim pre-apocalyptic era.

However, just a year ago, or to be exact, eight months and twenty-one days ago, the contemporary Grand Duke of Neisser died unexpectedly in order to break through to the 'Great Scholar' realm after the magic tide recovered. Even if the others in the family kept it a secret, the grand duke, who often went out, had not appeared outside for several months, which was already a signal.

Soon, under an unknown attack, the direct heirs of the Neisser family died one after another, and the news of the Grand Duke of Neisser's death finally spread. The extraordinary family that had sheltered a region instantly turned from a lion occupying the grasslands into a lamb to be slaughtered. The huge wealth, extraordinary materials, magical inheritance, and research data on the 'end' accumulated over hundreds of years of ruling an entire sheltered city were all oily meat attracting jackals.

Resources are something that, with one more point, might mean one more point of hope to survive the end, and the Neisser family's research data on the end is an invaluable treasure that anyone would want to get their hands on.

However, the Neisser family is, after all, an ancient extraordinary family that has been passed down for over a thousand years. Whether it is the family's secret treasure or the control authority of the sheltering formation, they all require the bloodline of the core members of their family to unlock. But unfortunately, the first thing the previous core members of the Neisser family did before their 'accidental deaths' was to destroy their own bloodline. This was a curse seal hidden in their bodies, which could make everyone return empty-handed with just a thought.

So, is there a member with the core bloodline of the Neisser family, but without the curse seal, who can be used by the jackals?

Of course, there is.

And he is quietly setting off from a neighboring sheltered city, intending to avoid everyone's sight and inherit the position of Grand Duke in the shortest possible time, so as to reorganize order with the power of the great formation... and the hunters hunting him are also setting off at the same time.

——In this world facing the end, humans are still killing each other.

Or rather, it is precisely because they are about to face the end that all the madness hidden in the marrow of people's hearts is gradually being released.

And the story will begin in this world where all things are dying and everything is about to end.

Snap!

A crisp sound of bone cracking rang out.

As a strong smell of blood spread, a small stream of blood, formed by a confluence of blood, appeared in a vast gray wasteland, and the source of the stream was dozens of horribly dead bodies.

"So, you scum are just taking money from who-knows-who and randomly blocking people in the suburbs, intending to find the 'heir' you mentioned, right?"

At the very center of the dozens of corpses, Su Zhou, wearing a black hooded robe, with a cold temperament and a rare look of anger on his face, was sitting on a pile of bodies that were either burned black or electrocuted black, with one foot stepping on the head of a burly man with a face full of blood.

He asked indifferently: "If you are lucky enough to find him, you will catch him and take him to collect the reward. If you don't find him, you can also rob passers-by and merchants. Anyway, someone will pay you wages, so you can earn two wages for one job."

What Su Zhou said was naturally Chinese—when he was attacked before, he thought it was an accident and misunderstanding, so he tried to communicate in English and French, but the language of this world was obviously different from that of Earth, so he simply used soul transmission, and the language was the one that came most easily to his mouth.

"Yes, yes, sir, we wouldn't dare to attack you. If you had shown your hand earlier, how would we dare to attack you?"

The bandit, stepped on by Su Zhou, his forehead sinking into the soil, felt the force coming from the back of his head that was about to crush his head. He immediately cried out in panic, responding with his soul in his mind: "You seem to have just come from somewhere else? I am a Neisser, I can lead the way for you—I am still useful, I can—"

Snap.

Having obtained enough information, Su Zhou crushed his head with one foot, even easier than crushing a watermelon.

"There are so many scum in the end times."

To be honest, if they were just ordinary bandits, Su Zhou would still not let them go, but considering that they had frankly said all their purposes and the information they knew, he didn't mind giving them a quick death, after all, how could these bandits possibly harm him?

But who told these bandits to have robbed another group of people before, with the corpses of women and children who had been raped placed next to the camp?

Seeing such a scene, even though the victims were strangers who had nothing to do with him, Su Zhou felt very unhappy—these bandits made him unhappy, so he sent them each a miserable death.

"The Celestial God Imprint really brings me to the center of the conflict... I have only been here for less than ten minutes and was ambushed by such a group of bandits."

Looking around at the messy camp full of corpses, blood, and the smell of barbecue, Su Zhou sighed softly: "The world is about to be destroyed, such a chaotic world."

His thoughts couldn't help but return to the moment he first arrived in this world.

At that time, Su Zhou briefly observed the wind direction and the condition of the land, and then, just as he was preparing to sense the spiritual energy of this world, a group of strong men wearing armor, who didn't look like bandits but rather like some noble private soldiers, rushed over menacingly.

Without any communication, the strong men were preparing to take action themselves and snatch Su Zhou's package. Along the way, Su Zhou, a polyglot (thanks to the Wisdom Fruit), tried to communicate using various languages such as English, French, Russian, and German. He even spoke the dialect of the Inuit, but none of them worked.

Seeing that Su Zhou kept babbling, looking like he didn't understand the language and didn't seem willing to hand over his luggage, they directly pulled out their swords and prepared to speak with force.

In that instant, Su Zhou's eyes became sharp.

Communicate with force? Are you sure you want to choose this method? He made a final warning in Chinese: "Although I am meek and timid on Earth, afraid to use my full strength, I will strike hard in another world, be refined and gentle—"

"What is this person saying? We originally wanted to just rob his luggage and spare his life, now kill him!"

Obviously, no one in the other world could understand what Su Zhou was saying, and naturally no one would complain that Su Zhou was just a meek and timid nobody on Earth.

And the result of the communication was the corpses all over the ground. Unfortunately, most people didn't have time to speak, express their opinions, and died.

"This world is too chaotic, and is this the end of the world because of the awakening of the Silent Lord? The return of the Lord of the Underworld is causing the world to die and the dead to revive? But that's not right."

He pondered for a while, then shook his head, picked up a shovel from the side, and Su Zhou prepared to dig a pit first, to bury the innocent ordinary people who died miserably first, and then make other plans—for example, to continue the test of sensing the spiritual power of this world that had not yet been completed: "No, I don't have enough information to deduce now."

"The information these bandits know is still too little. I'll go to the city first to see what's going on in this damn place."