On the land of Great Yan, countless cities had been reduced to ruins under the might of monsters.
The initial mindset of the populace, hiding in safe zones and viewing the apocalypse with a gamer's detachment on the first day, was long gone.
"Help! We're in Chuan Du. The safe zone was breached last night, and we lost so many people. Now the safe zone is filled with the groans of the struggling. I'm so scared!"
"I'm in Jinling! Can anyone come save us? We need rescue!! The area outside the safe zone is crawling with skeletons!! Those who went out to fight died!"
"Someone save me! I'm in Jiang Du! I have money! If you save me, I'll give you money and beautiful women!!"
"Don't count on rescue! Our troops came to reinforce the city, but they can't fight in the city! The overwhelming tide of skeletons and ghoul swarms drowned the soldiers!"
Due to the safe zone refresh at dawn, those who had luckily escaped death hid within the dilapidated safe zones, fearfully refreshing their phones, venting their inner panic and unease.
However, no one could respond to their pleas or cries.
Especially after some people uploaded videos of soldiers being overwhelmed by monsters, the atmosphere of despair grew even thicker.
Indeed, once monsters appeared within cities, modern firepower would be greatly restricted.
At least no one dared to order the indiscriminate use of large-scale destructive heavy weapons in areas where survivors still existed.
But the populace did not know that outside the cities, on the battlefields where troops directly faced monsters, there existed many terrifying monsters that even heavy weapons struggled to defeat.
Suddenly, a message uniformly flashed across all information platforms:
"Come to the Imperial Capital!! Anyone who wants to live, come to the Imperial Capital!! This game is the true apocalypse! The Imperial Capital is Great Yan's last line of defense!!"
All discussions were silenced. After the upper echelons forcibly took over communications, only this final voice remained on all platforms.
However, people from all over, gazing at the monsters lurking outside their safe zones, were left with only despair.
In this world surrounded by monsters, who had the ability to travel to the Imperial Capital?
...
In Donghai City, where communications had completely broken down, unlike the rest of Great Yan still experiencing the heat of summer, this place had transformed into a snowscape.
Countless skeletal figures emerged from various ruins of the city, mingling with giant monsters that occasionally stepped out from spatial rifts, advancing step by step towards the city center.
There, the former high-rise buildings were no more.
There was no sign of any safe zone's light. On the ground, countless skeletal footsteps left prints in the snow.
Beneath the earth, innumerable death larvae, with their roars, continuously spewed out black-gray miasma.
And looking further into the city center, amidst the wind and snow,
Beneath the endless wind and snow, a gray-white tower was continuously extending towards the sky.
Outside the tower, the lord-level Flesh Abominations that Chen Luo had previously killed stood guard as if they were ordinary soldiers.
And within the tower's vicinity, many auras far more terrifying than the Flesh Abominations, even completely surpassing them, surged continuously.
Countless vengeful souls wailed incessantly, the flesh and blood of living beings were constantly processed and remade here, the boundary between death and life blurred, and the power of undeath brewed.
At the apex of the ever-rising gray-white colossal tower, a pair of eyes, flickering with black flames, gazed down upon the earth below, thoughts flashing within its long-dead brain.
This weak land was merely a stop on its journey.
When the Death Empire completely embraced these lost humans, where would the great Apocalypse Game travel next?
...
In the wind and snow!
The clash of swords and bones continuously echoed!
Powerful human warriors, wielding resilient system weapons, roared as they engaged in fierce combat with the undead.
Thousands of professionals were scattered across the land enveloped in silvery-white light, the brilliance of their skills flashing.
Each person was encased in a layer of stone skin light constructed by spells, and the attacks of the skeletons were difficult to penetrate this protective layer for a short time.
The skeletons let out inhuman shrieks, and the ground suddenly heaved!
"Damn it! Jump away quickly! The worms are coming!"
"Run for what! We won't die! Watch me slide kick it!"
"Oh my god! Big Wei is sliding to feed the monster!"
The professionals, having reached level five, maintained a high degree of bravery under the "Legion Descent" status, but they also gradually gained more autonomy.
As it happened, facing the death larvae that suddenly erupted from the ground, a few fools, led by Zhang Wei, launched slide kicks at the death larvae and then gloriously died.
A few warriors who had managed to jump away in time were stunned.
"Holy crap! Isn't Big Wei a mage? Why is he so brave instead of casting fireballs from the back?"
"That idiot, after seeing the boss shock everyone with a punch earlier, insisted that he had achieved enlightenment."
"He said the end goal of a mage is melee combat, so him fighting monsters now means he's saved thirty years of detours."
"Good heavens, can the boss's mage be like him? Alas, I hope he sends a few more meals via slide kick, and then he'll understand the gap between people."
"But speaking of which, the boss's skills are amazing. I feel like it's just like playing a virtual game; pain and touch are weakened, and when you die, you immediately return to your original spot."
"Hmph, hmph, who do you think the boss is!"
"Pah! What are you so proud of! He's my boss too!"
Despite their banter, these warriors' actions were not slow at all.
The giant death larvae howled and attacked ferociously, but even fiercer were the warriors charging towards it with roars.
When a summoned being died, they would return to their original spot, dissolving into light along with all their items, so there was no need to worry about losing equipment.
After fighting for most of the day and eliminating countless undead monsters, every resident of Xinghuo Town had at least equipped themselves with a set of system-standard white gear.
The ferocious death larvae did not possess strong intelligence; it attacked everything within its sight instinctively.
However, its simple brain suddenly realized a strange problem: that fatty running towards me, I just ate him.
Through another time-space gate that opened, Zhang Wei, along with several other slide-kick warriors, roared and charged towards the monster again:
"You fool, I can revive! Take another slide kick from me!!!"
The Bronze Hand hovered in mid-air. Chen Luo leaned against it, watching the battle below gradually clarify, casually petting Xiaoyue's head:
"To be honest, if it weren't for Legion Descent not leaving corpses, I'm afraid these death larvae would have been stuffed to death by slide kicks."