The era of the Star Kingdom, under Lin Feng's will and telekinesis, surged forward at a speed that surpassed all historical laws.

This was just one year after the launch of the "Shepherd Project".

The kingdom's territory has expanded outward from its original capital, Chengtian, for over five thousand kilometers, forming a colossal empire comprised of countless citadels, industrial zones, agricultural bases, and transportation networks.

Population, once the kingdom's biggest weakness, is no longer a problem.

Thanks to the tireless search and rescue efforts of the "Shepherd Dog" task force, over 900,000 survivors of Earth scattered across the wasteland have been brought back to the kingdom. The total population is now approaching 1.5 million.

Chengtian City has been expanded several times and is now a megacity with a permanent population of over 500,000.

Within the city, maglev trains silently shuttle through semi-transparent vacuum tubes, transporting citizens from one district to another in just a few minutes.

The towering skyscrapers, whose exterior walls themselves are giant holographic displays, continuously play the king's majestic figure, the kingdom's latest technological achievements, and recruitment propaganda videos meticulously produced by the Ministry of the Interior.

"Join the King's army, and your glory will shine as brightly as the stars!"

Accompanied by rousing music and the awe-inspiring footage of a cluster of "Xuanwu-II" main battle tanks firing, countless young people were filled with patriotic fervor, regarding joining the army as their ultimate ideal in life.

The living standards of the people have reached an unbelievable level.

With the support of advanced biotechnology, the kingdom achieved an abundance of food.

High-energy, high-nutrition, and flavorful foods are supplied to all citizens almost free of charge through community distribution centers.

Everyone had a rosy complexion and a robust physique, having completely bid farewell to hunger and malnutrition.

The healthcare system has achieved a miraculous leap forward.

With the joint efforts of Academician Chen Jingzhi's team and the "Ring of Truth", a nanomedical robot called "Holy Light" has been developed.

Every citizen of the kingdom is injected with a "Holy Light" robot upon reaching adulthood. These machines, smaller than cells, lie dormant within the body, monitoring health data in real time, automatically repairing damaged tissues, and eliminating cancerous cells.

Disease is becoming a thing of the past in this country.

A common fever or cold can be cured with just five minutes of light therapy at a community clinic.

Even severe injuries like amputation can be perfectly regenerated within 24 hours in a well-equipped central hospital using a "tissue regeneration chamber".

The kingdom's power is no longer limited to military and industrial sectors.

It has permeated the very bones and blood of every citizen, leaving them deeply imprinted with the mark of "citizens of the kingdom," both physiologically and psychologically.

However, the kingdom's prosperity and power only highlighted the backwardness and misery of other survivor settlements in the wasteland.

The gap between them is no longer a gap between eras, but a chasm between civilization and barbarism, a world apart from a divine kingdom and a quagmire.

More than 3,000 kilometers away from the capital of Chengtian, on a red Gobi desert, lies a survivor settlement called "Scrap Iron Town".

This is the site of a giant scrap metal recycling station before the "Great Relocation".

Countless steel, copper cables, and abandoned cars are piled up like mountains, forming endless metal hills.

The leader of the settlement was a burly man nicknamed "Iron Fist King." He was originally the security captain of the recycling station, but after the Great Migration, he quickly gathered a group of thugs with his brute strength and ruthlessness, becoming the undisputed local tyrant.

In the eyes of the Iron Fist King, there are only three useful things in the world: weapons, food, and women. And the most useless thing is a "bookworm."

Zhao Bowen belongs to the latter category.

Before the "Great Transfer," he was the chief AI scientist at a top technology company on Earth and a key figure in the "Sky Dome" large-scale model project. His annual salary was in the hundreds of millions.

Now, he is a ragged laborer who spends his days sorting usable metals from scrap heaps.

"Zhao Bowen! What the hell are you daydreaming about again!" A foreman wielding a steel pipe kicked Zhao Bowen in the backside: "If you don't meet today's quota, you can forget about dinner!"

Zhao Bowen stumbled and almost fell. He adjusted the cracked glasses on his nose, which were held in place by copper wire, silently picked up a heavy steel bar, and headed towards the sorting area.

Beside him were several companions who were just as down on their luck as he was.

One is his former colleague, Dr. Li, a top data scientist. He is now in charge of using a sledgehammer to break up concrete blocks and search for the reinforcing steel inside.

The other was Xiao Wang, a hardware architect. He was struggling to drag a piece of rusty rail.

"Old Zhao," Dr. Li said, panting, as he leaned closer and asked in a low voice, "Do you think... we'll ever have the chance to touch a computer again in our lifetime?"

Zhao Bowen's eyes dimmed for a moment, then a flame of unwillingness ignited again: "Yes. As long as we are alive, we will definitely have a chance."

"An opportunity?" The overseer heard their whispers and spat disdainfully. "You bunch of useless cowards who can't lift a finger? Let me tell you, in this Iron Scrap Town, my fists are the only law! Can your lousy knowledge feed you or stop the sand wolves of the Gobi Desert?"

The surrounding laborers burst into laughter.

Zhao Bowen clenched his fist, his nails digging deep into his palm.

He did try to resist.

When he first arrived, he tried to explain to Iron Fist King that the knowledge they possessed could help the town establish a more efficient order, that they could use discarded parts to assemble generators, and that they could even modify communication equipment to try to contact the outside world.

However, the Iron Fist King's response was a powerful punch.

"I don't need any generators!" Iron Fist King grinned ferociously, stepping on his face. "I just need you trash to work for me obediently, to earn a bite to eat with your sweat! If you dare to spread these lies again, I'll cut your tongue out and feed it to the dogs!"

From that day on, Zhao Bowen and his companions were completely reduced to the lowest level of slaves in this settlement.

Their wisdom and talent were worthless in this barbaric land. They even became a kind of original sin, a source of contempt and bullying.

They could only numbly while away their lives in long, desperate labor.

Until that day.

On that day, a cloud of dust rose from the horizon of the Gobi Desert, obscuring the sky.

"Enemy attack! It's a pack of sand wolves!" A terrified scream rang out from the watchtower in Scrap Iron Town.

Iron Fist King immediately led his more than 300 "guards" armed with rusty machetes and steel pipes and charged up the makeshift wall made of piled-up old cars.

However, when the smoke cleared, what appeared before them was not the mutated beast they had imagined.

It was a steel torrent consisting of twenty all-black, menacingly designed "Ripper" infantry fighting vehicles and more than fifty "Hunter" all-terrain assault vehicles.

Leading the way were three "Xuanwu-II" main battle tanks, which resembled moving mountains.

Their ten-meter-long cannons, with their muzzles flashing with eerie blue electricity, sent a chill down Iron Fist King's spine just by looking at them.

"What...what the hell is this?" Iron Fist King and his thugs were all terrified.

Their pride in their military might is as insignificant as a joke in the face of this army that seems to have stepped out of a science fiction movie.